This thesis critically examines the procurement frameworks of the US and the Australian federal government in addressing human trafficking (hereinafter trafficking). Addressing trafficking through procurement is a socially responsible procurement agenda that governments must take seriously as part of their existing international and national obligations to protect against human rights abuse by their suppliers. Early discussions in the thesis considers international obligations from the perspective of key international institutions such as the UN, OECD, ILO and the OSCE, as these institutions encourage governments to lead by example by adopting public procurement policies, regulations and legislation to prevent, tackle and address trafficking with their supply chains. Despite international obligations placed on governments to address trafficking as a sustainable procurement agenda, many governments are yet to take a lead in this area, thereby leaving trafficking practices within their supply chains to continue largely undisturbed.
The overarching objective of this thesis is to encourage governments to adopt provisions in their public procurement framework that adequately address trafficking. This objective urges governments who have implemented anti-trafficking provisions in their procurement framework to re-examine such provisions to determine whether they adequately deal with this illegal practice in their supply chains; and bring to the attention of governments who are yet to address this issue in their procurement framework, to do so, by following the recommendations set out in this thesis. By adopting a doctrinal legal approach, this thesis sets out to achieve these objectives by examining the relationship between public procurement and trafficking. Specifically, the thesis examines the definition of trafficking, examples of trafficking practices found in the US and Australian supply chains and discusses why governments should address this criminal activity through their public procurement frameworks. Furthermore, the thesis analyses procurement frameworks of the US and Australian federal government (The Federal Acquisition Regulation and the Commonwealth Procurement Rules) with the intent of highlighting provisions that prevent, address or tackle trafficking, and discusses the adequacy of such provisions in meeting their stated aim.
The key finding from the analysis of the FAR and CPR is that both frameworks are inadequate in preventing and addressing trafficking as significant weaknesses allow contracts to be awarded to suppliers tainted with trafficking. The thesis examined how the shortcomings highlighted in the CPR, and the FAR can be improved to adequately prevent, address and tackle trafficking practices adopted by their suppliers.
While there may be numerous reasons for the lack of action from various governments in tackling this issue of trafficking through their procurement policies and legislation, the study of different approaches taken by the US and Australian federal government furnishes other governments with a blueprint or template to emulate, leaving little room for governments to escape their existing international and national obligations of protecting citizens from human rights abuses perpetuated by their commercial partners.