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Washington’s Xinjiang Fix
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Washington’s Xinjiang Fix

What happens when human rights law becomes trade law? Two years after passage of the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act, we’re beginning to find out.

Eliot Chen and Katrina Northrop
The Wire China, 2023
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One country’s efforts to curb another’s human rights abuses is a tall, if not impossible, order. The Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act – enacted by the United States in 2021 – is a step toward addressing China’s treatment of the Uyghur people, yet its implementation and enforcement have revealed the act’s shortcomings. Journalists Eliot Chen and Katrina Northrop pinpoint why the United States must persuade other nations to collaborate to protect the rights of the Uyghurs.

Summary

The Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) is human rights legislation.

China has long subjected the Uyghur population residing in the Xinjiang region to enslaved labor and mass imprisonment. US legislators sought a way to force change in Beijing, following the work of the Congressional-Executive Commission on China, a group responsible for oversight and reporting on the state of human rights in China. The UFLPA bans all imports from Xinjiang and places the burden on commercial firms to investigate whether any of their supply chains connect with enslaved labor from the region. China responded to the UFLPA with sanctions of its own. 

Promoting the law for its potential...

About the Authors

Eliot Chen is a Toronto-based staff writer at The Wire. Katrina Northrop is a journalist in Washington, DC. 

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