A court recently found that UK authorities did not fetter their discretion by not investigating general cotton imports potentially produced by the forced labour of Uyghur people in China.
By Stuart Alford KC, Clare Nida, Nathan Seltzer, Paul Davies, Michael Green, James Bee, and Esha Marwaha
On 20 January 2023, the High Court ruled against human rights campaigners who argued that UK authorities were improperly allowing the import of cotton textiles made in Xinjiang, a region of China associated with alleged human rights abuses against the Uyghur people. Approximately 85% of Chinese cotton is grown in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR), with the “vast majority” of cotton alleged to have been produced in facilities under conditions of “detention and prison labour”.[1]
On 14 September 2022, the European Commission (the Commission) introduced a proposed Regulation (the Proposal) which seeks to ban products made using forced labour from being produced in or imported into the EU. The Proposal is the latest example of the increasing amount of legislative requirements being developed in relation to ESG considerations in companies’ supply chains, particularly concerning human rights issues.
On 23 February 2022, the European Commission (the Commission) published a proposal for a Directive on Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence (the Directive). If approved, the Directive would require large companies based in the EU (and certain large companies based outside of (but operating in) the EU) to conduct due diligence on a number of ESG-related issues throughout their supply chain, with failure to do so leading to possible fines or civil liability.