By: Naziha Kabbani
Beginning December 14, 2027, the European Union (“EU”) will begin the enforcement of a ban on products made with forced labor.[1] Forced labor is defined as “all work or service which is exacted from any person under the menace of any penalty and for which the said person has not offered himself voluntarily.”[2] Under the Forced Labour Regulation (“FLR”), corporations may not place such products on the EU market, target them at EU consumers, or export them if forced labor was used anywhere in the supply chain.[3] The European Commission adopted guidelines explaining how businesses may comply with the ban on June 26, 2026, yet they were not formally published in the Official Journal until September 3, 2026.[4] The day before that publication, on September 2nd , a coalition of civil society organizations and trade unions, including Human Rights Watch, issued a joint letter welcoming the guidelines but urging the Commission to strengthen them by closing several gaps that remain.[5]
While Article 3 of the FLR makes the ban mandatory, it does not itself create any additional due diligence obligations.[6] The guidelines carry no legal force and instead offer a voluntary six-step due diligence framework built on standards from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (“OECD”).[7] Under the current framework, enforcement falls to a “lead competent authority”; the Commission investigates forced labor occurring outside the EU while individual Member States handle forced labor within their own borders.[8] Authorities must produce “credible evidence” that forced labor made the product and that a corporation made it available in the EU or exported it from the EU.[9] Authorities may request supply chain maps, purchase orders, and audit reports, and a corporation’s failure to cooperate can itself count as evidence against it.[10] However, the quality and reliability of corporate documentation can affect whether an authority can establish a violation.[11]
The joint letter also challenges using the International Labour Organization’s (“ILO”) forced labor indicators, such as debt bondage or withheld identity documents, as a rigid checklist, and urges that they should instead serve as a “starting point for contextual analysis” relating to a victim’s social, economic and cultural circumstances.[12] One indicator may not, in and of itself, establish whether a worker is experiencing forced labor.[13] Thus, a contextual approach allows authorities to consider multiple conditions, how they operate together, and whether the circumstances effectively deprive a worker of the ability to leave the employment.[14] Further, the letter points out that the Forced Labour Single Portal, the EU’s centralized website listing each Member State’s designated regulator, did not yet identify all competent authorities, even though Member States had to designate them by December 14, 2025.[15]
The Commission should implement the letter’s recommendations through the existing FLR framework rather than pursue a formal amendment to the Regulation.[16] As of September, 2026, no formal amendment appears to have been proposed, and amending the Regulation would require a new legislative procedure.[17] The guidelines already give authorities flexibility to evaluate evidence beyond company-produced audits, addressing concerns that businesses could otherwise use their own paperwork to certify their own compliance.[18] The Guidelines recognize that audits can have limitations, including when workers cannot speak freely.[19] Implementing the letter’s recommendations would therefore build on an evidentiary approach already incorporated into the Guidelines rather than create a new substantive obligation.[20] That approach would preserve the Guidelines’ existing evidentiary flexibility while giving authorities a clearer method for evaluating indicators of forced labor.[21] Rather than creating a new due diligence obligation, the recommendations would improve how authorities determine whether the FLR’s standards have been violated.[22] The Guidelines also cannot determine the Regulation’s meaning for courts.[23] The Court of Justice of the European Union, as the EU court responsible for interpreting EU law, can ultimately determine how disputed provisions of the FLR will ultimately be interpreted.[24] The Guidelines, while able to explain how the Commission expects the Regulation to operate, cannot eliminate uncertainty where the Regulation’s legal requirements are disputed.[25]
Businesses may be affected by these incoming standards. One leading firm already describes the guidelines as creating a de facto, practical if not technically mandatory, due diligence expectation.[26] Because documentation is a corporate actor’s best evidence, the practical realities of enforcement may make diligence functionally necessary.[27] Ban-violation decisions are published and apply to every business that has made the product available, so companies should monitor decisions against suppliers and competitors.[28] Given that the EU is one of the world’s largest consumer markets, its standard may also trigger the “Brussels Effect”, a phenomenon wherein EU rules become global standards, leading non-EU businesses to adopt one compliance standard rather than different ones for different regions.[29] As guidelines and standards change and develop, so too must corporations. The question is whether these changes will create durable and actual change, or if corporations will continue to skirt unclear lines.
[1] See Regulation (EU) 2024/3015 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 27 November 2024 on Prohibiting Products Made with Forced Labour on the Union Market and Amending Directive (EU) 2019/1937, art. 3, 39, 2024 O.J. (L 3015).
[2] Id. at art. 2(1) (incorporating the International Labour Organization’s definition of forced labor).
[3] Id. at arts. 1–4 (defining the ban’s market-placement and export scope).
[4] See Commission Notice—Guidelines on the Application of Regulation (EU) 2024/3015 on Prohibiting Products Made with Forced Labour on the Union Market, 2026 O.J. (C 4637) § 1 (Sep. 3, 2026) [hereinafter Regulation Guidelines], https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/PDF/?uri=OJ:C_202604637 [https://perma.cc/BF7M-NXUR]; cf. EUR-Lex Access the Official Journal, https://eur-lex.europa.eu/oj/direct-access.html [https://perma.cc/4TUR-BWVY] (last visited Sep. 26, 2026) (defining the Official Journal as “[T]he official publication (gazette) for EU legal acts, other acts and official information from EU institutions, bodies, offices and agencies.”); see also Guillaume Croisant et al., EU Forced Labour Regulation: Commission Publishes Long-Awaited Implementation Guidelines, Linklaters (Sep. 7, 2026), https://sustainablefutures.linklaters.com/post/102n7tb/eu-forced-labour-regulation-commission-publishes-long-awaited-implementation-gui [https://perma.cc/KL25-VEPX] (noting that the Official Journal version contains no changes form the version originally published).
[5] Letter from AK Europa et. al, to the European Commission (Sep. 2, 2026) [hereinafter Joint Letter], https://media.business-humanrights.org/media/documents/Joint_the_Forced_Labour_Portal_and_Regulation.pdf [https://perma.cc/QN65-P3QY] (listing Human Rights Watch among the signatories).
[6] See Regulation 2024/3015, arts. 1(3), 3; Regulation Guidelines, supra note 4, §§ 1, 6.1 (distinguishing the mandatory ban from any due diligence duty).
[7] Regulation Guidelines, supra note 4, § 6.4 (describing the voluntary six-step framework).
[8] Regulation (EU) 2024/3015 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 27 November 2024 on Prohibiting Products Made with Forced Labour on the Union Market and Amending Directive (EU) 2019/1937, art. 15, 20(1), 2024 O.J. (L 3015); Regulation Guidelines, supra note 4, §§ 4.1, 5.1. Cf. Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act, Pub. L. No. 117-78, § 3, 135 Stat. 1525, 1527 (2021) (codified at 19 U.S.C. § 1307) (creating a presumption that goods made in Xinjiang involve forced labor, which importers must rebut by clear and convincing evidence).
[9] See Regulation Guidelines, supra note 4, § 4.8.1.1; Regulation 2024/3015, art. 20(1).
[10] Regulation Guidelines, supra note 4, §§ 4.7.1, 4.7.3.2, 4.7.3.4, 4.8.2 (listing documentary evidence authorities may request and treating noncooperation as adverse evidence); Regulation 2024/3015, art. 20(2).
[11] Regulation Guidelines, supra note 4, § 4.8.1.1–4.8.1.2.
[12] Joint Letter, supra note 5, at 2.
[13] ILO Indicators of Forced Labor, Int’l Lab. Org. 6 (Nov. 18, 2025), https://www.ilo.org/sites/default/files/2025-11/ILO%20Indicators%20of%20Forced%20Labour%202025.pdf (on file with the American University Business Law Review) (“[T]he presence of a single indicator does not confirm forced labour, but it signals risk and should lead to further inquiry and investigation.”).
[14] Joint Letter, supra note 5, at 2.
[15] Id. at 1–2 (criticizing the Portal for failing to identify all competent authorities despite the designation deadline); Regulation (EU) 2024/3015 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 27 November 2024 on Prohibiting Products Made with Forced Labour on the Union Market and Amending Directive (EU) 2019/1937, art. 22, 2024 O.J. (L 3015) (requiring Member States to designate competent authorities by Dec. 14, 2025).
[16] See Joint Letter, supra note 5, at 2 (urging the Commission to treat the ILO indicators as a starting point for contextual analysis rather than as a rigid checklist); Regulation (EU) 2024/3015, art. 11 (stating that the Commission will regularly update guidelines).
[17] See Overview: The Ordinary Legislative Procedure – Step By Step, Ordinary Legislative Procedure: Eur. Parliament, https://www.europarl.europa.eu/olp/en/ordinary-legislative-procedure/overview [https://perma.cc/W7UU-SC6L] (last visited Oct. 3, 2026) (describing the legislative process through which the European Parliament and Council adopt and amend EU legislation); 2022/0269(COD): Prohibiting Products Made With Forced Labour on the Union Market, Legis. Observatory: Eur. Parliament, https://oeil.europarl.europa.eu/oeil/en/procedure-file?reference=2022/0269(COD) [https://perma.cc/TQE7-S6LC] (last visited Oct. 3, 2026) (showing the completed legislative procedure resulting in Regulation (EU) 2024/3015).
[18] See Regulation Guidelines, supra note 4, § 4.8.1.1, 4.8.1.2 (excluding audits conducted under worker surveillance or restricted facility access and accepting indirect and circumstantial evidence).
[19] See id.
[20] Compare Joint Letter, supra note 5, at 2 (urging authorities to evaluate forced-labor indicators in light of workers’ individual circumstances rather than through a checklist approach), with Regulation Guidelines, supra note 4, § 4.8.1.1–4.8.1.2 (permitting authorities to rely on indirect and circumstantial evidence and recognizing limitations in audit evidence).
[21] Compare Joint Letter, supra note 5, at 2 (encouraging regulators to assess forced-labor indicators holistically and in context), with Regulation Guidelines, supra note 4, § 4.8.1.1–4.8.1.2 (preserving flexibility in the types of evidence authorities may consider).
[22] See Regulation (EU) 2024/3015 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 27 November 2024 on Prohibiting Products Made with Forced Labour on the Union Market and Amending Directive (EU) 2019/1937, arts. 1(3), 3, 2024 O.J. (L 3015); Regulation Guidelines, supra note 4, § 6.1; Joint Letter, supra note 5, at 2.
[23] See Regulation Guidelines, supra note 4, Important Notice.
[24] See Consolidated Version of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union art. 267, Oct. 16, 2012, 2012 O.J. (C 326) 47, 164.
[25] See Regulation Guidelines, supra note 4, Important Notice.
[26] Françoise Labrousse et al., EU Forced Labor Guidelines: Mandatory Due Diligence in Disguise?, Jones Day (July 2026), https://www.jonesday.com/en/insights/2026/07/eu-forced-labor-guidelines-mandatory-due-diligence-in-disguise [https://perma.cc/G6UC-Y9HT].
[27] Id.
[28] See Regulation Guidelines, supra note 4, § 4.8.3; Regulation (EU) 2024/3015 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 27 November 2024 on Prohibiting Products Made with Forced Labour on the Union Market and Amending Directive (EU) 2019/1937, arts. 6, 12(f), 2024 O.J. (L 3015); see also Croisant et al., supra note 4, (discussing the compliance implications of published enforcement decisions).
[29] See Anu Bradford, The Brussels Effect, 107 NW. U. L. Rev. 1, 3 (2012).
