MNE Intercession, Antitrust, and Supply Chain Slavery: A New Regulatory Strategy to Realise SDG 8.7

Modern slavery arises in global supply chains because MNEs do not exert their power in defence of labour. Current legislative innovations seek to compel MNEs to do so by imposing a duty to intercede between labour and exploitative third-party employers. This creates an apparent policy dissonance: on one hand modern slavery and business and human rights law insist that corporations exert their market power over third parties, while, on the other, competition law (antitrust) proscribes the use of market power over third parties. Although the aims of these bodies of law appear very different, they are united to the extent that both seek to protect labour from indignity. This suggests a hitherto unexplored inspiration for addressing modern slavery resides in principles underpinning antitrust. The problems confronted by antitrust arise from dysfunctional economic coordination, and in this chapter modern slavery is construed as the legal challenge of the same variety. Elaboration of the parallels between antitrust and modern slavery law suggests alternative global governance pathways to realise SDG 8.7.