As global enterprises grapple with the impacts of the current unprecedented pandemic, the most vulnerable workers and communities in their supply chains will bear the brunt of the immediate and long-term devastating effects of COVID-19. The pandemic offers opportunities to address market failures and position freedom and workers’ rights as central to a more sustainable and resilient economy. A panel of experts will explore how business leaders and consumers can ensure that corporations “build back” ethical supply chains. The speakers will draw on lessons from their work on the California Transparency in Supply Chains Act, the first of its kind in the country, to discuss practical strategies for rebuilding corporate supply chains rooted in transparency and accountability to ensure safe, fair, and dignified work for all in our interconnected world.

Introduction:
David W. Blight, Director, Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance, and Abolition; Sterling Professor of History, Yale University

Moderators:
Amb. Luis C.deBaca (ret.), Gilder Lehrman Center Senior Fellow in Modern Slavery, the MacMillan Center at Yale; Former Director, US Office to Monitor/Combat Trafficking in Persons
Kate Cooney, Senior Lecturer in Social Enterprise and Management, Yale School of Management

Panelists:
Justin Dillon, founder and CEO of FRDM; Made In A Free World
Alison Kiehl Friedman, Executive Director, International Corporate Accountability Roundtable
Kilian Moote, Project Director, Know the Chain, Humanity United

Commentary:
Genevieve LeBaron, Professor of Politics; Co-Director, Sheffield Political Economy Research Institute (SPERI), University of Sheffield, UK; co-chair of the Gilder Lehrman Center Modern Slavery Working Group