Legal and Policy Debrief: 17 April – 30 April

Updates:

The Clean Clothes Campaign (CCC) and SOMO have filed a lawsuit against the Dutch and Belgian subsidiaries of Levi Strauss & Co over the use of misleading claims about ethically produced goods. 

The lawsuit argues that the brand has mislead customers in the Netherlands by making consumer-facing statements about responsible production and respect for worker’s rights. However, CCC launched a campaign in 2023 to amplify voices of workers subjected to rights violations from a Turkish factory producing exclusively for Levi’s. Those workers protested peacefully for better working conditions were met with violence by security forced and later fired – hundreds are still demanding compensation.

A new Labour (Amendment) Act in Bangladesh has been passed to strengthen workers’ rights. 

The new law introduces strict legal prohibitions against forced labour, violence and sexual harassment at work, aligning the country’s legislation with ILO Convention 190. In addition, it strengthens the role of unions by bringing down the minimum number of workers within a company required to support forming a union. 

UNI Global Union has welcomed the move saying that the changes would fundamentally strengthen workers’ rights. The bill also includes provisions to prevent unfair labour practices and anti-trade union discrimination: employers will be prevented from blacklisting workers and trade union members. 

Milieudefensie (Friends of the Earth Netherlands) has filed a new court case against Shell aimed at stopping the drilling for new oil and gas. 

The lawsuit demands that Shell halts all new oil and gas field development and progressively reduce its emissions between 2030 and 2050. This is based on a 2024 lawsuit demanding the company to reduce its GHG emissions in which Shell won its appeal. In the ruling, the courts highlighted that the company does have an obligation to reduce CO2-Emissions and to making an appropriate contribution to the 2015 Paris Climate Accord. 

Milieudefensie is now testing this ruling with its new lawsuit and argues that Shell must keep its obligation to abide by international climate agreements. The company has said the case is “unrealistic, unreasonable, and fundamentally misplaced” and ignores the role oil and gas will continue to play. A new hearing is expected to be held next month. 

Notes/Further Reading:

Irregular mining is heavily polluting rivers in downstream of mining operations in Myanmar, affecting communities across the country and downstream neighbours. 

Researchers have found arsenic levels five times above the WHO safety standard in the Salween River in Thailand, linked to unregulated mining operations upstream in Myanmar’s Shan state. Satellite analysis by the Stimson Center identified 127 suspected mines operating within the Salween River Basin between 2016 and 2026, many controlled by armed ethnic factions which have not disclosed what minerals are being extracted. 

The contamination directly impacts downstream communities which use the river for fishing, irrigation and washing purposes. This is in addition to contamination caused by unregulated mining detected last year in the Kok, Sai and Ruak rivers, impacting communities Myanmar, Laos, Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam. Myanmar is among the world’s top five suppliers of heavy rare earth elements and much of it is mined by different armed insurgency and independence groups.  

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Deforestation Legislation

Updates:

This Thursday, 30 April, the EU Commission is due to wrap up its Simplification Review of the EUDR. In the meantime, lobbying efforts to water down its scope proliferate.  

As reported in previous editions of the Debrief, there have been sustained efforts to exclude leather from the scope of products under the Regulation. The latest investigation into lobbying activities reveal that they are closely tied to luxury goods house LVMH which includes brands such as Louis Vuitton, Christian Dior and Bulgari, among others. One of its subsidiaries, Nuti Ivo, a group of tanneries, allegedly sources hides from a Paraguayan tannery owned by the head of Nuti Ivo, which is linked to deforestation.  

This is set against the background of a new Rapid Response investigation by Mighty Earth which found that JBS bought cattle from farms linked to deforestation in the Amazon rainforest in 2025, the latest revelations in a series of investigations into deforestation in Brazil. The investigation found that the total area of deforestation and land degradation connected to JBS, Marfrig and Minerva Foods slaughterhouses between 2023 and 2025 amounts to 109,034ha. 

In relation to US companies’ involvement in deforestation, the Trump administration has applied pressure over months on the EU Commission to introduce a controversial “no risk” category to the Regulation which would effectively water it down. After meeting with bloc’s Environment Commissioner Jessika Roswall, US Ambassador to the EU Andrew Puzder again emphasised the need for such a modification. 

At the same time, 32 US lawmakers have sent a letter to the EU Commission asking it to stand its ground on the EUDR. The signatories warn that should this category be implemented and the US included, companies would operate without transparency or oversight.  

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Forced Labour Legislation 

Updates:

The office of the US Trade Representative is evaluating submissions and testimonies in its review of the import bans, duties and quotas in relation to forced labour. 

As reported in previous issues of the Debrief, the USTR is currently conducting a probe into 60 different countries, including into China, Russia, the EU, the UK, Australia, India, and Canada, among others. The probe investigates to what extent failures to enforce bans on products made with forced labour in other countries has permitted the entry of forced labour-tainted goods into the US.  

GRC, Beyond’s sister organisation has submitted evidence to the USTR on the shortcomings of related UK legislation to combat the import of goods made with forced labour. Samir Goswami, the Director of GRC’s Forced Labour Programs, has further testified in a two-day hearing before the USTR. He recommended that the US should seek enforceable forced labour import bans as part of its trade agreements as without “tools comparable to the U.S. rebuttable presumption for high-risk regions like Xinjiang, authorities may face significant challenges in identifying forced labor in opaque ​supply chains”. 

The EU Commission has published its first Implement Regulation on the EUFLR on the information and communication system. 

The Implementing Regulation (EU) 2026/903 will integrate a forced labour module into the Information and Communication System for Market Surveillance (ICSMS) to coordinate the communication between the Member States (and Competent Authorities) and the Commission. The Commission is mandated by the Regulation to publish further guidelines on its implementation by 14 June 2026, while the EUFLR will enter into force on 14 December 2027. 

The National Secretary of Labour Inspection in Brazil has been dismissed after placing Chinese carmaker BYD on the country’s Slave Labour List. 

Luiz Filipe Brandão de Mello, the Secretary of the National Secretariat of Labour Inspection was dismissed by the Ministry of Labour and Employment after he placed BYD on the Lista Suja da escravidão (“Dirty List of slave labour”). Businesses and companies where slave labour has been found are placed on the public list which is updated every 6 months and considered by the UN as one of the most relevant global instruments to combat slave labour. 

The placing on the list comes after BYD was found to have been directly responsible for subjecting Chinese workers to slave labour conditions in the construction of its production plant in Bahia. The placing on the list had been overturned two days after the update by a judge. This is not the first time the Labour Minister Luiz Marinho is interfering concerning the list – he had previously annulled the placing of JBS Aves (subsidiary of the meatpacking giant JBS) on the list.