Overview
Export Compliance Daily quoted Alexandra Melia in a March 8 article titled "UK Businesses Step Up Supply Chain Due Diligence Due to Impending Xinjiang Restrictions." The article discusses a package of measures meant to flush out ties between UK businesses and forced labor practices in China's Xinjiang region, and how compliance efforts have ramped up to ensure that supply chains are free of any association with the practice imposed on the region's Uighur Muslim population.
Melia says that aside from the business guidance, none of the announced policies has yet taken effect in English law, yet some UK companies have begun serious evaluations of their supply chains.
"There is an increased focus on this, and in part, that reflects more generally an increased focus on business and human rights issues and making sure they're taken into consideration both by organizations for their own part but also making sure they're not inadvertently engaging in supply chains that are problematic," Melia says. "It's fair to say that for the last six months to a year, there's been an increased focus on these issues."
The full article can be read at Export Compliance Daily (subscription required).
