When the topic of child labour is raised, it is very often confined to cocoa production in Côte d’Ivoire or mineral extraction in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. While child labour is undeniably more present in specific industries and countries, it should not be automatically excluded from human rights risk analysis as soon as operations and value chains are located in Western countries, let alone in the United States (US). Contrary to what some (European) managers may think, child labour does exist in the United States and is far from being limited to one or two small companies. As the former Secretary of Labour Marty Walsh said, child labour in the United States “is not a 19th century problem, this is a today problem”.
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Trump administration against corporate liability for human rights violations under Alien Tort Statute
On May 26, 2020, the Trump administration filed a brief amicus curiae in the Cargill Inc. v John Doe case, urging the Supreme Court to hold that domestic corporations cannot be liable for human rights violations under the Alien Tort Statute (ATS).
In this case, former child slaves who were forced to work on cocoa farms in the Ivory Coast claim that Nestle US and Cargill aided and abetted slave labour by providing financial support and technical farming aid to famers, subjecting defendants to suit under the ATS.
Read moreCompanies calling for EU regulation on due diligence on business and human rights !
On December 2, 2019, some of the world’s largest chocolate companies called the European Union (EU) to adopt a regulation placing a due diligence obligation on all companies importing cocoa or cocoa products on the European market.
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