Corporate Accountability Lab unleashes the creative potential of the law to protect people and the planet from corporate abuse.
July 24, 2025
Bullsh*t underscores the magnitude of forced labor in the cattle sector and underscores a critical insight: this is not just a problem for Brazil. It is a global scourge that impacts U.S. consumers, U.S. cattle ranchers, and U.S. biofuel producers. Ethically tainted Brazilian beef and tallow have contaminated U.S. supply chains, undercutting the market for ethically-produced beef. Absent robust legal enforcement in the United States and Brazil, meat companies that disregard protections for workers, deforestation prohibitions, anticorruption laws, and antitrust regulation will eventually drive ethical companies – including small U.S. cattle ranchers – out of the market entirely. There are abundant opportunities, and a significant body of evidence, to support scaled up enforcement in both the United States and Brazil. Building on existing enforcement actions in both countries, authorities are well-poised to tackle infractions across the supply chain, from the cattle ranches in rural Brazil all the way to Wall Street.
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our work
Research
We study the laws that govern corporate behavior and identify how and why such laws fail to hold corporations accountable for the human rights violations and environmental harms occurring across their supply chains.
Legal Design
We design strategic interventions into global supply chains to better protect human rights and the environment through novel litigation strategy and new forms of worker empowerment.
Collaboration
We collaborate with lawyers, law school clinics, other corporate accountability NGOs, and workers to workshop our designs, coordinate strategy, and implement our strategic interventions.
Although some think of chattel slavery as a practice of the past, it is a daily reality for far too many. In Mauritania, there are an estimated 149,000 individuals still enslaved, out of a population of under five million. In addition to raising alarming concerns for human rights accountability over private individuals perpetrating slavery in Mauritania, this reality brings to light important issues for companies who source agricultural goods from local farmers who have historically relied on slave labor. These companies’ responsibilities are heightened in a country with a deep-rooted legacy of slavery.