This brief argues that as the FAR Council aims to bring the Federal Acquisition Regulation more in line with the administration’s priorities it must ensure that provisions like the human trafficking and forced child labor prohibitions remain in the FAR in order to protect law-abiding U.S. businesses from unfair competition, secure U.S. supply chains, and ensure U.S. taxpayer dollars are not funding egregious abuses around the world.

A new report has revealed that a third of companies that have supplied uniforms for UK public sector workers, including the armed forces and prison officers, have not reported on what they are doing to tackle slavery in their supply chains.

On 17 November 2017, the second Workshop of the International Learning Lab on Public Procurement and Human Rights took place in Geneva, Switzerland. Participants included representatives of NGOs, national human rights institutions, academics, public procurement practitioners, policy makers, and others.

In May 2017, ICAR and the Corporate Responsibility Coalition (CORE) made a submission to the Australian Parliament Joint Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade's inquiry into establishing a Modern Slavery Act in Australia. This submission was recently accepted and is now publicly available.

The UK Parliament’s Joint Committee on Human Rights is currently conducting an inquiry on human rights and business. In response to a call for written evidence, ICAR wrote a submission on the topic of human rights and public procurement of apparel in the U.K.

Today the International Learning Lab on Public Procurement and Human Rights, a project of organizations including ICAR, DIHR, and the Harrison Institute at Georgetown University, is pleased to announce the publication of its first report, entitled "Public Procurement and Human Rights: A Survey of Twenty Jurisdictions."

The International Corporate Accountability Roundtable (ICAR) and ten other civil society organizations sent a letter to President Obama and the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) today, calling for the administration to fully implement the Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act of 2006 (FFATA).

On March 24, 2016, ICAR and the Harrison Institute at Georgetown University Law Center hosted a webinar on supply chain transparency. The webinar provides case studies illustrating the need for federal contractors to disclose their supply chains.

During the first workshop held by the Learning Lab, speakers gave remarks about the importance of public procurement as a tool to ensure businesses respect human rights. They also made clear statements of support for the Learning Lab and its potential to increase the inclusion of human rights considerations in the public procurement process.

On 19 November the International Corporate Accountability Roundtable (ICAR), the Danish Institute for Human Rights (DIHR), the Harrison Institute at Georgetown University Law Center, and the Public Procurement Research Group at the University of Nottingham's School of Law will launch the first international workshop of the Learning Lab on Public Procurement and Human Rights. The workshop will take place in Geneva, Switzerland.

The Learning Lab is a network of government policy makers, government procurement agencies and procurement officers, NGOs, academics, national human rights institutions, regional and international organizations, and other relevant actors.

Together with Professor Robert Stumberg of the Harrison Institute at Georgetown University Law Center, ICAR has published a submission to the U.S. National Action Plan (NAP) on Responsible Business Conduct in order to provide guidance to the U.S. government on embedding human rights protections in federal procurement policy within the existing authority of the Executive Branch. 

This report seeks to provide a preliminary road map of ways in which the procurement process can be used to leverage the U.S. government’s immense purchasing power to push government suppliers to respect human rights. 

The International Corporate Accountability Roundtable launches the “Government Procurement Project.” Governments at the federal and state level are large purchasers of goods and services and can therefore exert a tremendous amount of leverage on corporate actors to comply with requirements to compete for these lucrative contracts.