Abstract We are moving towards laws that explicitly target GVCs. Building on my earlier research, this Article proposes that our inquiry into the laws governing GVCs should shift from primarily examining the invisible legal underpinnings that influence the distribution of value, to a critical analysis of more recent efforts to regulate value chains for various policy objectives. To that end, this Article suggests reading these new GVC laws as “Techno-Laws” with considerable blind spots: although their aim may be to transform GVCs from within, the obligations they contain enable rather than constrain or replace the ‘older’ private regulatory and governance mechanisms. Even more, through the centrality of documentation, traceability and control requirements, the new GVC laws foster a stronger reliance on material documentary practices (creating ‘paper trails’) and, relatedly, technological advancement regarding software for supply-chain monitoring. Legal pluralism and sciences and technology studies on GVCs have highlighted that GVCs were long characterized by a plurality of legal orders and are already governed extensively by such bureaucratic internal compliance systems, industry standards, certification, and digital technology. I argue that GVC laws accelerate such tendencies. In a second step, I focus on research in science and technology studies that shows what autonomous governance and regulatory dynamics these “Techno-Laws” continue to set in motion within GVCs. These dynamics are, first, an expansion of the boundaries of the value chain to now integrate new actors, relations and power structures as part of the GVC; second, an unconscious doubling of reality through technology; and third, the evolution of new human-machine networks as crucial decision-making centers at the interface of the digital-industrial chain. In the final Part, these observations are used to draw some first consequences for the legal questions posed in relation to GVCs. Using the example of liability in GVCs, I will discuss what legal challenges the increasing reliance on technologies brings and how it may require broadening our preconceptions around liability.
Abstract Amid growing awareness of the fashion industry's impacts, numerous policies have recently emerged that aim to promote sustainability in fashion. Sustainability is conventionally understood as integrating environmental, social, and economic dimensions, with an implicit assumption that environmental objectives align naturally with social improvements, particularly in labor practices. However, both the scholarly literature and evidence from industry practice challenge this assumption. This Article critically examines whether sustainability regulations in fashion prioritize environmental dimensions over social sustainability—and if so, why. Employing qualitative methods, including semi-structured interviews with sustainability practitioners, industry representatives, and labor advocates, this Article analyzes four prominent sustainability-focused regulations identified by interviewees as the most impactful: California SB 707, the New York Fashion Act, the EU Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CSDDD), and the U.S. FABRIC Act. The analysis reveals a notable policy trend toward emphasizing environmental goals at the expense of social sustainability, reinforced by dynamics such as profit-seeking, marketability, resource constraints, measurement challenges, and ambiguities inherent in sustainability definitions. Interview findings further illustrate that companies typically approach sustainability from a compliance-driven and risk-mitigation perspective rather than as a holistic commitment. Consequently, social sustainability—particularly labor rights, fair wages, and safe working conditions—often becomes marginalized within both regulatory frameworks and corporate practices. This research underscores the limitations of current sustainability regulations, highlighting the critical need for integrated frameworks aligned with the principles of a Just Transition, which explicitly balance environmental objectives with robust protections for workers' rights and social equity across global fashion supply chains.
Abstract This paper proposes that there are degrees of monopsony in the relations between headquarter firms (largely located in the Global North) and manufacturing firms (largely located in the Global South) in global value chains (GVCs). However, the power attached to these degrees of monopsony is pegged to the knowledge-intensity, complexity, and quality demands associated with manufacturing the product in question, and to the corresponding ease or difficulty of entry into the relevant GVC manufacturing segment. The paper further argues that manufacturing firms are not involved in arms-length buyer–seller trading transactions, but, rather, the so-called sellers are de-facto contract manufacturers for headquarter firms. Thus, contract manufacturers can be understood as akin to the outsourced manufacturing departments of headquarter firms. Manufacturers are further involved in degrees of monopsony relations with their workers. Global monopsony power-relations are manifested in unfair contracting practices in GVCs, and these unfair contracting practices can encourage (or directly lead to) violations of core labor standards relating to forced labor, gender inequality, child labor, or living wages, among others. The paper considers possible ways to regulate headquarter firms—as global monopsonies—in their contracting practices in GVCs, emphasizing the premise that adherence to core labor standards could be introduced as the baseline condition for GVC contracts. Two approaches to regulation are proposed: to set boundary conditions through a binding International Labour Organization Convention, and to use and develop the legal doctrine of unfair contracts in GVC relations.
Abstract This Article argues that cities—long overlooked in the literature on global value chain (GVC) governance—can and, in some cases, already do function as meaningful regulators of labor, environmental, and human rights standards within global supply networks. While prevailing accounts emphasize states, international organizations, and private actors as central regulatory agents, they all face structural limitations in authority, capacity, and incentives. By contrast, certain cities—especially global, port, gateway and supply-chain cities—have gained strategic economic importance, fiscal resources, and political motivations that position them to intervene in GVCs in novel and impactful ways. Drawing on the literatures on GVCs and global cities, the Article offers a conceptual framework for understanding how urban economic agglomeration, political responsiveness to local constituencies, and transnational city networks converge to create regulatory potential at the local level. Crucially, however, the ability of cities to act as regulators depends not only on economic and political factors, but also on their legal authority and autonomy. The Article therefore introduces a third analytical lens: local government law. It examines how legal frameworks structure municipal powers across different national contexts, shaping the scope of urban regulatory intervention. Through comparative case studies from the United States, China, and India, the Article illustrates how cities operate within divergent institutional arrangements and legal constraints to influence GVC governance. In doing so, it reimagines the role of local governments—not as peripheral actors, but as strategically situated, legally conditioned, and increasingly necessary participants in the regulation of global production.
Abstract Public international law, including legal instruments such as trade agreements and forced labor import bans, increasingly delegates the monitoring and reporting of compliance to private actors in other countries. This mimics national whistleblowing schemes that delegate reporting responsibilities to private actors. However, little is known about whether private actors in other countries are aware of the rules they should monitor or their reporting opportunities. We also do not know whether those actors trust the legitimacy of the foreign governments to which they are expected to report. Without knowledge and trust, private actors may refrain from participating in public international law initiatives, depriving governments of valuable insights and data across borders. The United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) Facility-Specific Rapid Response Labor Mechanism (RRM) calls on workers in Mexico's trade sector to monitor the workplace and report violations of Mexico's new labor law to the U.S. government. Using it as a case study, this Article describes the results of an empirical project in the Mexican auto sector that sought to ascertain workers' views on their labor rights, and their understanding of and trust in the RRM's enforcement platform. The results reveal an acute disparity in awareness and trust among many of these workers, particularly those who had not participated in the RRM or received assistance from U.S. stakeholders. The Article argues that monitoring and reporting schemes that cross national boundaries must be reconceptualized to offer private actors opportunities to learn the rules they are expected to monitor and give them reason to trust foreign government enforcement.
