The Canadian Ombudsperson for Responsible Enterprise (CORE) recently opened an investigation on whether Guess? jeans or other products of Guess? Canada contain yarn, fabric or cotton made or grown with Uyghur forced labor.

The European Council and the European Parliament on Dec. 14 negotiated new rules that will make up its upcoming corporate sustainability due diligence directive, which will require companies to conduct specific due diligence on their supply chains to address various environmental and social concerns, including forced labor risks (see 2202230073). The “provisional” agreement still needs to be formally adopted by both the council and the parliament before it takes effect.

The proposed European Union forced labor trade ban waits to stop goods until after a government investigation finds the goods contain forced labor, in contrast to the U.S. approach, which automatically bans all imports that are suspected to be made with forced labor, without a separate investigation, trade lawyer John Foote said.

A spokesperson for China's Foreign Ministry criticized the report of the House Select Committee on Competition with the Chinese Communist Party (see 2312120004), released Dec. 12, saying "some in the US are attempting to politicize and weaponize trade and tech issues between China and the US. We firmly oppose this," according to a transcript provided in English of a regular press conference in Beijing on Dec. 13.

A former EU director general for the bloc's climate action directorate defended its Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism, saying it's not designed to protect European heavy industry against imports from lower-cost economies.

A "substantial volume" of apparel made with Uyghur forced labor is entering the EU without restriction, a new Sheffield Hallam University report said. The report, released Dec. 6, studied four Chinese suppliers and focused on how their products were getting into the EU. In all, 39 brands are "at high risk" for sourcing goods made with Uyghur forced labor, including Hugo Boss, Inditex and Skechers.

The World Trade Organization Secretariat, at the UN Summit on Climate Change, recommended that countries lower their import tariffs to increase the uptake of low-carbon technologies, reform environmentally harmful subsidies, facilitate trade to reduce greenhouse gas emissions for idling vehicles at the border, and improve coordination of carbon pricing "to reduce policy fragmentation and compliance costs."

A parliamentary committee on trade in Ottawa says Canada should increase its efforts to reach a suspension agreement on U.S. antidumping and countervailing duty cases against its softwood lumber exports, including by appointing a specific "softwood lumber emissary" and by making the issue a high-level priority when the prime minister speaks to the U.S. president.

Dispute settlement understanding talks among World Trade Organization members has been very "intense," though the large issues remain unresolved, Maria Pagan, deputy U.S. trade representative and chief of mission in the Geneva office, said Nov. 20. Speaking at an event hosted by the Center for Strategic and International Studies on the upcoming 13th Ministerial Conference, Pagan said discussions started by acknowledging the different parties' interests as opposed to putting text on the table and hashing out the deal.

The Canadian Ombudsperson for Responsible Enterprise is investigating Zara Canada for alleged use of Uyghur forced labor in the company's supply chain, CORE said. The investigation, which CORE began Nov. 6, comes in response to a complaint filed by 28 civil society organizations in June 2022.