On December 23, 2021, President Joe Biden signed into law the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (the "Act"),1 which bars the importation into the United States of products made from forced labor in the Xinjiang region of China. This Act will significantly impact many multinational employers' supply chains because raw materials from this region - such as cotton, coal, chemicals, sugar, tomatoes and polysilicon (a component in solar panels) - have found their way into many global supply chains. Indeed, these materials arrive on U.S. shores directly from China, as well as via third countries, like Vietnam, which imports Xinjiang cotton for manufacturing textiles that eventually reach the United States.2
The United States, United Kingdom, Canada, as well as other countries, have alleged that these materials have been produced through the Chinese government's wide-scale repression of Uyghurs and other predominantly Muslim ethnic minorities in Xinjiang. The U.S. Department of State has gone so far as to declare that this repression amounts to genocide and crimes against humanity.3 China has flatly denied these allegations.4
Critically, the Act places a novel burden on multinational employers to overcome a presumption that products from Xinjiang are made with forced labor. The Act is thus one of the latest in a series of various global legislative measures that have placed enhanced due diligence and other obligations on multinational employers to ensure that their supply chains...
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