Harnessing UK trade and investment to address Indo-Pacific modern slavery risks

英国在印太地区的贸易和投资安排能否帮助减少现代奴役风险？考虑到印度太平洋地区是现代人口比例最高的地区，英国企业和投资者在与该地区进行贸易和投资时，如何避免遭受现代奴役？我们的项目旨在找到这些问题的答案，并利用它们来帮助英国和印度-太平洋地区正在制定新的贸易和投资安排的政策参与者。要做到这一点，我们需要了解外贸和投资何时会增加强迫劳动和现代奴役的风险，以及何时以及如何利用外贸和投资安排来减少这些风险。我们需要考虑哪些法律和政策安排——比如禁止使用强迫劳动生产的货物进行贸易、贸易协议中的劳动条款或投资者仲裁机制——可以保护民众和企业免受现代奴役风险的影响，以及哪些法律和政策安排增加了现代奴役风险的可能性。我们还需要考虑幸存者、弱势群体和其他受现代奴隶制影响的人在制定防止现代奴隶制的贸易和投资安排方面发挥什么作用。我们将通过四个不同领域的工作来实现这一目标。首先，我们将于2022年10月在线组织为期两天的关于这些问题的首次重大全球会议。这将把研究人员、政府从业人员、企业和公民社会聚集在一起，分享新的学术成果，发展新的政策思维。我们将包括来自受影响社区的代表，包括现代奴隶制的幸存者和受影响的印太社区。本次会议将为未来的知识交流和政策研究合作奠定基础，通过一个由学者和实践者组成的网络，他们将在项目完成后继续研究这些问题。其次，我们将建立新的数据集，帮助我们了解不同的贸易和投资安排如何影响印度-太平洋地区的现代奴隶制风险和结果。其中一个数据集将包括印度-太平洋地区的国际贸易和投资协议，记录这些协议如何处理与现代奴隶制相关的问题。另一个数据集将重点关注印度-太平洋地区国家与贸易和投资有关的国内法律和政策。第三，我们将更新和开发一个数据集，记录政府和公司对中国新疆省大规模强迫劳动指控的回应。我们将使用这些数据集对我们之前提出的问题进行原始研究。三是开展中国、印度、马来西亚、泰国四个深度案例研究。项目研究小组将与我们的项目合作伙伴反奴隶制国际组织和马来西亚诺丁汉大学合作，研究在制定和实施贸易和投资安排时如何解决与现代奴隶制风险有关的问题。这将包括与这些国家的利益攸关方（包括易受现代奴隶制影响的人群）进行直接、谨慎和安全的接触，以了解这些问题是如何被感知和管理的。第四，我们将利用之前工作中收集到的数据和证据，得出政策结论和建议。我们将与反奴隶制国际组织和现代奴隶制政策与证据中心密切合作，与英国、印度-太平洋地区以及联合国和世界经济论坛等相关国际论坛的政策制定者、商界领袖、民间社会和研究人员分享这些政策发现。

Can the UK's trade and investment arrangements in the Indo-Pacific help reduce modern slavery risks? Given the Indo-Pacific is the region with the highest rates of modern, how can UK businesses and investors avoid exposure to modern slavery when they trade with and invest in the region? 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. We will do this through four different areas of work. First, we will organize the first major global conference on these issues, online over 2 days in October 2022. This will bring together researchers, government practitioners, business and civil society to share new scholarship and develop new policy thinking. We will include representatives from affected communities, including survivors of modern slavery and affected Indo-Pacific communities. This conference will lay the groundwork for future exchange of knowledge and policy research collaborations, through a network of scholars and practitioners who will keep working on these issues after the project is complete. Second, we will build new data sets to help us understand how different trade and investment arrangements shape modern slavery risks and outcomes in the Indo-Pacific. One dataset will include international trade and investment agreements from across the Indo-Pacific, recording how those agreements handle modern slavery related issues. Another dataset will focus on the domestic laws and policies relating to trade and investment of countries in the Indo-Pacific. And third, we will update and develop a dataset recording government and company responses to allegations of large-scale forced labour in China's Xinjiang province. We will use each of these datasets to conduct original research into the questions we posed earlier. Third, we will conduct four in-depth case studies on China, India, Malaysia and Thailand. Working with our project partners Anti-Slavery International and the University of Nottingham Malaysia, the project research team will study how issues relating to modern slavery risks have been addressed when trade and investment arrangements have been developed and implemented. This will include direct, careful and safe engagement with stakeholders from each of these countries, including people vulnerable to modern slavery, to understand how these issues have been perceived and managed.Fourth, we will use the data and evidence developed in the previous work to produce policy findings and recommendations. Working closely with Anti-Slavery International and the Modern Slavery Policy and Evidence Centre, we will share these policy findings with policymakers, business leaders, civil society and researchers in the UK, in the Indo-Pacific, and in relevant international forums such as the United Nations and World Economic Forum.