Opinion
The role of human rights defenders in enhancing supply chains
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Each industry group needs to work with other key stakeholders to develop common human rights standards and metrics that will set a clear substantive baseline for their industry.
By Michael Posner
The theme of this year’s UN Forum on Business and Human Rights is ‘Tracking Progress and Ensuring Coherence’. This Forum marks the fourth anniversary of the UN Guiding Principles, a fitting time to take stock of the business and human rights field. As the organisers of the Forum aptly observe, while there has been progress since 2011 ‘much remains to be done to translate policy statements and commitments into action and to ensure access to effective remedies for victims of corporate related human rights abuses’. One area where greater attention must now be directed is in tackling human rights challenges throughout global supply chains. An essential element of this effort is to create greater transparency, a place where human rights defenders have a vital role to play.
Global supply chains have been fueled by the rapid expansion of market economies since the early 1990s, trade liberalization, and advances in transportation and communication technologies. The expansion of vast global supply chains has occurred in manufacturing, agriculture, fishing and other industries. The supply chain model has had numerous economic benefits to industry, dramatically reducing costs and making a much higher volume of products and commodities available on shorter time lines. These expanded supply chains also have created millions of new jobs, helping lift hundreds of millions of people out of extreme poverty.
But the rapid growth of supply chains also has brought new challenges, subjecting many of those who work in these industries to exploitation and unsafe working conditions that fail to meet international labour rights standards. Host governments in the places where this work is being done have the primary duty to protect these workers, but all too often they lack the will or capacity to protect their own people. In today’s highly competitive global economy, many of these governments actually relax labor regulations and enforcement as they seek to win business from global brands. In many places they also seek to silence, attack or stigmatise trade union organisers and human rights defenders who they see as an impediment to their efforts to woo these global firms to do business in their countries.
Read more as published by the International Service for Human Rights.
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Michael Posner is a Professor of Business and Society and Co-Director of the NYU Stern Center for Business and Human Rights.
Global supply chains have been fueled by the rapid expansion of market economies since the early 1990s, trade liberalization, and advances in transportation and communication technologies. The expansion of vast global supply chains has occurred in manufacturing, agriculture, fishing and other industries. The supply chain model has had numerous economic benefits to industry, dramatically reducing costs and making a much higher volume of products and commodities available on shorter time lines. These expanded supply chains also have created millions of new jobs, helping lift hundreds of millions of people out of extreme poverty.
But the rapid growth of supply chains also has brought new challenges, subjecting many of those who work in these industries to exploitation and unsafe working conditions that fail to meet international labour rights standards. Host governments in the places where this work is being done have the primary duty to protect these workers, but all too often they lack the will or capacity to protect their own people. In today’s highly competitive global economy, many of these governments actually relax labor regulations and enforcement as they seek to win business from global brands. In many places they also seek to silence, attack or stigmatise trade union organisers and human rights defenders who they see as an impediment to their efforts to woo these global firms to do business in their countries.
Read more as published by the International Service for Human Rights.
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Michael Posner is a Professor of Business and Society and Co-Director of the NYU Stern Center for Business and Human Rights.