Please note: this event has passed
Power and Accountability in Global Supply Chain Governance
The Transnational Law Institute (King’s College London) and the Subir and Malini Chowdhury Center for Bangladesh Studies (University of California, Berkeley) are pleased to invite you to the first of a Conference Series on Critical Perspectives on Power, Accountability and Agency in Global Supply Chains that will take place on 22-23 November 2019 at King’s College London. This conference follows a number of events previously held by the Transnational Law Institute, as part of a larger research project that seeks to resituate the global supply chain as a multifaceted research object between theory and practice. And it will coincide with the launch of Labor, Global Supply Chains and the Garment Industry in South Asia: Bangladesh after Rana Plaza (Routledge, 2019), a new book edited by Dr Sanchita B. Saxena.
Background
Recent disasters (e.g. the Rana Plaza and Ali Enterprises factory fires in Bangladesh and Pakistan) and growing concerns over environmental challenges (e.g. environmental degradation in Nigeria and Zambia) posed by corporate activities have led to the multiplication of calls and efforts to regulate corporate human and environmental rights violations. Current regulatory approaches have mainly taken the form of ‘soft’ and ‘hard’ regulations that emphasise the importance of transparency, human rights due diligence and corporate criminal law for the governance of global supply chains. They increasingly also involve transnational lawsuits that seek to hold parent companies liable for human rights violations committed by their subsidiaries overseas, and an emerging global movement for a binding treaty on business and human rights. Despite these advances, however, there remain persistent challenges and questions about the transformational potential and sustainability of these strategies. How are these initiatives developed, and by whom? How are they perceived, experienced, influenced by or influencing their presumed intended beneficiaries? How do they relate to, or interact with, domestic initiatives and social movements?
This conference seeks to initiate new discussions and explore new perspectives on the current state and prospects of global supply chain regulation and governance. Among other things, conference participants will reflect on the impacts of existing supply chain regulations, the political-economic contexts within which these regulations are developed and implemented, and their impacts on the ground. They will also explore the role that predominant business models play in undermining labour standards in global supply chains and how Southern actors (states, businesses and civil society) have responded to these challenges so far.
Conveners: Liliane Mouan (Transnational Law Institute, King’s College London & Coventry University) and Sanchita B. Saxena (Subir and Malini Chowdhury Center for Bangladesh Studies, University of California, Berkeley).
Please find the draft agenda here.
This event is open to the public and everybody is welcome to attend, though everyone must register.
Seats are allocated on a strictly first come, first served basis.
If you find you can no longer attend please cancel your ticket registration, so that someone else can have your place.