A Review of Private Regulation: Codes and Monitoring in the Apparel Industry

Abstract

This article reviews the last decade of scholarship on a leading corporate social responsibility initiative: the use of codes of conduct and monitoring in the global garment industry. The review focuses on three debates in the field: the evaluation of code and monitoring effectiveness, the problematic of various relationships in transnational anti-sweatshop campaigns, and the meaning of private regulation vis-a-vis state enforcement. The article concludes that codes and monitoring do not constitute a solution to the sweatshop problem and certainly cannot substitute for state enforcement or worker organizing. If private regulation is to contribute to a solution in a meaningful way, it must move from a model that presumes compliance and, therefore, focuses on ferreting out violators, to one that assumes non-compliance, and so concentrates on altering the structure of the industry.

The Governance of Forced Labour in the Global Economy

“…This not only runs counter to empirical evidence that the generalized direction of change 'on the ground' has not been towards greater compliance (Newell 2005;Lund-Thomsen 2008;Esbenshade 2012), but also tends to obscure from view the structural and systemic roots of labour exploitation and forced labour.…”

Outsourcing governance: states and the politics of a ‘global value chain world’

“…Particularly in relation to labour and environmental standards, the dominant governance agents are now assumed to be private corporate actors putting in place a mode of 'transnational private regulation' (Bartley 2007), whose relationship with public governance remains the subject of debate. Such outcomes have been lamented by many, arguing that private governance cannot be considered an effective or legitimate substitute for public governance, and that public and private governance can be, increasingly are, and need to be complementary (Mayer and Gereffi 2010, Vogel 2010, Esbenshade 2012, Locke 2013. The assumption nevertheless often remains that private governance is in the ascendant (and has been for some time), and that public authority is increasingly compressed by private governance.…”

“…It has been well documented that the functions of regulatory governance have been assumed increasingly by private actors, especially in relation to labour and environmental standards (Mayer and Gereffi 2010, Vogel 2010, Büthe and Mattli 2011, Esbenshade 2012, Haufler 2013, Locke 2013, Auld 2014, LeBaron and Lister 2015. Private actors are increasingly cast as regulators, important development actors and agents of global justice.…”

“…Building on earlier debates about corporate social responsibility (CSR), this literature takes as its primary focus the ascendance of private actors in regulatory governance. An extensive body of work documents the governance strategies pursued by firms in GVCs, including corporate codes of conduct, auditing regimes, social and environmental labelling, and product and social standards (see Esbenshade 2012), alongside parallel interests in private standard setting in the global economy (e.g. Büthe and Mattli 2011).…”

Do Factory Audits Improve International Labor Standards? An Examination of Voluntary Corporate Labor Regulations in Global Production Networks

“…However, there is a growing body of empirical work that questions the effectiveness of CSR codes of conduct and auditing (Esbenshade 2012). For example, some local producers have become as powerful as MNCs because of their size, prominent position in a GPN, and/or lack of viable alternatives in a GPN.…”