Editor's note: Before joining the Asser Institute as an intern, Alexandru Tofan pursued an LLM in Transnational Law at King’s College London where he focused on international human rights law, transnational litigation and international law. He also worked simultaneously as a research assistant at the Transnational Law Institute in London on several projects pertaining to human rights, labour law and transnational corporate conduct.

The recent indictment of the French multinational company ‘Lafarge’ for complicity in crimes against humanity marks a historic step in the fight against the impunity of corporations.  It represents the first time that a company has been indicted on this ground and, importantly, the first time that a French parent company has been charged for the acts undertaken by one of its subsidiaries abroad.  Notably, the Lafarge case fuels an important debate on corporate criminal liability for human rights violations and may be a game changer in this respect.  This article analyses this case and seeks to provide a comprehensive account of its background and current procedural stage.

BACKGROUND

Lafarge is a French-based corporation that became one of the largest cement companies in the world after its merger with Swiss giant Holcim.  The corporate group now has activity in over 80 countries, employing tens of thousands.  Nevertheless, as it currently stands, eight of Lafarge’s former executives, including two CEOs, stand accused of criminal offences for their dealings in the company.  Importantly, on 28 June 2018 the corporate entity was charged with complicity in crimes against humanity and financing of a terrorist enterprise.  These indictments spring from the company’s infamous operations in Syria, which continued for a while during the civil war that tore apart the country. 

Lafarge began its operations in northern Syria in 2007 through the acquisition of a factory plant between the cities of Al-Raqqah and Manbij.  This plant became active in 2010 and was run by Lafarge Cement Syria – a subsidiary owned almost entirely by the French parent company.  The Syrian conflict erupted one year after the plant's opening and it unsurprisingly foreshadowed high security risks both for the factory and its employees. Expectedly, the rapid deterioration of the situation on the ground gradually forced the relocation of most multinationals and international bodies operating within Syria’s borders.  Lafarge Cement Syria did not relocate.  It solely repatriated its international staff, with the local Syrian employees being allowed to continue working in the factory.  As the plant became more and more immersed in Islamic State (IS) territory, the Syrian employees were obliged to cross dangerous checkpoints to access the factory.  Seemingly unconcerned with the risk to which it was exposing its employees, Lafarge threatened that failure to come to the plant would result in salary suspension and even redundancy.  This approach did not cease when the employees voiced concerns that they were facing high risks of death and kidnapping.  Nor did it cease when kidnappings actually started to occur.  Further, Lafarge did not put in place any evacuation plan.  Despite reassurances from the company that there would be evacuation buses, the employees had to fend for themselves when ISIS attacked and captured the plant.

THE CASE

On 21 June 2016, the French newspaper ‘Le Monde’ published an investigation in which it sketched out the connections and financial relationship between Lafarge and the Islamic State.  These accusations were met with a quick response by the French parliament, which concluded in a report from 13 July 2016 that no connection, whether direct or indirect, could be established between Lafarge and the financing of Daesh.[1] Nevertheless, in October 2016, the French Ministry of Finance filed a complaint against Lafarge claiming that it had breached the sanctions imposed by the EU against the regime of al-Assad and the ban on trading with terrorist organisations in Syria.  Following several additional complaints by former employees, a preliminary investigation was opened by the French authorities in October 2016.  As this preliminary investigation continued, the Swiss giant Holcim admitted in March 2017 that Lafarge had financed armed groups in Syria by recognising that ‘unacceptable practices had been employed to maintain the activity and security of its plant’.  This was subsequently corroborated by the former executive Director-General of Operations, Christian Herrault, who stated that the company had bowed to racketeering.

In June 2017, a judicial investigation was launched into the matter triggered by a joint complaint filed by French NGO Sherpa and the European Centre for Constitutional and Human Rights.  At first, this investigation disregarded the two counts of financing terrorism and crimes against humanity lodged against Lafarge as a legal person, and instead focused on the individuals involved.  In November 2017, the Parisian headquarters of Lafarge were raided by the customs police.  The minutes from that search described the atmosphere at the company’s headquarters as a ‘climate of permanent tension’ and a ‘situation of latent conflict’.  On 2 December 2017, the first indictments were released, targeting Frédéric Jolibois (the Director of the plant since the summer of 2014), Bruno Pescheux (his predecessor) and Jean-Claude Veillard (the Director of Security).  Three more indictments followed on 8 December 2017, targeting Bruno Lafont (the former CEO of Lafarge between 2007 and 2015), Christian Herrault (the former Director-General of Operations) and Éric Olsen (the Director of Human Resources at the time of the allegations). These indictments alleged that these individuals were suspected of financing terrorism and endangering other people’s lives. Another indictment followed in April 2018 regarding Sonia Artinian who was Lafarge’s Director of Human Resources between September 2013 and July 2018. She is accused of having endangered the lives of others and is given the status of assisted witness.

In an ordinance dated 18 April 2018, the judges in charge of the investigation returned to the accusations against Lafarge as a legal person, which were initially disregarded by the Parisian Prosecutor.  The judges concluded that the liability of Lafarge SA for financing terrorism and complicity in crimes against humanity deserved to be investigated.[2]  This marks a crucial development in the Lafarge affair.  In sum, the judges opened up, for the first time around the world, the possibility of holding a corporation criminally responsible for its alleged complicity in the commission of crimes against humanity.  Building on the momentum generated by this decision, Sherpa and the ECCHR filed a legal note in mid-May 2018 claiming that it is inevitable at this stage of the proceedings to indict Lafarge for complicity in crimes against humanity and financing terrorism. The two NGOs argued that the crimes committed by the Islamic State in north-eastern Syria between 2013 and 2015 amounted to crimes against humanity and that Lafarge became liable as an accomplice by neglectfully managing its employees’ security and by financing the IS. The complaint claimed that the corporation ought to be held responsible for crimes against humanity under Article 212-1 and Article 461-2 of the French Criminal Code (FCC), financing terrorist enterprises under Article 421-2-2 of the FCC, the deliberate endangerment of other people under Article 223-1 of the FCC,  exploitative and forced labour as well as undignified working conditions under Articles 225-13 and 225-14-2 of the FCC, and negligence under Article 121-3 of the FCC. 

Following these developments, the corporation was called for a hearing before the investigative judges on 5 June 2018, which was postponed on Lafarge’s request. Nonetheless, on 28 June 2018, nearly two years after Le Monde’s revelations, the French investigating judges indicted Lafarge. The historic indictment accuses Lafarge of complicity in crimes against humanity under Articles 212-1 and 461-2 of the FCC, the financing of a terrorist enterprise under Article 421-2-2 of the FCC, endangerment of other people’s lives under Article 223-1 of the FCC and the breach of an embargo (the latter stemming from the original investigation of the Ministry of Finance).  The rationale behind the judges’ decision to try Lafarge for crimes against humanity is grounded in the idea that the corporation could not have ignored the reality of the IS’ deeds and that it facilitated them in full awareness.  As such, Lafarge stands formally accused of having funnelled several million euros to the IS and other militant groups in order to maintain its operations in Syria by paying taxes and by buying raw materials from them. Notably, Lafarge is suspected of having sold cement directly to the IS. Marie-Laure Guislain, a lawyer with Sherpa, stated that if this direct sale is proven, it should be considered a supplementary act of complicity since Lafarge would in effect have facilitated the construction of roads, galleries, bunkers, and places for torture and the commission of other crimes. After the hearing on 28 June, Lafarge Holcim released a communiqué stating that it would appeal the charges, which ‘[...] do not fairly reflect the responsibility of Lafarge’. The company has now been placed under judicial supervision with a bond of €30 million and is awaiting trial. It is also noteworthy that the two NGOs requested that Lafarge open a compensation fund for all the former employees and their families.

LOOKING FORWARD

The indictment of Lafarge is a game changer in the discussion on corporate criminal liability for human rights violations. It marks the first time worldwide that a corporation is indicted for the financing of terrorist enterprises and for complicity in crimes against humanity. It is also the first time in France that a parent company is being held responsible for the actions undertaken by one of its subsidiaries abroad. Nevertheless, despite this unquestionable novelty, Lafarge’s indictment is by no means a totally unexpected development. Since there is currently no international criminal court with jurisdiction over legal persons, corporate criminal liability cannot be pursued at the international level. Rather, this process must necessarily begin at the national level through the practice of domestic courts and actors.  The US Supreme Court might have been right in stating in the Jesner et al. v Arab Bank, PLC case that the international community had not yet taken the step towards a universal, specific and obligatory standard of corporate liability for offences in violation of human rights protections. Yet the Lafarge case is clearly a first step in that direction. Its value lies in its potential to set an important precedent for all multinationals that engage in economic activity around armed conflicts and which are therefore at a high risk of contributing to human rights violations.

[1]           In French: “Selon Le Monde, le groupe Lafarge aurait ainsi payé à Daech diverses taxes en échange de la circulation de ses marchandises et de ses salariés et se serait approvisionné en matières premières [...] Les éléments auxquels le Rapporteur a pu avoir accès ne confirment en rien ces accusations. Rien ne permet d’établir que le groupe, ou ses entités locales, ont participé, directement ou indirectement, ni même de façon passive, au financement de Daech”. See here at page 90.

[2]          In French: Les deux associations, avec 11 anciens salariés, avaient été les premières à lancer une plainte pour «financement du terrorisme» contre Lafarge, qui a fusionné avec le Suisse Holcim en 2015, en visant aussi la «complicité de crimes contre l'humanité et de crimes de guerre».

Si le parquet de Paris avait écarté ces deux qualifications à l'ouverture de l'instruction en juin 2017, les juges estiment que ces faits ont «vocation à être instruits», selon une ordonnance du 18 avril dont a eu connaissance l'AFP.

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.

Background

The Modern Slavery Act is considered as part of a broader set of hard law instruments adopted in the face of the inability of soft law to prevent and punish corporate abuses.[4] This array of laws ranges from the California Transparency in the Supply Chain Act of 2010 (which has deeply influenced the UK Act),^[5] to the EU Non-Financial Reporting Directive of 2014, and the French ‘due diligence’ law of 2016.

However, there is a fundamental difference between the Modern Slavery Act and its American and French counterparts: it aims at tackling modern slavery and human trafficking in a broad sense, even when these crimes have been committed without any connection with corporations. For example, the Act covers offences against domestic workers, who work in the employer’s household and not in a company.[6] In fact, the Act has been adopted in the aftermath of the European Court of Human Rights ruling in C.N. v United Kingdom, where the Court found the UK lacking of an adequate legal framework to tackle violations of Art. 4 ECHR (prohibition on slavery). Thus, the Act implements relevant international and European instruments regarding modern slavery and human trafficking.^[7] 

Therefore, the primary aim of the Act is to establish criminal liability for natural persons committing such crimes. Indeed, the first version of the Bill did not contain any reference to modern slavery in the supply chain. It was only due to the strong criticism the draft attracted, especially in the light of the recent scandals some British corporations were involved in, that the British Parliament decided to introduce a provision addressing exploitative practices perpetrated by businesses (Section 54).[8] 

Therefore, one fundamental point is to be stressed: natural persons can be criminally liable under the Modern Slavery Act. Members of any entity, be it a criminal organisation or a company, may be found guilty of human trafficking and modern slavery.^[9] What Section 54 prescribe is a separate obligation, binding on corporations, to report whether the offences covered by the Act occur in any part of their business. Thus, only Section 54 has been regarded as an implementation of UNGPs.^[10]

The offences covered by the Act

Before diving into the analysis of the obligations set out in Section 54, it might be useful to look at what offences are covered by the provision. This analysis serves two purposes: it allows drawing some general considerations on the Act and it defines which criminal conducts have to be reported by corporations.[11]

Paragraph 12 of Section 54 recalls the offences defined in the first two sections of the Act (specified in Section 3 and 4), together with some similar provisions, contained in other pieces of legislations enacted in Scotland and Northern Ireland.[12] All in all, four crimes are listed: slavery, servitude, forced or compulsory labour, and human trafficking.

Notwithstanding the reference made by the Modern Slavery Act to Art. 4 ECHR, the constitutive elements of such crimes are the object of much debate in international legal scholarship, which lead to a proliferation of different definitions.[13] Therefore, ‘modern slavery’ is used as an all-encompassing concept, which includes ‘all activities involving someone obtaining or holding another person in compelled service’.^[14] As a result, the judiciary enjoys a great margin of discretion in defining the scope of application of the Act.

Furthermore, it is worth noting that the narrative surrounding modern slavery often revolves around human trafficking and sexual exploitation, and the UK Modern Slavery Act is no exception to it. This appears clearly both from the focus maintained during the negotiations of the Act and from the Modern Slavery Strategy adopted by the British Government in November 2014.[15] As a result, modern slavery is considered more an immigration and border control problem, rather than a question of labour standards and corporate conduct.[16] However, according to the International Labour Organisation, only 29% of people implicated in modern slavery actually crossed borders.

Thus, the broad scope of application of the Act, and the political orientation underlying it, pose the risk of narrowing down the focus of investigations on natural persons, disregarding enslavement practices which did not entail trafficking. This emphasis placed on migration-related exploitation could ultimately have a negative impact on the understanding businesses have of what constitutes modern slavery under the Act. Therefore, it is up to companies covered by Section 54 to report each and every exploitative practice occurring in their supply chain, regardless of their link with migration issues.

Section 54

Section 54 obliges any company with a minimum global turnover of £36m, which supplies goods or services in the United Kingdom, to produce a slavery and human trafficking statement for each financial year. The statement has to be approved by the board, signed by the director and published on the company’s website. Each element of this provision is in need of further clarification.

First of all, a slavery and human trafficking statement requires an analysis of the steps the corporation has adopted to prevent these crimes from occurring in its supply chain or in any part of its business. This would compel corporations to come clean about the possible presence of such exploitative practices in their supply chain. However, Section 54(4)(b) explicitly provides for the possibility to state that no such steps have been taken: there is no legal obligations for corporations covered by the Act to assure that their products and services are “slavery and trafficking – free”.

Moreover, there is no indication on how this Statement should be drafted. Ideally, it would include the elements listed in Paragraph 5 of the Section: the structure of a company and of its supply chain; slavery and human trafficking internal policies; due diligence processes adopted with regard to these crimes; risk assessment and risk management of exploitative practice along the supply chain; effectiveness of the measures taken; the training about slavery and human trafficking available to its staff. However, these components are introduced in the provision by the word “may”, leaving it totally up to corporations to decide whether to include such items in their own statement. In particular, there is no indication of what “supply chain” means: according to the guidelines issued by the Home Office, this expression has to be read in its “everyday meaning”.

Two considerations might be drawn from these first two points. Firstly, one can only notice the discrepancies between the obligation set out in Section 54, and the due diligence obligation enshrined in Principle 17 UNGPs. According to this provision, due diligence consists in “assessing actual and potential human rights impacts, integrating and acting upon the findings, tracking responses, and communicating how impacts are addressed”. Section 54 focuses only on the last element, leaving outside its scope measures related with modern slavery risk assessment and management, which are recalled in Paragraph 5 as a mere suggestion. In so doing, this norm falls very short of the previous attempt by the judiciary to establish a duty of care for parent companies vis-à-vis operations of their suppliers and subsidiaries.[17] Secondly, companies are left with a great margin of appreciation on what constitutes their supply chain, and whether they should disclose data regarding the far ends of their businesses (e.g. indirect suppliers, suppliers of minimal components of the finished good etc.).[18]

Regarding the personal scope of application, Section 54 applies to all enterprises which carry out their business or part of their business in the United Kingdom (54.12), whatever their State of incorporation. Overall, the Government estimates the provision applies to around 12000 entities. The underlying idea is to render the British market free from modern slavery. Even if many have welcomed this sort of extraterritorial reach of the provision, others have criticised its mildness.[19] In fact, the provision does not apply to foreign subsidiaries which, albeit fully-owned by British companies, do not do any business in the UK. In such way, a large segment of some companies’ operations might fall outside the scope of the provision. Moreover, the expression “to carry on a business” has been defined neither by the Act itself, nor by the Government, which stated that the wording is to be interpreted following a “common sense approach”: the extent to which companies operate in the UK market is irrelevant, as long as their corporate presence is “demonstrable”.[20]

Undoubtedly, the approval of the statement by the board and its signature by the director has the positive effect of placing the modern slavery issue at a prominent place in companies’ agendas. Moreover, the statement has to be published on a visible part of the company’s website, or be disclosed if requested, in case no website is available (54.7-8). The possibility to access the statements is of the utmost importance, especially if one considers the sanction regime prescribed by Section 54: the only possible remedy against a failure to comply with the reporting obligation is to start a civil proceeding aimed at obtaining an injunction to comply and a non-specified fine. Thus, the Act heavily relies on the scrutiny that consumers, partners, and investors could exercise on the statements. In order words, the rationale of the provision is that enterprises will not only comply, but also adopt a proactive stand against modern slavery, in order to avoid the reputational risk of being associated with such offences. Perhaps, failure to comply or publishing cursory statements could be an incentive for authorities to investigate the company. However, this would only be an indirect consequence of the Act.

How Section 54 is being applied in practice

The assessment of the statements published pursuant to Section 54 is hindered by the lack of a central public database collecting all of them. Thus, monitoring of publications has been left to civil society. The Business & Human Rights Resource Centre, in collaboration with other organisations, has created the UK Modern Slavery Act Registry. The Registry performs an essential function, namely it creates a level playing field for all corporations, since they are all exposed to the same public scrutiny. 

Two major reports have examined the statements released in 2016 (here and here). From their findings it is possible to appraise some positive trends. No company has declared that no steps have been taken; conversely, there is an increasing engagement in the issue, resulting in greater allocation of resources in tackling exploitative practices. However, numerous shortcomings have also been reported: many statements fail to meet minimum requirements set out in the provision (e.g. they are not signed or they are not visibly published on websites), and do not include the optional elements listed in Paragraph 5. Specifically, businesses omitted a complete account of the structure of their supply chain, making it impossible for the public to grasp how businesses are organised beyond the first tier of suppliers. Additionally, if the Act provides for very limited sanctions in case of non-compliance, no actual sanctions are prescribed in case of poor-quality disclosure. [21]

It is true that many companies had never performed this type of investigation before 2016. Thus, it is possible that the quality of statements will improve over time. To date, it is hard to assess the evolution between 2016 and 2017, since those organisations whose financial year ends between 29 October 2015 and 30 March 2016 were exonerated from publishing the 2015/2016 statement. In a 2017 report, Ergon found marginal progress in reporting techniques, although in most cases it remains unclear how investigations, risk assessment and management have been performed.

Concluding remarks

The UK Modern Slavery Act has been described as an “example of meta-regulation”,[22] or even of “reflexive law”,[23] a sort of hybridization between public and private governance. It establishes a minimal hard-law framework (i.e. the reporting obligation), and then leaves private entities free to decide how to implement it. Supposedly, an advantage of this approach is the higher knowledge corporations possess about their own supply chain, which could result in better strategies to tackle modern slavery.[24] At the same time, public intervention helps to create a level playing field among corporations, where everyone is subject to the same level of inspection. In this way, companies would be invited to be transparent, without the fear that disclosure would leave them alone into the public eye. Therefore, the idea is to create a virtuous cycle, were corporations would start a sort of race to the top to eradicate modern slavery.  

Unfortunately, not all that glitters is gold. In practice, the UK Modern Slavery Act seems to be a weak form of regulation, which is “fully dependent on private governance tools, standards, and enforcement mechanisms”, without any reference to international standards and no proper sanctions in case of non-compliance.^[25] It has been described as “little more than an endorsement of existing voluntary CSR reporting”.^[26] The freedom of enterprises in carrying out their reporting obligation is accompanied by the fear they will fulfil it in the way it suits them best, using the statement to promote  their virtuous practices and to hide the less-virtuous ones. The use of independent experts who would perform unannounced inspections remains a mere recommendation.^[27] Even more voluntary appears to be the performance of a full-blown due diligence appraisal as prescribed by Principle 17 of the UNGPs, which the Acts lists among the voluntary features of an already very weak reporting obligation.

In the awareness of the Act’s weaknesses, a new bill amending Section 54 was presented to the British House of Lords. This amendment would make the reporting requirements more stringent, and would also attach further consequences to non-compliance. However, the discussion is stalling, and, for now, victims of modern slavery practices seem to be left with an Act that glitters, but it is certainly not gold.

[1] M. Neglia, The UNGPs – Five Years On, in Netherlands Quarterly of Human Rights, Vol. 34/4, 2016, 294

[2] A general overview is available here

[3] M. Neglia, op. cit., 303

[4] R. E. Cîrlig, Business and Human Rights: from soft law to hard law?, in Juridical Tribune, Vol. 6, 2016, 229

[5] S. Wen, The Cogs and Wheels of Reflexive Law – Business Disclosure under the Modern Slavery Act, in Journal of Law and Society, vol. 43, 2016, 345

[6] J. Haynes, The Modern Slavery Act (2015): a Legislative Commentary, in Statute Law Review, vol. 37, 2016, 36

[7] Among others, it draws upon the Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punishing Trafficking (2000), ratified by the UK in 2006, the Council of Europe Anti-Trafficking Convention (2005), ratified by the UK in 2008, and the EU Anti-trafficking Directive 2011/36/EU, to which the UK has opted in. See J. Haynes, op. cit., 34 - 37

[8] S. Wen, op. cit., 341

[9] Some of these cases have already attracted much attention from the media. Among others, one should mention R v Mohammed Rafiq [2016] EWCA Crim 1368, Court of Appeal, and the Galdikas & Ors v DJ Houghton Catching Services Ltd & Ors [2016] EWHC 1376 (QB). In particular, the latter generated much clamour, since the products under scrutinywere then supplied to big companies, such as Tesco and McDonalds.

[10] J. Planitzer, Trafficking in Human Beings for the purpose of Labour Exploitation, in Netherlands Quarterly of Human Rights, vol. 34/4, 2016, 322

[11] S. Wen, op. cit., 332

[12] Human Trafficking and Exploitation (Criminal Justice and Support for Victims) Act (Northern Ireland) 2015 (c. 2 (N.I.)), Criminal Justice (Scotland) Act 2003 (asp 7), Criminal Justice and Licensing (Scotland) Act 2010

[13] See footnote 7. S. Gold et al., Modern Slavery challenges to supply chain management, in Supply Chain Management: an International Journal, 2015, 485; J. Haynes, op. cit., 39. For a comprehensive analysis see H. van der Wilt, Trafficking in Human Beings, Enslavement, Crimes against Humanity: Unravelling the concepts, in Chinese Journal of International Law, 2014, 297-334

[14] J. Haynes, op. cit., 35; S. Wen, op. cit., 331

[15] G. Craig, The UK’s Modern Slavery Legislation: An Early Assessment in Progress,  in Social Inclusion, vol. 5, 2017, 19-20; H. Lewis et al, Hyper-precarious lives: migrants, work and forced labour in the Global North, in Progress in Human Geography, vol. 39(5), 2015, 590

[16] J. Fudge, The dangerous appeal of the modern slavery paradigm, Open Democracy, 25 March 2015

[17] Chandler v Cape Plc [2012] EWCA Civ 525 (England, Court of Appeal, 25 April 2012). The effects of this judgement have been limited afterwards, in Thompson v The Renwick Group Plc [2014] EWCA Civ 635 (13 May 2014)

[18] S. Wen, op. cit., 353

[19] S. Wen, op. cit., 351

[20] Home Office, Transparency in the Supply Chain: a Practical Guide, 29 Oct 2015, 8

[21] S. Wen, op. cit., 355

[22] M. Neglia, The UNGPs – Five Years On, in Netherlands Quarterly of Human Rights, Vol. 34/4, 2016, 314

[23] See W. E. Scheuermann, Reflexive Law and the Challenges of Globalization, in The Journal of Political Philosophy, Vol. 9, 2011, 81-102

[24] S. Wen, op. cit., 346

[25] G. LeBaron, A. Ruehmkorf, Steering CSR Through Home State Regulation: A Comparison of the Impact of the UK Bribery Act and Modern Slavery Act on Global Supply Chain Governance, in Global Policy, 2017, 17

[26] G. LeBaron, A. Ruehmkorf, op. Cit., 20

[27] Home Office, Transparency in the Supply Chain: a Practical Guide, 29 Oct 2015, 33