Modern Slavery Legislation: Drafting History and Comparisons between Australia, UK and the USA

This book will aid understanding and interpretation of the Californian, UK and Australian Modern Slavery Acts, and will provide an in-depth three-way comparative analysis between the three Acts.

Modern slavery is a new legal compliance issue, with new legislation enacted in California (Transparency in Supply Chains Act, 2010), the UK (Modern Slavery Act, 2015) and most recently, Australia (Modern Slavery Act, 2018). Such legislation mandates that business of a certain size annually disclose the steps that they are taking to ensure that modern slavery is not occurring in their own operations and supply chains. The legislation applies to businesses wherever incorporated or formed. Key aspects of primary focus will include lessons learned from the California, UK and Australian experience and central arguments on contentious issues, for example: monetary threshold for determining reporting entities, penalties for non-compliance, compliance lists and appointment of an Anti-Slavery Commissioner. The book will also discuss how contentious issues were ultimately resolved and will undertake a comparative analysis of the Californian, UK and Australian Acts.

Modern Slavery Legislation will be of interest to academics and students of business and human rights law.

Sunil Rao is an international human rights law expert, academic and legal practitioner in the emerging area of regulatory compliance of business supply chains and modern slavery. He is currently Special Counsel at Baker McKenzie and Lecturer at the Law School, La Trobe University. Sunil has previously held the positions of Consultant to UNICEF, Visiting Fellow at the British Institute of International and Comparative Law and Visiting Scholar at the Lauterpacht Centre for International Law, Cambridge University.