1. Black Lives Matter. But not to the EU. In 2017 the International Labour Organization (ILO) estimated that 25 million people are in forced labour across the world, over 60% of them exploited in the private sector, linked to supply chains providing goods to the EU and others.

2. The EU does embody certain ILO conventions in FTAs but that's about as far as it goes. They pay lip service to it but it doesn't really use its clout to do anything unless it pops up in the media. https://www.euractiv.com/section/development-policy/news/researchers-eu-turns-blind-eye-to-slavery-in-thai-poultry-industry/

3. Child labour is often systemic, arising because national and international laws, policies and practices governing employment and trade are insufficient. Yet only in 2018 did we see concerted action from the EU parliament to address child labour.

http://www.antislavery.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/EU-Supply-Chains-briefing.pdf

4. Generally this is all seen as a peripheral issue in trade, particularly among free trade types who don't see why any of this touchy feely human rights crap should be in trade deals. (I was one at one point). I now think we need more robust action because it comes at a cost.

5. I alluded to this earlier in that if we want to stem the flow of migrants to Europe then it's really up to us to do something about the push factors. Unsustainable trade is one of them as the EU well knows by way of raiding West african fisheries and dumping chicken surpluses.

6. As to asylum seeking, you essentially don't have an asylum solution unless you have an Eritrea solution. In places like Eritrea we see arbitrary and inhumane detention, no religious freedom, no freedom of expression and assembly and compulsory national service.

7. According to HRW, since 2002 Eritrea has misused its national service system to keep a generation of Eritreans in bondage. Service is indefinitely prolonged, extending for much of a citizen's working life. Pay is barely sufficient for survival.

8. Recruits are used as cheap labour for the ruling party's commercial and agricultural enterprises. Female recruits report sexual abuse by officers. It doesn't really get reported because though we say black lines matter to us, in practice, they don't. We drown them in the Med.

9. But we can act. Canadian mining company Nevsun Resources through its Eritrean subsidiary Bisha Mining, constructed a gold, copper and zinc mine in Eritrea using conscripted workers forced into labour while on indefinite tenure with Eritrea's compulsory National Service Program

10. A Canadian has now assert jurisdiction over the allegations. https://mondaq.com/Article/972238 
The SCC held that corporations could be held liable for violations of customary international law and that such violations were actionable in Canadian common law.

11. Like the EU, Canada is not the liberal progressive utopia it pretends to be. Canada is guilty of just about every major environmental and trade related humanitarian crime in the book. But it has shown a willingness to act.

12. Now that we are embarking on our own trade policy, I argue that we should not be seeking FTAs for their own sake, rather we should be using trade policy to advance our foreign policy aims, one of which should be reducing immigration.

13. One of the great lies that trade wonks push is the net benefits of FTAs, but they never talk about the minus column, ie the external and humanitarian fallout, and the subsequent social and political impact of the immigration it drives.

14. Between the ILO conventions already in force and the use of customary international law as Canada has demonstrated, we have enough tools, in conjunction with other willing partners, to put political pressure on others to prosecute their bandit corporates.

15. It seems to that we have a meeting of minds here. Traditionally (until recently) it was the left who wanted an ethical and sustainable trade policy while the right didn't care just so long as we stopped foreigners coming in. What if the one is a prerequisite of the other?

16. But then developing countries need to be gradually weaned off slave labour lest their economies suffer. That's why we need development aid in economic partnership agreements executed by DfID under FCO supervision. Carrot and stick.

17. One thing that is clear is that immigration cannot be stopped just by beefing up the borders. We need an active foreign policy and to use the tools available to us, ie. international law, aid and FTAs. This should be our central overseas mission as an independent state.

18. And of course out of the EU we have complete sovereignty over aid spending without handing a large chunk of it to the EU. Time to put it to better use. Spend it directly instead of handling it to corrupt NGOs.