Editor's note: Sara Martinetto is a research intern at the T.M.C. Asser Institute. She has recently completed her LLM in Public International Law at the University of Amsterdam. She holds interests in Migration Law, Criminal Law, Human Rights and European Law, with a special focus on their transnational dimension.
In my previous
blog, I
explained how the negotiations on a prospective Treaty on Business and Human
Rights are going hand-in-hand with the implementation of the United
Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights
(UNGPs). The Principles – developed by Professor John Ruggie, and approved by
the UN Human Rights Council in 2011 – have attracted widespread consensus among
both States and corporations.[1] Nowadays, the UNGPs are regarded as crucial to
hold corporations accountable for human rights abuses connected to their
activities. However, the UNGPs are not binding, and they need to be operationalized
in national law, as reaffirmed in Human Right Council Resolution
26/22. To date, National Action Plans[2]
appear as the preferred tool to transpose the Principles into national law. Nevertheless,
their provisions are often of a descriptive nature, resembling more a
declaration of intent rather than an effective implementation of the UNGPs.[3]
Only recently, some States have actually adopted hard law instruments on Business
and Human Rights, and the UK
Modern Slavery Act (2015) is one of them. The Act, aimed at
tackling modern slavery and human trafficking, was sponsored by Theresa May and
Lord Bates in 2014 and came into force on 29 October 2015.
Almost
two years from the entry into force of the Act, this post aims at giving a
brief account of what the Modern Slavery Act is and how it has been applied so
far. The main focus will be on Section
54 of the Act (‘Transparency
in the supply chain’), which prescribes a reporting obligation for
corporations. More...