In 2013 stortte een acht verdiepingen tellend gebouw in, het Rana Plaza in Bangladesh. Bij deze ramp overleden 1134 mensen en raakten er nog meer gewond. Het was al bekend dat het gebouw niet meer veilig was en toch moesten de werknemers van de kledingfabrieken in het gebouw naar hun werk die dag. Na deze ramp besefte de wereld en de overheid in Bangladesh dat er iets moest veranderen met de veiligheid in de gebouwen, de hoogte van het minimumloon en andere kwesties die speelden in veel kledingfabrieken. In Nederland was er in de negentiende eeuw een soortgelijke situatie: slechte werkomstandigheden, lange werkdagen en kinderarbeid. Uiteindelijk is de situatie in Nederland verbeterd, maar dat heeft wel een lange tijd geduurd.

In dit blog wordt gezocht naar overeenkomsten en verschillen tussen de situatie in Bangladesh de afgelopen twintig jaar en de situatie in Nederlandse fabrieken in de negentiende en twintigste eeuw. Er wordt gekeken naar lonen, werktijden, veiligheid van fabrieken en kinderarbeid.

On Friday the 15th of March 2024 the much-discussed corporate sustainability due diligence directive (CSDDD) was adopted by the EU council. Last month many worried that no agreement would be reached, but the adjustments made to the final draft proved sufficient to convince the three opposing Member States, Italy, Germany and France. On Tuesday the 19th, the European Parliament's Legal Affairs Committee approved the CSDDD as well. In this blog, we will discuss these adjustments. What compromises have made the critical member states change their mind? Furthermore, considering the directive is still up for voting procedures in the European Parliament (EP), how do members of European Parliament perceive the adjustments? 

Sustainability goals are nowadays of high importance for many organisations. To make a real impact, it is often way more effective to work together instead of individually when it comes to sustainability. However, these collaborations can raise risks as well. For instance, in May this year the UN’s Net-Zero Insurance Alliance (an alliance for mitigating climate change) lost half its members due to fear of competition law violations, caused by backlash in the US. On the other hand, when competition authorities support these collaborations, a risk of cartel greenwashing arises, when businesses use sustainability goals as a cover for cartels. In this blog, I will explain the headlines of what we need to know about this issue.

Despite facing criticism on possible human rights violations, Qatar hosted the FIFA World Cup last year. The allegations included substandard working conditions for migrant workers and a breach of their fundamental labour rights. Even though numerous human rights organisations tried to raise awareness for the situation, the World Cup still took place. Their efforts were not completely in vain, since this kicked off a cooperation program between the International Labour Organization (ILO) and the Government of Qatar. To delve deeper into the Qatar situation, read our previous blog. 

As introduced in our previous blog, this series will explore the Fundamental Labour Rights that were recognized as such by the International Labour Organisation (ILO) in the Declaration of Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work. The Five Fundamental Labour Rights are the abolition of Child Labour, the elimination of Forced Labour, the right to Freedom of Association and Collective Bargaining, the elimination of Discrimination and Occupational Health and Safety. In each blog, we will dissect one of these rights and determine their relevance using current data. In this part, we will focus on Child Labour. 

In previous blogs we have written about human rights and the protection thereof. Many guidelines and regulations - for example the OECD Guidelines and the Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights  - incorporate human rights due diligence. Human rights due diligence is a means of achieving the goal of protecting human rights. But what does it entail?

Ethical standards in business gain importance. That is why our Database filters the codes of conduct, supplier codes of conduct and other ethical documents from companies worldwide on the presence of the core labour standards. These standards are recognized by the International Labour Organisation (ILO) as fundamental labour rights and they became the benchmark in guidelines and ethical documents from companies where labour issues are concerned.

‘The Accord’, an international accord between labour unions and fashion companies to ensure safety in clothing factories in Bangladesh and Pakistan, has been renewed for another six years. Some of the biggest brands in the fashion industry have signed this new accord, such as Hugo Boss, H&M, G-Star, C&A and Zara. But these signatories do not only include fashion companies, but also other companies such as Aldi, Lidl, Target and Trader Joe’s. This accord is the successor of the original Bangladesh Accord. The Bangladesh Accord was reached after the Rana Plaza collapse, the biggest disaster in the garment industry as of yet, now ten years ago. If you would like to know more, read one of our previous blogs which discusses the Bangladesh Accord and this event thoroughly. 

On September 18th 2023, International Equal Pay Day was celebrated. This initiative from the United Nations, including the International Labour Organisation (ILO), strives to achieve equal pay for work of equal value. International Equal Pay Day was not officially recognized by the United Nations until 2020. The idea was derived from the National Committee on Pay Equity, which started a similar action in 1996 to raise awareness for the pay gap between salaries of men and women in the United States. Since being recognized by the United Nations, International Equal Pay Day has become a global phenomenon. Now that the inequality in salary between men and women has mostly been acknowledged, the focus lies on making a change to start narrowing this gap in practice. According to the numbers the United Nations refers to, the gender pay gap has been estimated at 20 per cent globally. Consequently, the UN founded the Equal Pay International Coalition (EPIC), which works on reducing this number and achieving gender equality in the workplace. Their vision is to ensure active behaviour from governments and private entities to implement initiatives for equal pay. They strive to realise this by 2030, through educating these institutions, encouraging innovation and creating initiatives and programmes which have positive results. 

In previous blogs, the European Directive and the concept of mandatory due diligence were introduced. The contents of the European Directive have since been explained and then compared to various attempts at national mandatory due diligence legislation, such as in Germany, the Netherlands and France. All these pieces of legislation are in some way based on the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs), which first introduced a framework to implement mandatory due diligence obligations. The European Directive goes as far as to include several references to the UNGPs in its recitals. Given the criticism that the European Directive has received from various stakeholders in terms of its applicability and scope, it could be called into question to what extent the European Directive in fact incorporates and reflects the UNGPs. It is this question we shall explore in this blogpost.

In the Kingdom of the Netherlands, 2023 is a Slavery Memorial Year, celebrating that 150 years ago, slavery was actually abolished in the Kingdom. On 2 December, it will be 74 years since slavery has been internationally abolished by the General Assembly of the United Nations. This might seem like slavery is something from the past, but the UN warns that “modern slavery is on the rise”. According to the most recent estimates of the ILO, around 50 million people worldwide are trapped in modern slavery. Does this mean that slavery still exists?

In part 3 of this series we discussed the contents and scope of the difficult-to-read Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CSDDD). When this part was written, the text of the Directive was not yet final. The penultimate part of this series on mandatory due diligence will discuss the most recent developments regarding the proposed Directive.

On June 15, 2023 the Law faculty at Leiden University hosted the launch of the book ‘Panta Rhei: recht en duurzaamheid’ (Phanta Rhei: law and sustainability), edited by dr. Yvonne Erkens, dr. Cees de Groot and dr. Chris van Oostrum. The book contains a collection of twelve articles from thirteen researchers from Leiden University. Most of these articles are written in Dutch, except for two (written in English). Readers of this blog will already be familiar with many of the authors’ names. Prof. Paul van der Heijden, one of the founders of the Database of Business Ethics, has written an article about the meaning of ‘decent work’. Sarah Vandenbroucke, a contributor to the Database, has written an article about the actual effect of Codes of Conduct. A version of this article has also been published as a blog. And of course one of the editors of ‘Panta Rhei’ is dr. Yvonne Erkens, the main driving force behind the Database.

Large multinationals are ‘union busting’. This entails that they are fighting trade unions to prevent workers from exercising their right to freedom of association and collective bargaining. For instance, famous coffee chain Starbucks ran a fierce anti-union campaign. Amazon even spent 14.2 million dollars on anti-union consultants last year to prevent freedom of association and collective bargaining within its workforce. Additionally, Google hired union-busting consultants to convince employees that “unions suck”.

In order to work together on sustainable business practices, multi-stakeholder initiatives (MSIs) entail interactive processes involving corporations, civil society organizations, and other interest groups. MSIs are organizations with a membership-based structure (for example the Fear Wear Foundation), project facilitators, roundtable talks (for example the Dutch Coal Dialogue), and accredited bodies, among others, that perform diverse tasks. In spite of their differences, all MSIs strive to promote sustainability in company operations through stakeholder collaboration.