scholarly journals Public Procurement as a Tool for the Protection and Promotion of Human Rights: a Study of Collaboration, Due Diligence and Leverage in the Electronics Industry

2018 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 75-95 ◽  
Author(s):  
Olga MARTIN-ORTEGA
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Supply Chain ◽  
Working Conditions ◽  
Public Procurement ◽  
Electronics Industry ◽  
Global Supply Chains ◽  
Due Diligence ◽  
Economic Actor ◽  
Human Rights Due Diligence

AbstractThis article explores the innovative use of public procurement as a tool to respect, protect and promote human rights by capitalizing on the significant leverage that public buyers have over corporate practices in their supply chain. It provides an analysis of Electronics Watch, an organization that focuses on the role of states’ own procurement practices as central to the state duty to protect the human rights of those who are affected by its activities as an economic actor. Through the assessment of the Electronics Watch model this article argues that by bringing together the economic leverage of public buyers and corporate human rights due diligence, one can create transformative tools for the improvement of working conditions in global supply chains.

Corporate Liability Design for Human Rights Abuses: Individual and Entity Liability for Due Diligence

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nick Friedman
Keyword(s):  
Economic Theory ◽  
Human Rights ◽  
Policy Implications ◽  
Global Supply Chains ◽  
Due Diligence ◽  
Human Rights Abuses ◽  
Human Rights Norms ◽  
Corporate Liability ◽  
Human Rights Due Diligence ◽  
Individual Human

Abstract In this article, I critically review the economic theory of corporate liability design, focusing on the allocation of liability between a corporation and its individual human agents. I apply this theory to transnational commercial contexts where human rights abuses occur and assess the likely efficacy of some putative liability regimes, including regimes requiring corporations to undertake human rights due diligence throughout their global supply chains. I advance a set of general considerations justifying the efficacy of due diligence in relation to alternative liability regimes. I argue, however, that due diligence regimes will likely under-deter severe human rights abuses unless they are supported by substantial entity-level sanctions and, in at least some cases, by supplementary liability for individual executives. The analysis has significant policy implications for current national and international efforts to enforce human rights norms against corporations.

scholarly journals Pivoting technology: understanding working conditions in the time of COVID-19

2021 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 195-215
Author(s):  
Hannah Thinyane ◽  
Michael Gallo
Keyword(s):  
Supply Chain ◽  
Data Collection ◽  
Supply Chains ◽  
Multinational Corporations ◽  
Working Conditions ◽  
Global Supply Chains ◽  
Due Diligence ◽  
Labour Exploitation ◽  
Travel Restrictions

State lockdowns and travel restrictions introduced in response to COVID-19 have limited the ability of frontline responders to conduct on-site visits and inhibited their efforts to assess working conditions and monitor for labour exploitation within global supply chains. These challenges have increased multinational corporations’ reliance on remote technologies to assist in their supply chain due diligence processes. Our research investigates the use of one such example, Apprise Audit, which is a digital solution used for worker interviews in social compliance auditing that was modified to enable remote data collection. Based on a series of interviews with implementing partners and industry experts, our research finds that Apprise Audit Remote helps to overcome the difficulties of gathering worker feedback in the presence of COVID related constraints. Using this work as a case study, we then further elaborate on the practical opportunities and limitations associated with ICT-enabled remote auditing.

scholarly journals Mandatory Human Rights Due Diligence in Germany and Norway: Stepping, or Striding, in the Same Direction?

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-9
Author(s):  
Markus KRAJEWSKI ◽  
Kristel TONSTAD ◽  
Franziska WOHLTMANN
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Human Rights ◽  
Supply Chain ◽  
German Law ◽  
International Standards ◽  
Due Diligence ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Decent Work ◽  
Dutch Child ◽  
Human Rights Due Diligence

Germany and Norway are the two latest states to adopt laws mandating human rights due diligence by companies. Germany adopted a Law on Supply Chain Due Diligence (German Law) on 10 June 2021. 1 The same day, the Norwegian parliament passed a Transparency Act (Norwegian Act) requiring human rights and decent work due diligence. 2 Like the French Loi de Vigilance and the Dutch Child Labour Due Diligence Law, these laws provide further momentum for mandatory measures to promote corporate respect for human rights, including future regulations in the European Union (EU). While the aims are similar, the German and Norwegian laws contain certain important differences when it comes to the substance and scope of the due diligence requirement. In this context, adherence to international standards remains the way forward to ensure compliance with divergent requirements in different jurisdictions.

scholarly journals Mandatory Corporate Human Rights Due Diligence Models: Shooting Blanks?

2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (4) ◽  
pp. 33-71
Author(s):  
Vera Rusinova ◽  
Sergei Korotkov
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Legislative Process ◽  
Special Focus ◽  
Due Diligence ◽  
Auxiliary Character ◽  
Global North ◽  
Conflicting Role ◽  
Human Rights Due Diligence ◽  
The Eu

The major stakeholders, including states (at least, in the global North) and transnational corporations (TNCs), have radically changed their attitude to the idea of mandatory human rights due diligence in the last decade. By asking what is behind these good intentions, and whether the mandatory corporate human rights due diligence models enforced so far are effective or represent an exercise in shooting blanks, and by combining a legal positivistic perspective with studies on governance and the production of knowledge, this article contributes to the legal and socio-legal assessment of these changes Assessing the effectiveness of mandatory corporate human rights due diligence, this article discusses the inherent or implied features of this regulatory tool which restrict its ability to serve as an instrument to protect human rights. A special focus is made on two main restrictions that are specific for human rights due diligence: the regulatory boundary revealed in the auxiliary character of due diligence and its limed ability to serve as a standard of conduct, and the epistemic boundary, deriving from the conflicting role of companies as the architects and executives of knowledge production. To a certain extent, the legislative process can counterbalance some of these restrictions by setting up the substantive, precise obligations of companies, and by creating mechanisms of control and remediation. However, the analysis of nine different instruments reveals that neither states, nor the EU have used the potential of the regulatory force.

The Law and Economics of Tort Liability for Human Rights Violations in Global Supply Chains

2019 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 130-165
Author(s):  
Mark A Geistfeld
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Supply Chain ◽  
Supply Chains ◽  
Working Conditions ◽  
Consumer Demand ◽  
Global Supply Chain ◽  
Human Rights Violations ◽  
Foreign Workers ◽  
Global Supply Chains ◽  
Tort Liability

AbstractThe human rights of foreign workers in global supply chains are routinely violated, yet the problem so far has largely evaded a legal solution. Economic analysis shows why domestic tort liability can partially address this problem. Many consumers in developed countries have a lower willingness-to-pay for products produced by global supply chains that systemically subject foreign workers to egregiously dangerous working conditions in gross violation of their human rights. This attribute of consumer demand provides a basis for subjecting the domestic chain leader to domestic tort liability for the bodily injuries suffered by these foreign workers, including those employed by independent suppliers. Chain leaders, like other product sellers, are obligated to warn about foreseeable safety risks that are not known by consumers and would be material to their decision about whether to purchase or use a product. The tort duty also requires sellers to instruct consumers about the ways in which the purchase or use of the product might foreseeably harm third parties. A domestic seller that is the chain leader of a global supply chain would breach this duty by not warning domestic consumers that the product is produced by foreign workers who are systemically subjected to working conditions that are so unsafe as to amount to a gross violation of their human rights. Because the purchase of the product foreseeably exposes foreign workers to this ongoing risk of physical harm, they are protected by the tort duty and can recover for its breach. Causation can be established by the logic of the breached tort duty. If consumers had been warned that the product is produced in such a systemically unsafe work environment, a substantial number of them would not have purchased it – they would instead have purchased the same product at the higher price necessary to protect the foreign workers from these ongoing safety violations. By distorting consumer demand in this manner, the domestic product seller’s failure to warn domestic consumers of these human rights violations in the global supply chain proximately caused injury to these foreign workers, entitling them to compensation. By remedying these human rights violations, domestic chain leaders would satisfy the reasonable expectations of domestic consumers who have altruistic preferences to rescue foreign workers from extreme dangers within the production process. Tort law cannot redress the full range of human rights violations in global supply chains, but consumer demand provides a sound basis for tort liability that addresses a limited, though important component of the problem.

scholarly journals Mind the gap: Grass roots ‘brokering’ to improve labour standards in global supply chains

2017 ◽  
Vol 71 (4) ◽  
pp. 584-609 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sarah J Kaine ◽  
Emmanuel Josserand
Keyword(s):  
Supply Chain ◽  
Supply Chains ◽  
Working Conditions ◽  
Global Supply Chains ◽  
Significant Shift ◽  
Top Down ◽  
Whistle Blowing ◽  
Grass Roots ◽  
Labour Standards ◽  
Implementation Gaps

While governance and regulation are a first step in addressing worsening working conditions in global supply chains, improving implementation is also key to reversing this trend. In this article, after examining the nature of the existing governance and implementation gaps in labour standards in global supply chains, we explore how Viet Labor, an emerging grass-roots organization, has developed practices to help close them. This involves playing brokering roles between different workers and between workers and existing governance mechanisms. We identify an initial typology of six such roles: educating, organizing, supporting, collective action, whistle-blowing and documenting. This marks a significant shift in the way action to improve labour standards along the supply chain is analysed. Our case explores how predominantly top-down approaches can be supplemented by bottom-up ones centred on workers’ agency.

Establishing a Corporate Responsibility Ombudsman: Enhancing remedy through state-based non-judicial mechanisms?

2021 ◽  
Vol 28 (1) ◽  
pp. 102-122
Author(s):  
Juho Saloranta
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Human Rights ◽  
Corporate Responsibility ◽  
Decision Makers ◽  
Sufficient Evidence ◽  
Export Credit ◽  
Due Diligence ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Credit Financing ◽  
Human Rights Due Diligence

This article assesses the efficiency of non-judicial grievance mechanisms in providing victims of corporate human rights violations with improved access to remedy. As no such mechanism is currently available, this article formulates a proposal for a new mechanism in the form of a corporate responsibility ombudsman, which would offer a great deal of flexibility as well as being an inexpensive, expeditious and informal manner of dealing with such issues. The article argues in favour of utilizing states’ regulatory arsenal to improve victims’ access to remedy extraterritorially. Based on recent international developments, I elaborate approaches to human rights due diligence regulation and export credit financing by means of two corporate responsibility ombudsman proposals. In relation to these proposals, I divide the effectiveness criteria of Principle 31 of the United Nations Guiding Principles into three main categories: empowerment, investigation and enforcement. Since obtaining sufficient evidence is of paramount to those seeking remedies for violations of corporate responsibility, states should bestow quasi-judicial powers on corporate responsibility ombudsmen to achieve efficiency, which could also create legitimacy. This article provides decision-makers and scholars with insights into how access to remedy could be synchronized with the momentum of human rights due diligence legislation in the European Union and beyond.

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