In recent years, a growing number of countries has been passing or considering legislation to ban the import, sale, or export of goods made with forced labour. Navigating these bans and their specificities is no easy task, even for business school students. In an effort to bridge this gap and raise awareness on this topic, HEC Paris and the 8.7 Accelerator Lab of the International Labour Organization (ILO) joined forces for a two-day course attended by 45 graduate students.
Student “challenges” are a special type of class, scheduled before the official beginning of each fall semester. Each year, incoming and returning second year students register in one of the 20-proposed challenges with the objectives of meeting fellow classmates, quick-starting the academic year, and learning about sustainability-related issues.
Since 2022, HEC Paris lecturer in Business and Human Rights Charles Autheman has been inviting the ILO’s technical officers to help organize a challenge on the nexus between business and labour rights. Following activities on the fishing industry (2022) and the fair recruitment of migrant workers (2023), this year’s edition was devoted to forced labour bans, a special type of trade instruments used to target goods of economic actors engaging, directly or through their upstream supply chain, in the forced labour of workers.
Over two-days and nearly fifteen hours of class, students benefited from a comprehensive overview of such bans, learning about recent research, listening to policymakers working to craft such instruments, and engaging in small groups on practical simulations. A general introduction on forced labour estimates and indicators revealed the relevance of the exercise, for students having little or no prior knowledge on forced labour definitions and trends.
Building on the introduction, Franz Christian Ebert from ILO’s Research Department took the floor to share insights on the work he is conducting with his colleagues. Despite being relative novices in this field, students proved to be very engaging, asking questions on legal technicalities, business implications, and distinctions between the different types of bans which exist.
They gradually became literate, learning to differentiate between relevant provisions in the US Tariff and Uyghur Forced Labour Prevention Acts, as well as forced labour bans in Canadian and Mexican customs laws resulting from the USMCA forced labour clause. Companies and types of products covered, de minimis rules, or burden of proof, all aspects of the bans were scrutinized, helping students understand the practical implications of what could appear to be technical details. Case studies on the Malaysian rubber glove industry and the Indian garment sector led to additional reflections on the externalities of bans and the unintended consequences they may generate.
Understanding existing legislations proved helpful to unpack upcoming regulations, as the conversation moved from North American bans to the draft EU ban on goods made with forced labour. Jorge Felix Cardoso, adviser at the European Parliament (S&D) joined in remotely to share his experience as a political staffer for one of the lead rapporteurs of the regulation. During his exposé, he guided participants through the complex process of establishing a market ban within the common market of 27 different countries.
The second day placed students in the driving seat, tasked to resolve, in teams of four to eight, one of seven different cases. These simulations had been designed to cover a broad spectrum of situations and explore some of the complex policy, business, or legal implications of bans. They included questions such as: How should Australian lawmakers respond to calls from civil society asking for the banning of goods made with forced labour? What strategy should the sustainability department of a large electronics manufacturer struck with a withhold release order present to the board of directors? How could financial investors on the CAC40, DAX40 and FTSE100 build a sustainable finance instrument picking stocks least exposed to forced labour bans?
After half a day of intense collaboration, students were ready to present their work in front of their classmates. Three guests had also joined to participate in a fictitious jury and question each groups after their presentation: Anousheh Karvar, the French Government representative to the ILO, the G7, and the G20, and a former chair for the global alliance to eliminate child labour and forced labour; Eline Bardeau, the human rights officer of the French chapter of the UN Global Compact; and Isaline Rohmer, a member of HEC Paris Sustainability and Organizations Institute.
All seven presentations were quite impressive considering the technical dimension of the topic and the fact that most students had only become familiar with the issue the previous day. With the increasing spread of legislations banning products with forced labour, there is no doubt that some of the students will have to face these issues in their professional careers. It is hoped that they will be able to build on the skills and knowledge acquired during this challenge to contribute to the promotion of decent work more broadly.