April 24 marked nine years since the collapse of the Rana Plaza building in Dhaka, Bangladesh. Just the day before, dangerous structural cracks were discovered in the building and although the stores in the lower floors of the building closed immediately, the garment factories forced their workers to return to work the next day. That day the building collapsed, killing at least 1,132 people and injuring more than 2,500.

The International Corporate Accountability Roundtable (ICAR) applauds Senators Richard Durban and Sherrod Brown for introducing the Alien Tort Statute Clarification Act (ATSCA). If passed, the bill would clarify that the ATS applies to any defendants with personal jurisdiction in the United States, regardless of where the activity in question took place.

Over the next several months, ICAR will facilitate the development of a Corporate Accountability Agenda that will aim to detail the business and human rights movement’s legislative goals and serve as a guidepost for community advocacy.

To support enforcement of Section 307 of the Tariff Act and the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA), ICAR urges the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the Forced Labor Enforcement Task Force (FLETF) to require companies that import goods into the United States to accurately trace their supply chains for those goods and report comprehensive supply chain information to Customs and Border Protection (CBP) as a condition of entry.

In October 2021, Reuters reported that U.S. remote control maker Universal Electronics Inc (UEI), took part in an agreement with Xinjiang authorities for the transport of Uyghurs to work in their plant in southern China. While many global corporations, including American companies and many others which trade on the United States stock exchange, are reportedly linked Uyghur forced labor through their supply chains, this is the first confirmed instance of an American corporation directly employing and transporting Uyghur forced laborers in China from Xinjiang.

A new report by the International Corporate Accountability Roundtable (ICAR) and Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) finds that leveraging existing conservation tools to combat illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing increases the U.S. government’s ability to stop goods produced by forced labor from entering our ports.

On January 7, Assemblywoman Dr. Anna R. Kelles and State Senator Alessandra Biaggi introduced the Fashion Sustainability and Social Accountability Act (A8352/S7428) into the New York State legislature. Although the bill, termed the New York Fashion Law, rightly aims to improve transparency surrounding human rights practices in the fashion industry, it falls short of driving real accountability.

As part of ICAR’s Capitol, Inc. Campaign, four new augmented reality art pieces will be unveiled today on iconic Washington landmarks including the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool and the Smithsonian National Museum of American History, highlighting corporate and government abuse of people and the planet.