Introduction

The question of how trade governance is – and should be – linked to labour standards has long been debated among academics, policymakers, and activists (Servais, 1989; McCrudden and Davies, 2000; Barry and Reddy, 2006). Especially the insertion of labour-related requirements into the relevant trade instruments as a means to improve workers’ rights in the global economy has been the subject of controversy (Alston, 1993; Bhagwati, 1995; Tsogas, 1999). While largely absent from the multilateral trading framework, such requirements have been included in numerous bilateral and regional trade agreements (ILO, 2013, 2016, 2019a; Corley-Coulibaly et al., 2023b) as well as unilateral trade instruments, such as trade preference schemes and import ban legislation (Tsogas, 2000; Addo, 2015; Velluti, 2020). Forced labour, a form of modern slavery, has been a key issue addressed by these instruments (Compa, 1993; Ehrenberg, 1995; Plouffe-Malette and Bisson, 2019) and, until recently, together with prison labour the only labour-related subject matter for which dedicated import ban legislation has been enacted (Bade, 2000; Fanou, 2023; Lopez and Alghazali, 2023).

This raises the question of which implications such forced labour-related clauses in trade instruments entail for addressing forced labour issues in contexts related to global value chains (GVCs). With trade in GVCs constituting 70 per cent of overall trade in 2020 (OECD, 2020), the regulation of trade can have important implications for GVC governance (Corley-Coulibaly et al., 2023). Trade instruments typically involve policy levers, including economic incentives and disincentives, that can impact actors involved in GVC governance, such as states, companies, and civil society actors (Aissi et al., 2018). However, little is known about the extent to which, and the conditions under which, they have contributed to tackling forced labour in GVCs in an effective manner, that is, in a way that tackles the underlying causes of forced labour and has enduring impact.