Originality: This is the first study that attempts to map the lawscape surrounding modern slavery regulation and its implication for the built environment disciplines. Its original contribution is grounded in a primary dataset formed of a professional survey which will, for the first time, map the baseline of knowledge around this portion of the Code of Professional Conduct among active RIBA members and produce a digital archive through empirically grounded research of modern slavery in architecture.

Underpinning Ideas: This research addresses the dual pressures of upholding the integrity of the professional standards of RIBA chartered practice and advancing social responsibility in construction. It explores the impact of regulatory change on the architect’s duty of care by defining the standards of conduct required for compliance across a global lawscape. Despite a prevalence of international regulation, the endemic nature of modern slavery suggests these initiatives remain ineffective in practice. This ecosystem ranges from hard to soft, global and local, human rights, labour rights, social and economic governance. Further, the architect must practice within and against frameworks of deliberate deregulation, jurisdictional complexity and permissive governments. Despite demands for reform, the profession is deficient in resilient practical solutions. Consequently, members are underequipped to navigate the complex and often vague obligations of social policy and so remain powerless in protecting the rights of the individual.

Aims: The project will suggest a shift is required in the ethical culture and procedural patterns of industry if social change is to be achieved. In making visible the complexity of a seemingly straightforward requirement, it will define an obscure and evolving lawscape to inform procedures necessary for ethical decision-making and accountability. It will explore whether increased transparency, driven by the disclosure of due diligence in identifying and discharging obligations of a rights-based approach to construction, could act as an instrument for reform through behavioural change and self-regulation.

Method: The research design approach is by project and is practice-led by its application of the scientist-practitioner model. Located at the intersection of policy and process, it is interdisciplinary and unites industry with academia. Within a controlled scholarly environment, I will conduct due diligence as I would in practice using a rights-based approach to create a digital archive that will identify and define procedures necessary for discharging modern slavery obligations. The United Nations Guiding Principles for Business and Human Rights (UNGP-BHR) require business enterprises to have in place ‘a human rights due diligence process to identify, prevent, mitigate and account for how they address their impacts on human rights’. Subject to policy but lacking procedure, the project will draw on knowledge of architectural practice and concepts of digital humanities to develop an appropriate tool for navigating requirements.

Significance: The 2019 revision of the Code of Professional Conduct will have significant repercussions for many of the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) 42,000 members, particularly those delivering work overseas. With UK architecture reaching £1.5 billion in direct and indirect exports, 38% of chartered practice international revenue from projects located in the Middle East and the Department for International Trade (DIT) recently establishing a dedicated team in Dubai to fund projects worth £9 billion, the significance of the market is evident. This, combined with concerns over the social and environmental impacts of its rapid growth, provide grounds to select Dubai as the location of this research. However, modern slavery also a concern of the UK. Architectural workers union UVW-SAW claim the prevalence of exploitation of the young, discrimination and unpaid obligatory overtime, and an Architect’s Journal survey reports that mental health issues now affect one-third of British architects. Whether obscured within complex global supply chains of labour and materials or hidden in plain sight by a culture of unpaid overtime and competition, the prevailing model will only allow further exploitation if present tensions are not addressed. Finally, this research also has potential for the application of its methodologies and data across subject and discipline to equally critical global issues, such as our climate emergency, to facilitate alignment and build capacity.