Summary
In a rare near-unanimous vote, the U.S. Congress passed the landmark Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) in December 2021. Since coming into force in June 2022, the law has banned the import of all goods made in whole or in part in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of China (XUAR). Forced labor in the region remains widespread and systematic, impacting a multitude of industries, including apparel, automotive, critical minerals, agriculture, and solar energy. The UFLPA has now been in effect for three years, and policymakers and other stakeholders around the world are attempting to draw lessons from it.
The following four questions offer a starting point for examining the UFLPA’s track record. First, has the U.S. government been able to enforce the law? Second, has it changed corporate behavior and increased compliance? Third, has the law led to negative consequences for those that do not comply? Fourth-perhaps most significant and most challenging to measure-has the law influenced the human rights situation and the lives and livelihoods of those it was meant to impact?
Each of these questions is addressed individually in this paper, though the examples provided often shed light on multiple aspects of the UFLPA’s impact.