On the Legislative Direction of Forced Labor and the Protection of Labor Rights and Interests of Foreign Fishermen in Offshore Fisheries—Centering on the Legislation of Enterprise Supply Chain Management

Principle Investigator：Wenchi, Chang, L.L.M. Candidate, School of Law, National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University, Taiwan

Regarding the labor reality of fishermen's labor rights in Taiwan's offshore fisheries, in addition to the fact that labor laws and regulations themselves are insufficient and need to be reviewed urgently, FOC vessels have fallen into the gray area of jurisdiction, forming a major loophole internationally. The high difficulties and obstacles in the implementation and supervision of the working environment show the lack and negativity of our country's public power towards this maritime labor issue. Taiwan's offshore fishery mainly exports fishery products and is a producer in the global fishery supply chain. Statistics show that Taiwan is the 27th largest fishery country in the world and one of the important high seas fishing countries. The fishery supply chain is mostly composed of research and development, fishing, landing of fishery products, distribution, and processing, retail channels, and end consumers. Among them, the fishery producers engaged in fishing on ocean-going fishing vessels are the primary industries, and the mid- and downstream industries in the supply chain must easily use their capital and purchasing power to drive down prices, resulting in a cycle of squeezing and imbalanced relationships in the fishery supply chain, which will exacerbate the bottom line. The situation of the fishermen's labor force being exploited. Therefore, if part of the responsibility for the supervision, prevention and remediation of fishermen’s rights and protection of labor rights and interests on ocean-going vessels is transferred to the enterprises in the supply chain, it can be considered as a direction to improve the problem of forced labor at sea. Based on this, this article intends to focus on the corporate responsibility of the ocean fishery supply chain, and firstly introduces and analyzes the "Proposal for a DIRECTIVE OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND OF THE COUNCIL on Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence and amending Directive " announced by the European Commission in 2022 under the international legislative trend of prohibiting forced labor and free trade links, and the "Supply Chain Corporate Responsibility Act" passed by Germany in 2021, and then use the two bills as a basis for comparison to discuss the obligations imposed on large enterprises to monitor, prevent, and remedy human rights violations and forced labor in the supply chain. Then, through the method of empirical qualitative interviews, this article will try to understand the expected results and potential effects of the implementation of this legislation in terms of the forced labor of foreign fishermen on Taiwanese seagoing vessels after dialogue with both labor and capital. The doubts are summarized and sorted out, and finally relevant suggestions on the legislation of our country are put forward.