The Independent Anti-Slavery Commissioner adds to growing calls for stronger human rights-related obligations on corporate entities, proposing legislation addressing serious human rights harms, a forced labour import ban, and mandatory human rights reporting.

The UK Independent Anti-Slavery Commissioner (IASC), whose office was created pursuant to the Modern Slavery Act 2015 (MSA), published her latest report, Strengthening the UK’s Forced Labour and Human Rights Legislative Framework (the Report) in December 2025. The Report highlights inadequacies of the current legislative framework for tackling modern slavery (including forced labour and human trafficking) and proposes a new, broader approach. The Report includes a draft “Forced Labour and Human Rights Bill” (the Model Bill) which envisages a shift from the current disclosure-based approach to a comprehensive framework for corporate liability for serious human rights harms and stemming market access for goods made with forced labour.  

The IASC's proposal is the latest in a series of calls for more effective legal measures to require businesses to address human rights risks through various mechanisms, including mandatory human rights due diligence (mHRDD). The Government's approach to any legislative reform of the MSA including the introduction of mHRDD has been muted – preferring to support voluntary approaches. It remains to be seen whether extensive reform of the nature proposed by the IASC is likely to gain traction.

In this post, we outline the findings of the Report, the IASC's recommendations for change, previous proposals for reform and the Government's current stance on strengthening corporate obligations in respect of human rights.

The IASC's case for reform

The IASC notes that currently there is no overarching regulatory framework in the UK which tackles forced labour holistically. Rather, there is a fragmentary approach, encompassing several pieces of legislation (i.e. the MSA, the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002, the Health & Care Act 2022, the Procurement Act 2023, the NHS Regulations 2024 and the Great British Energy Act 2025) which approach the issues of modern slavery in different ways. This creates "confusion and complexity" for Government and business.   

Section 54 of the MSA provides for "transparency in supply chains" by requiring defined commercial organisations to report on steps taken by them to address "modern slavery" in their operations and supply chains. The MSA uses the term 'modern slavery' to encapsulate UK slavery and human trafficking offences listed in the MSA. Though considered world-leading when first enacted in 2015, the IASC – reflecting a widely held view – concludes that it no longer goes far enough. It is possible for a commercial organisation to comply with section 54 without taking meaningful action to combat modern slavery and there are no serious penalties for non-compliance. Although commercial organisations may choose to disclose due diligence they undertake to identify and address modern slavery risk, this is not mandated.

The Report examines how the UK’s approach is falling behind legislative developments in other countries. Some of these developments focus on forced labour and use regulatory tools such as forced labour-focused import controls (e.g. s.307 of the US Tariff Act and the US Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act and the EU Forced Labour Regulation).  Others impose wider obligations on businesses and seek to address human rights more broadly, incorporating mHRDD as well as reporting. These include laws already in force in the Netherlands, Norway, the US, France and Germany as well as the EU, through the Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CSDDD) with other legislative bills being considered in Brazil, South Korea and Thailand.  The IASC anticipates that as legislation tightens in other jurisdictions, there is a risk of the UK becoming a "dumping ground" for goods that are refused by other countries, if the UK's legislative framework is not bolstered. 

The IASC recommends that the Government should adopt strong and coherent legislation, broadening its focus to address human rights in line with the approach taken by international partners, to protect businesses and promote economic growth. The Model Bill, developed in collaboration with Unseen and Omnia Strategy, is presented as a "ready-made blueprint for effective, practical reform". The three key components are summarised below.

1. Corporate liability for serious human rights harms

The Model Bill proposes that where a "serious human rights harm" occurs, in-scope entities (including companies, financial institutions and public bodies in their commercial activities) have a responsibility for harms with which they "involved", and, as a result, may be liable for those harms. 

The scope of the responsibility envisaged is widely cast. A responsibility may arise in respect of any "human rights harm", meaning an adverse impact that removes or reduces the ability of a natural person to enjoy the rights provided for in 21 treaties ratified by the UK. These are listed in a schedule to the Model Bill. The only limiting factor is that such harms must be "serious", defined by reference to the factors for determining severity in the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights.  Further, the concept of 'involvement' refers to situations where in-scope entities have caused or contributed to a serious human rights harm, or where that harm is directly linked to their operations, products or services by their business relationships.  This could potentially have a very broad application based on the drafting of the Model Bill, including being linked to harms by both direct and indirect business partners.

The Model Bill proposes that there are situations where the responsibility should not arise. If an in-scope entity can prove that it undertook "reasonable due diligence" to prevent the serious human rights harm from occurring, then there is no responsibility. This approach is inspired by the 'failure to prevent' model in the Bribery Act 2010 and the Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act 2023.  As defined, "reasonable due diligence" comprises taking one or more of eight steps to prevent the harm occurring which broadly track the components of human rights due diligence in the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises on Responsible Business Conduct. The incentive to carry out due diligence is underscored by the concurrent requirement to publish a human rights statement, discussed at 3 below. 

Where a responsibility does arise, the Model Bill envisages extensive consequences. Under the Model Bill:

1. Victims (those who claim to have been adversely affected by a serious human rights harm) or their representatives, which include the Office for Responsible Business Conduct (ORBC) could bring civil claims against an entity alleged to be responsible for that harm, subject to certain admissibility thresholds.
2. The Model Bill envisages corporate criminal liability in respect of certain offences under UK law which are listed in the Model Bill and encompass egregious offences such as murder, primary offences under the MSA, corporate manslaughter, criminal damage, assault and offences under the International Criminal Court Act 2021. It also contemplates potential personal exposure for senior officers of in-scope entities where an offence is committed with their consent or connivance, reflecting an approach used in other areas of UK corporate criminal law to ensure accountability does not stop at the corporate entity. Corporate penalties would include fines and disqualification of directors where relevant circumstances apply. It is worth noting that, even if the Model Bill does not progress, provisions in the Crime and Policing Bill, which is already before Parliament, could increase the risk of corporate organisations incurring criminal liability for offences involving alleged serious human rights harms committed by "senior managers". Under this draft legislation, if a "senior manager" were to commit an offence under the MSA (or any other criminal offence) acting within the actual or apparent scope of their authority in the course of designing or implementing supply chain arrangements, then the corporate organisation as well as the individual "senior manager" would commit that offence. For these purposes, "senior manager" is defined as an individual who plays a significant role in making decisions about how the whole or a substantial part of a corporate organisation's activities should be managed or organised, or who has actual or apparent authority for managing or organising the whole or a substantial part of those activities.
3. The recently created ORBC would have wide powers to impose financial penalties (up to 5% of global turnover) and other enforcement measures such as notices for censure, compliance, compensation, costs and restoration notices, and exclusion from public procurement processes – a significant expansion on its current mandate.

In practice, providing for stringent liability and enforcement consequences for a statutory-based corporate responsibility would create a strong imperative for in-scope entities to implement

2. A UK forced labour import (and sale) ban

The Model Bill also proposes a ban on the import, export and sale of products made with forced labour (Forced Labour Products), as well as products "similar to, and intermingled with" Forced Labour Products which include those products made with, or transported with, forced labour.

Under the Model Bill, certain products would be presumed to be Forced Labour Products and would be designated as such by reference to product type, industry, country/region, or people involved in extracting, harvesting, producing, manufacturing or transporting the product. This presumption could be rebutted by importers. The ban would be supported by investigatory and enforcement powers and significant financial penalties for breaches.

For businesses, the practical significance is that import controls, especially those incorporating rebuttable presumptions, tend to drive more granular traceability and evidence requirements than reporting regimes and can have immediate operational impact (including delayed goods, seizure risks, supply disruption, and consequential contractual disputes).

3. Annual “Human Rights Statement”

The Model Bill also proposes that section 54 of the MSA is replaced with an annual Human Rights Statement requirement, applicable to the same entities currently required to report under the MSA. It would require entities to specify the serious human rights harms which they are responsible for, and if they consider that they have no responsibility for harms, to explain why that conclusion has been drawn. Also, in-scope entities would be required to disclose a plan of measures taken to avoid such harms. The filing of statements on a Government-run registry would become mandatory (currently voluntary) and would be backed by sanctions (including turnover-linked penalties).

Support for legislative reform 

The IASC's proposal is the latest in a series of calls on the Government to better tackle corporate accountability for the management of adverse human rights impacts through legislation. For example:

• The Joint Committee on Human Rights (JCHR) issued a report in 2017 on business and human rights recommended a “failure to prevent” offence modelled on the Bribery Act 2010. 
• The Law Commission published an options paper in 2022 setting out suggested reforms to corporate criminal liability in England and Wales, and supporting the introduction of a “failure to prevent” offence in respect of human rights abuses. 
• The Commercial Organisations and Public Authorities (Human Rights and Environment) Duty Bill was a private members' bill which proposed a broader duty to prevent human rights and environmental harms and envisaged both mHRDD and mandatory environmental due diligence, enforcement and liability. 
• A Lords Select Committee appointed to consider the MSA issued a report in October 2024 recommending that the Government should introduce legislation requiring in-scope companies to undertake modern slavery due diligence in their supply chains and "to take reasonable steps to address problems".
• In January 2025, the Trade Union Congress called for new UK mandatory human and labour rights and environmental due diligence legislation to increase corporate legal accountability in domestic and global value chains.
• The JCHR made further recommendations in its sixth report on forced labour in supply chains in July 2025 that the Government introduce legislation within a year to: (i) establish mHRDD, (ii) create a civil cause of action for failure to prevent forced labour, and (iii) introduce an import ban.

These initiatives consistently included proposed mechanisms that would render corporate due diligence on human rights issues mandatory, albeit there is no overriding consensus on the precise format and scope such mHRDD would take on issues such as whether an obligation should apply across supply chains or more broadly to value chains, and whether there should also be a concurrent obligation to carry out environmental due diligence.

In addition, the IASC highlights in the Report that there is corporate support for increased legislation, partly due to a desire for greater alignment and reduced regulatory burden. These considerations are presumably particularly relevant for large businesses with a global operational footprint which may already be subject to one or more of the existing UK legislative mechanisms described above, and may also be readying themselves for the mHRDD obligations under the EU's CSDDD and/or scrutiny of their imports under the EU Forced Labour Ban Regulation.

Government response

To date, the Government has not expressly indicated support for mHRDD legislation or for the other measures proposed by the IASC.  Successive governments have preferred to promote the expectation that businesses carry out HRDD on a voluntary basis.  In its December 2024 response to the Lords' Select Committee report, the Government noted that import controls and/or mHRDD measures were to be kept under review (see further here) and the National Trade Strategy published in 2025 confirmed this approach.

The Government’s latest response in October 2025 to the JCHR's recommendations from July 2025 also did not commit to immediate legislative action. Instead, the Government confirmed that such measures would be considered as part of the Department for Business and Trade’s Responsible Business Conduct (RBC) review due in early 2026 (with related developments also anticipated through policy work such as the Critical Minerals Strategy). Further clarity from the Government is keenly awaited.