The Global Fight against Forced Labor: The U.S. and the EU at the forefront
The European Union’s (EU) Forced Labor Regulation (FLR) entered into force in December 2014. This new legal measure will allow—when fully applicable in December 2027—the EU to prohibit products made with forced labor from being commercialized in the EU market. With the FLR, the EU now joins the United States which introduced such measures nearly a century ago with the Tariff Act of 1930 (as amended in 2015). Collaboration between the EU and the US—governments, firms and worker organizations alike—as well as their trade partners will be indispensable in the global effort to eradicate forced labor in national and global supply chains. How do the two compare? How should they interact?
In this GLI Policy Brief, Visiting Fellows Samira Rafaela and Kelly Fay Rodríguez examine the FLR in detail and compare it with similar forced labor legislation in the United States. They make recommendations to policymakers, companies and worker organizations for their effective implementation.
