Harnessing UK Trade and Investment to Address Indo-Pacific Modern Slavery

Rights Lab project lead: Timothy Masiko
Funder: AHRC/MSPEC
Duration: June 2022 - June 2023
Programme: Law and Policy

Our project seeks to develop answers to these questions, and use them to help the policy actors in the UK and the Indo-Pacific that are developing new trade and investment arrangements.To do this, we need to understand when foreign trade and investment increases the risks of forced labour and modern slavery, and when and how foreign trade and investment arrangements can be used to reduce those risks. We need to consider which legal and policy arrangements - such as bans on trade in goods made with forced labour, labor clauses in trade deals, or investor arbitration mechanisms - protect people and businesses against modern slavery risks, and which make it more likely. And we need to consider what role survivors, vulnerable populations and other people affected by modern slavery play in shaping trade and investment arrangements to prevent modern slavery.