A new publication asks if guiding principles on human rights can be transformed into hard law in supply chain management
The latest issue of ILAW’s journal examines the legal complexities of supply chain accountability, the ECCHR files criminal complaints against textile brands in Germany, and GFEMS looks at the intersection between the anti-modern slavery and environmental movements.
The latest issue of the Global Labour Rights Reporter focuses on the theme of “Accountability and Remedy in Global Supply Chains: Considerations for Workers and Unions”. Published by the International Lawyers Assisting Workers Network (ILAW), it features in-depth articles examining subjects such as the legal rights of workers in the context of global value chains, the transnational regulation of corporate responsibility, and the challenges for union action created by globalization.
Over the past few decades, a global system to produce goods and services has been built – by design – to push as much economic risk as possible down the supply chain (in particular onto workers) and to pull up most of the economic benefits. At the same time, the legal rights and interests of multinational enterprises tend to be well protected in courts and arbitral tribunals, while workers have few effective means to hold them accountable for the harms their actions cause. The global pandemic has only exacerbated these pre-existing dynamics.
However, as one article in the issue sets out, in recent years steps have been taken to transform the U.N. Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights into legally binding rules on the due diligence required by enterprises. These efforts include the ground-breaking French law on the duty of care of parent companies, as well as other processes both within the U.N. and, more recently, at the EU level.
The main purpose of this emerging legislation is to hold companies accountable for compliance with minimum human rights and environmental standards, both by their subsidiaries and by their foreign subcontractors and suppliers. The problem is that, despite the existence of a consolidated soft law, there are still many open and controversial questions regarding its legislative configuration.
For instance, one recurrent question is: to what extent should enterprises bound by this potential due diligence obligation be responsible for human rights and environmental impacts that may occur in their global value chains? In other words, under what conditions could a large company be held legally responsible for these impacts?
Given the growing awareness of the need to develop governance mechanisms for global value chains, and the evolution of the law, there is an urgent need to reflect on the design of this emerging regulation. Although the existing soft law instruments offer an extremely useful starting point, the article argues that their translation into hard law terms requires a reformulation that should not ignore but rather build on labour law precedent (with all its peculiarities and limitations).
When bringing the principles of corporate human rights to bear on the impacts occurring along supply chains and, in particular, when trying to establish where responsibility lies for failure to comply with the relevant due diligence, it may be useful to distinguish between “main activities” and “complementary activities”, as with regulations relating to subcontracting.
This and myriad additional questions still need to be resolved and will doubtless be the subject of intense debate when the European Commission puts forward its proposal for a directive on sustainable corporate governance in the next few months.
The Global Labour Rights Reporter is available for download in English, Spanish and French.
Here’s a round-up of other noteworthy news and initiatives:
Join Aura Freedom at a webinar on “Preventing Human Trafficking by Advancing Equity and Unpacking Root Causes”, to be hosted by Freedom Collaborative on 23 September at 9.30am ET. The panel will analyze the root causes of exploitation by examining the systemic oppression of marginalized groups, and discuss how advancing equity and empowering youth can prevent human trafficking and build thriving communities.
In the final episode of our Labor of Loss podcast series, we look at the big picture. What’s driving human trafficking and what needs to be done to stop it? Hear unique perspectives from earlier guests Archana and Mustafa, and from Bijaya, who is working to secure the rights of migrants in Nepal. Exploitation is deeply entrenched, but is change possible and what does it look like? Listen in for our final take.
Recently, the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights (ECCHR) filed a criminal complaint in Germany against several high-profile textile brands and retailers. Hugo Boss, Lidl and other companies are allegedly directly or indirectly abetting and profiting from the alleged forced labour of Uyghurs in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR) in western China, and might therefore be involved in crimes against humanity.
Last week, the Philippine parliament approved a bill banning marriages involving minors. According to the most recent data, the practice affects over 800,000 girls every year in the Southeast Asian archipelago, and is particularly widespread in the Muslim majority areas on the island of Mindanao.
One of global law enforcement’s most wanted child sex offenders, who abused dozens of victims aged between two and 16 years old, has been jailed for 48 years and six months in Malaysia after Australian victim identification specialists helped expose his online alias and track him to a COVID quarantine center.
The California Senate is soon due to vote on the Foreign Labor Contractor Registration bill which, if passed, would extend anti-trafficking protections to all temporary workers in California, in large part by targeting unethical, and often criminal, foreign labour contractors (FLCs).
The GFEMS team has published a new op-ed on the ways in which modern slavery threatens climate protection efforts, and the opportunity for the climate and anti-modern slavery movements to work together and leverage each other’s strengths to advance both missions.
Through its Safety Tech Challenge Fund, the UK Government is awarding five organizations up to £85,000 each to prototype and evaluate innovative ways in which sexually explicit images or videos of children can be detected and addressed within end-to-end encrypted environments, while ensuring user privacy is respected. Applications for funding are open globally and close on 6 October 2021.
One of our community members from South Africa is seeking to connect with other survivor leaders from Africa.
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