Steering CSR Through Home State Regulation: A Comparison of the Impact of the UK Bribery Act and Modern Slavery Act on Global Supply Chain Governance (original) (raw)
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Socio-Economic Review
Over the last decade, the norm of corporate accountability for labour standards in global supply chains has become increasingly prominent within the transnational governance arena. As global governance initiatives to spur due diligence for labour standards and combat exploitation in global supply chains— especially its most severe forms frequently described as modern slavery— have proliferated, societal coalitions have pressured states to pass domestic legislation to the same effect. In this paper, we examine the regulatory processes that spurred the passage of one piece of anti-slavery legislation, the United Kingdom’s 2015 Modern Slavery Act. Our findings corroborate a number of established expectations regarding business opposition towards new legislation to raise public labour standards, but also provide a clearer picture of the mechanisms through which industry actors impact policymaking processes. Paradoxically, such mechanisms include business actors’ championing of weak regulatory initiatives, CSR activity, and partnering with civil society organizations. Understanding industry actors’ use of these strategies improves our understanding of how transnational norms of corporate accountability and anti-slavery are being contested and shaped at domestic scales.
Human Rights Risks in Global Supply Chains: Applying the UK Modern Slavery Act to the Public Sector
Global Policy, 2017
Global supply chains (GSCs) are organised through complex networks which leave workers vulnerable to exploitation and unprotected against abusive labour practices including modern slavery. However, attention has focused on business responsibilities for the impact of commercial activities on human rights with little focus on the role of states as economic actors and their duties regarding their own supply chain, including through public procurement. This article is the first to analyse the application of the Transparency in Supply Chains provision (TiSCs) of the UK Modern Slavery Act (2015) to the public sector. The TiSCs oblige commercial organisations are obliged to report on efforts to identify, prevent, and mitigate modern slavery in their supply chain. This article finds that whilst most reporting in the first year by public buyers, the bulk of which have been universities, fall short of what is expected of institutions according to Government guidance the exercise of reporting has initiated an important process of awareness. The public sector faces a steep learning curve to develop effective human rights due diligence in their supply chain. However, the TiSCs obligation has proved a catalyst for a wider process of understanding human rights risks and responsibilities in public supply chains. Policy implications: Box-ticking exercises do not represent the spirit and ultimate aim of the regulation. The Slavery and Human Trafficking Statement (the statement) should be a live document, which should drive policy change, commitments and behaviours to guarantee that purchasing choices do not contribute to the violation of the rights of labourers. Public bodies should have the necessary support and guidance to comply with their obligations. Through due diligence processes, public buyers should establish systematic ways to access and assess information on their supply chain, and avenues for effective dialogue and engagement with suppliers. Preventing, mitigating and remediating human rights risks in supply chains does not necessarily imply terminating relationship with suppliers. Universities need to develop adequate due diligence processes to satisfy their responsibilities under the MSA and transform the way they think about procurement. They need to devote the necessary resources and human capital to them; public procurement teams alone cannot undertake such responsibilities. Public buyers have a heightened responsibility to combat human rights violations in their supply chain and as such it should be reflected in the MSA. New obligations to reflect this responsibility and social expectations should be introduced and effective guidance should be developed, as well as sanctions for non-compliance. Public buyers are key actors in bringing positive change and transforming GSCs to minimise and address the impact of modern slavery. Considerations to amend the MSA to include specific provisions for public authorities should be taken seriously in order to guarantee an appropriate role of public buyers in the combat against modern slavery in the GSC. Several states are considering the development of UK-style modern slavery legislation. They should establish clear obligations for public buyers in these normative developments and provide the necessary guidance to guarantee the fulfilment of the state obligation to protect human rights when acting as an economic agent, beyond the ad hoc inclusion of some public buyers among the reporting organisations, as it has happened in the UK.
International supply chains: compliance and engagement with the Modern Slavery Act
Journal of the British Academy
The UK Modern Slavery Act aims to reduce and eradicate various forms of exploitation and is in this respect in line with the Sustainability Development Goal (SDG) 8.7. Section 54 of the act focusses on modern slavery in the international supply chain of organisations and obligates organisations to report on the actions they have taken to identify and address exploitation vulnerabilities. In order to understand how effective the current provisions in the act are, we analyse how businesses in the fashion and textile industry engage with the reporting requirements of Section 54. While we find increasing compliance with the act, a significant share of fashion and textile businesses have not reported on their actions or have only filed a statement once.
The Role of Supply Chains in the Global Business of Forced Labour
Journal of Supply Chain Management, 2021
Supply chains are fundamental to whether decent work flourishes or not. Not only do supply chain dynamics shape employment practices and working conditions, but they also influence business models and capabilities which structure opportunities for decent work. As scholars and policymakers race to strengthen labor standards in supply chains and confront barriers to their effective implementation, management scholars can both benefit from and advance an understanding of the role of supply chains in giving rise to indecent work, especially the business practices commonly described as forced labor and modern slavery. To help realize this potential, this article draws from my research on the business of forced labor to emphasize three points. First, there are clear and discernible patterns with respect to the root causes of forced labor in supply chains. Second, forced labor in supply chains cannot be understood in isolation of broader dynamics of work and employment, since low-waged workers tend to move in and out of conditions of forced labor in relatively short periods of time. Third, on-the-ground studies of the effectiveness of buyer-centric governance programs reveal serious gaps between corporate social responsibility standards and business practices when it comes to indicators most relevant to forced labor. I conclude with a discussion of future directions in this research agenda and highlight the potential for business scholars to make a contribution.
Governance gaps in eradicating forced labor: From global to domestic supply chains
Regulation & Governance
A growing body of scholarship analyzes the emergence and resilience of forced labor in developing countries within global value chains. However, little is known about how forced labor arises within domestic supply chains concentrated within national borders, producing products for domestic consumption. We conduct one of the first studies of forced labor in domestic supply chains, through a cross-industry comparison of the regulatory gaps surrounding forced labor in the United Kingdom. We find that understanding the dynamics of forced labor in domestic supply chains requires us to conceptually modify the global value chain framework to understand similarities and differences across these contexts. We conclude that addressing the governance gaps that surround forced labor will require scholars and policymakers to carefully refine their thinking about how we might design operative governance that effectively engages with local variation.
Journal of The British Academy, 2019
Global supply chains cross and connect judicial systems, providing regulatory and legal frameworks in which supply chains operate. This article investigates the impact and implementation of modern slavery laws and the broader legal framework surrounding Brazilian-UK beef and timber supply chains towards their modern slavery exposure in connection with their supply-chain characteristics. The article outlines the current challenges presented by modern slavery, labour exploitation , and human rights implementation to supply-chain management and explains the origins and application of current legal frameworks in which these supply chains operate. The heterogeneity of the two sectors allows the extraction of variations in supply-chain characteristics such as buyer-supplier relationships, responsible sourcing, supply-chain compliance, and the availability and accessibility of sales markets and supply options. These supply-chain characteristics are then connected to the legal frameworks and to current business practices to discuss their effect on modern slavery risks and exposure.
British Journal of Industrial Relations, 2013
Recent research on regulation and governance suggests that a mixture of public and private interventions is necessary to improve working conditions and environmental standards within global supply chains. Yet less attention has been directed to how these different forms of regulation interact in practice. The form of these interactions is investigated through a contextualized comparison of suppliers producing for Hewlett-Packard, one of the world's leading global electronics firms. Using a unique dataset describing Hewlett-Packard's supplier audits over time, coupled with qualitative fieldwork at a matched pair of suppliers in Mexico and the Czech Republic, this study shows how private and public regulation can interact in different ways-sometimes as complements; other times as substitutes-depending upon both the national contexts and the specific issues being addressed. Results from our analysis show that private interventions do not exist within a vacuum, but rather these efforts to enforce labour and environmental standards are affected by state and non-governmental actors.
Modern slavery and transparency in supply chains
The modern slavery agenda, 2019
The UK Modern Slavery Act aims to reduce and eradicate various forms of exploitation and is in this respect in line with the Sustainability Development Goal (SDG) 8.7. Section 54 of the act focusses on modern slavery in the international supply chain of organisations and obligates organisations to report on the actions they have taken to identify and address exploitation vulnerabilities. In order to understand how effective the current provisions in the act are, we analyse how businesses in the fashion and textile industry engage with the reporting requirements of Section 54. While we find increasing compliance with the act, a significant share of fashion and textile businesses have not reported on their actions or have only filed a statement once.
Closing the Governance Gap: From CSR to enforceable agreements in the global garment industry
This research starts with a simple premise: namely, that the statist model of labour regulation is increasingly anachronistic as it fails to cover transnational corporations (TNCs) and their global supply chains. The garment industry has not only become a textbook example of how economic globalisation has led to poor and unsafe working conditions; it has also become a laboratory for new forms of transnational collective bargaining. This research will look at five different worker-driven strategies for engaging TNCs in a system of negotiated supply chain accountability. It will examine the counter-hegemonic potential of these initiatives to challenge corporate-led globalisation and to chart alternative paths of corporate accountability. As such, it seeks to contribute to new discourses and socio-legal strategies on advancing social justice within global supply chains.