Martin-Ortega, Olga ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1779-0120 (2024) Chapter 10. Human rights violations in global supply chains: acknowledging and addressing systemic abuses. In: Bhuiyan, Md Jahid Hossain and Islam, M Rafiqul, (eds.) Business, Human Rights and Sustainble Development. International Studies in Human Rights, 146 . Brill/Nijhoff - Koninklijke Brill BV, Leiden, The Netherlands, pp. 247-274. ISBN 978-9004530935; 978-900430942 (doi:10.1163/9789004530942_011)

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Abstract

Human and labour rights violations are not merely incidents in global supply chains. The complex structures through which the global production of goods is organised seek the minimisation of costs through highly fragmented and geographically dispersed networks. Through several tiers of production across several jurisdictions, the lower tiers of manufacture are often located in low and middle income countries. In this way, production in global supply chains minimises not just labour costs, but legal responsibility for most of the corporate actors involved. Global supply chains are not only characterised by their transnational dimension and complexity, but also by the asymmetric power relations between brands and suppliers, contractor and subcontractors and ultimately corporate actors and workers. In this context, workers at the lower tiers of the chain become vulnerable to abuse, from the moment they get recruited to how they are paid and made to work and when they are dismissed. Classifying the violations of human and labour rights in the context of global supply chain is not an easy exercise. Violations of human rights in supply chains compound a continuum of exploitation, ranging from low wages and abusive working conditions to forced labour and human trafficking. The condition of vulnerability is not only linked to inherent personal characteristics, but also context specific. In other words, it is caused by diverse situational, and often temporary, elements which evolve into situations in which a person does not have any alternative but to submit to exploitation and other forms of abuse. The ways in which the inequality of power, dependency, capacity or need make people vulnerable to harm or exploitation of others is what Mackenzie, Rogers and Dodds, refer to as ‘situational vulnerability.’ By this concept they highlight how vulnerability is fostered by diverse factors, which include personal, social, political, economic and environmental situations, including abusive interpersonal and social relationships, socio-political oppression and injustice. Therefore, abuses do not arise spontaneously in supply chains; rather, as LeBaron demonstrates in her work, patterns which result in vulnerability are part of the business models and commercial dynamics. The international human rights and labour rights regimes have so far failed to provide an adequate response to this reality. Global supply chains dynamics demand regulatory frameworks which devise how to extend human and labour rights protection beyond individual states’ borders, and how to remedy violations which take place away from where the decision maker sits. Human Rights Due Diligence (HRDD) is being suggested as a response to address human rights in global supply chains. The question that arises, however, is it enough to address systemic issues which perpetuate violations of workers’ rights? This chapter looks at two specific issues: abusive labour recruitment – which subject workers to debt and bondage even before starting their employment relationship- and low wages – this is, wages that cannot be considered living wages, therefore, not enough to have a dignified life. Further, this chapter reflects on the nature of these as systemic issues in supply chains and whether HRDD can provide an answer to addressing them.

Item Type:	Book Section
Uncontrolled Keywords:	global supply chains, forced labour, wages, abusive recruitment
Subjects:	H Social Sciences > H Social Sciences (General) J Political Science > JX International law K Law > K Law (General)
Faculty / School / Research Centre / Research Group:	Faculty of Liberal Arts & Sciences Faculty of Liberal Arts & Sciences > School of Law & Criminology (LAC)
Last Modified:	11 Dec 2024 15:25
URI:	http://gala.gre.ac.uk/id/eprint/48856

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