ABSTRACT
The UK Modern Slavery Act 2015 (MSA) requires large businesses to disclose each year what actions they have taken to ensure there is no modern slavery in their business or supply chains. This is called the Transparency in Supply Chains provision (Section 54), which obliges commercial organizations to report on the efforts to assess the risks in their own supply chain and business practices, as well as prevent labour abuses from occurring, and remediating those that do. Section 54 of the MSA appears in the framework of international developments to address the human rights impact of corporate activity, articulating the corporate responsibility to respect, as defined in the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs). This chapter examines the MSA in this context, assessing the first year of reporting by companies and reflects further on the effectiveness of this and other current transparency initiatives to promote and protect human rights in global supply chains.
