The European Parliament and the European Union Council on Tuesday reached an provisional agreement that outlines new rules banning products made with forced labor.
But an expert told Radio Free Asia the rules would be hard to enforce in Xinjiang – where thousands of Uyghurs are engaged in forced labor – because it places the burden of proof on the EU rather than on China or Chinese companies.
Since 2017, China has imprisoned an estimated 1.8 million Uyghurs in “re-education camps,” where they receive training in various skills and are forced to work in factories making everything from chemicals and clothing to car parts. China says they are vocational training facilities, and that they have since been shut down.
Camp survivors and witnesses state the Uyghurs faced intense political indoctrination, abuse, rape, torture and even death in the camps.
Western companies have come under pressure to withdraw from their operations in Xinjiang. Last month, German chemical maker BASF said it was pulling out of its joint ventures in the region, and car company Volkswagen says it is reviewing its operations there.
The bill – which needs to be approved by the European Parliament – says that the national authorities or the EU Commission will “investigate suspected use of forced labor in companies’ supply chains,” an EU parliament press release said.
“If the investigation concludes that forced labor has been used, the authorities can demand that relevant goods be withdrawn from the EU market and online marketplaces, and confiscated at the borders,” it reads.
According to the EU agreement, goods found to have been produced by forced labor would be donated, recycled or destroyed.
“This law is ground breaking in the field of human rights. It will prevent forced labor products from entering our market,” said Samira Rafaela, co-rapporteur from the Netherlands. “To combat forced and state-imposed labor, we must work with like-minded partners and become a strong ally in the global fight against forced labor.”
Forced labor has been a reality for too long, said co-rapporteur Maria-Manuel Leitão-Marques of Portugal.
There were an estimated 27.6 million people affected by it in 2021, mostly in the private sector, but also victims of state-sponsored forced labor, she said.
“The deal we reached today will assure the EU has an instrument to ban products made with forced labor from the Union market as well as to tackle various forms of forced labor, including when it is imposed by a state.”
Questionable effectiveness
But the proposed law is weaker than the U.S. Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act, or UFLPA, said Adrian Zenz, a senior fellow and director in China Studies at the Washington-based Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation.
Because it relies on the EU Commission to investigate forced labor, its effectiveness in banning Uyghur forced labor would be questionable, Zenz said.
“And that means that the European Commission would have to somehow investigate the presence of Uyghur forced labor, which is not possible,” said Zenz. ”Contrary to the American Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act, [the EU] did not reverse the burden of proof because the European Council refused that.”
In September, three firms were blacklisted under the UFLPA, bringing total banned firms to 27.
Even in cases where the EU is able to determine that goods were made by slave labor, the EU agreement would be less effective than the UFLPA, Zenz said.
“The AmericanUFLPA can immediately seize goods, stop them from entering, whereas in the European case when an investigation is open, the goods can continue to flow into Europe,” he said.
“I think it’s disappointing that the law was not made stronger to counter Uyghur forced labor,” he said. “And this is due to, I think, a lack of understanding the nature of state imposed forced labor.”
Zenz said that the EU member states may also fear economic ramifications of strongly countering forced labor. “They’re focused on other interests than on trying to systematically combat the situation in Xinjiang.”
Edited by Eugene Whong and Malcolm Foster.