Fair Labor Association Investigation Report on Apple Inc.'s Foxconn Supplier Labor Practices

The Fair Labor Association today released its report on its investigation of the labor practices of Apple, Inc.'s Foxconn supplier.  

 

This from the announcement of the report from the FLA Website along with links to the report:

Report on Current Actions Under OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises

The OECD's Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises (English, French, German) are are recommendations addressed by governments to multinational enterprises operating in or from forty three (43) adhering governments, representing most developed states. "The Guidelines provide voluntary principles and standards for responsible business conduct consistent with applicable laws and internationally recognised standards. However, the countries adhering to the Guidelines make a binding commitment to implement them in accordance with the Decision of the OECD Council on the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises." (From Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises 2011 Edition, Preface, Para. 1, at 13).

Statement of Larry Catá Backer: Input and Suggestions to the SG Report, Advancing the Business and Human Rights Agenda of the "Protect, Respect and Remedy" Guiding Principles

In Human Rights Council Resolution 17/4 (June 7, 2011) the Human Rights Council endorsed the Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights for implementing the "Protect, Respect, and Remedy" Framework (A/HRC/17/31) presented by John Ruggie, the former Special Representative of the Secretary General.  Paragraph 11 of Resolution 17/4 requests the Secretary General to prepare a report on how the United Nations system can contribute to the advancement of the business and human rights agenda and the dissemination and implementation of the Guiding Principles.  

(From Are Companies Ready to Implement UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights?,

Institute for Human Rights and Business, March 31, 2011).

To that end, the  The U.N. Secretary General recently distributed a call for input and suggestions  to organizations and individuals engaged in activities related to human rights.  The following is the statement I delivered in response to that request.

Part XXV—Zhiwei Tong (童之伟) Series: Petitioning System and the Constitution of China (Part III)

 (Zhiwei Tong, PIX (c) Larry Catá Backer)

For 2012, this site introduces the thought of Zhiwei Tong (童之伟), one of the most innovative scholars of constitutional law in China.   Professor Tong has been developing his thought in part in a essay site that was started in 2010.  See, Larry Catá Backer, Introducing a New Essay Site on Chinese Law by Zhiwei Tong, Law at the End of the Day, Oct. 16, 2010.  Professor Tong is on the faculty of law at East China University of Political Science and Law.  He is the Chairman of the Constitution Branch of the Shanghai Law Society and the Vice Chairman of the Constitution Branch of the China Law Society.

The  Zhiwei Tong (童之伟) Series focuses on translating some of Professor Tong's work on issues of criminal law and justice in China, matters that touch on core constitutional issues.  Each of the posting will include an English translation from the original Chinese, the Chinese original and a link to the original essay site. Many of the essays will include annotations that may also be of interest.  I hope those of you who are interested in Chinese legal issues will find these materials, hard to get in English, of use.  I am grateful to my research assistants, YiYang Cao and Zhichao Yi for their able work in translating these essays.

TABLE OF CONTENTS FOR THE SERIES AVAILABLE HERE.

Jernej Letnar Cernic on the 2011 Updates of the OECD's Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises

Jernej Letnar Cernic, who teaches at the School of Government and European Studies and at the European School of Law, Slovenia, has published a short but useful guide to the 2011 updates of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development's Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises. ASIL Insight on The 2011 Update of the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises (Vol 16(4), Feb. 10, 2012)

New Essay: Transparency in International Private Law

For those interested, I have posted the following essay to the Social Science Research Network (SSRN) website.  

(Pix (c) Larry Catá Backer 2012)

Transparency and Business in International Law—Governance Between Norm and Technique

Larry Catá Backer

Abstract:
This essay considers transparency and business in international law as a matter of the dynamic tension between norm and technique in the management of systems and the masses of the population they serve. It is divided into two parts. After this Introduction, Part II critically examines transparency in international and transnational regulatory and governance regimes. It considers both hard and soft law frameworks. Section II.A considers public sources of transparency regulation, concentrating on two: the OECD framework and the recently endorsed Guiding Principles of Business and Human Rights. Sections II.B through II.D examine transparency and governance beyond the state, considering (i) hybrid governance efforts represented by the ISO and Global Compact systems (Section II.B), (ii) private third party non-corporate governance regimes represented by the GRI and third-party certification programs (Section II.C), and (iii) private corporate governance transparency regimes (Section II.D). Part III then examines transparency in action. Part III.A explores environmental disclosure by BP before and after the Deepwater Horizon explosion and oil spill of 2010. Section III.B examines Apple, Inc.’s transparency efforts in the context of managing the labor issues of its supply chains. Section III.C critically examines transparency as regulation and action within the framework developed in this Introduction, focusing particularly on the way in which the characteristics of transparency as norm, technique and property fundamentally shape both its character and the parameters within which reform is possible.

Transparency and Monitoring Corporate Social Responsibility: Apple, Foxconn and 'This American Life'

Apple, Inc., has long operated its own set of corporate social responsibility grounded codes of operation for its own activities and those of its supply chain. It has also long been the object of monitoring, based in part ion its reports and in part on the investigative work of outside monitors, facilitated by press coverage of the results of these investigations, for a number of years. See, e.g., Larry Catá Backer, Corporate Social Responsibility and Voluntary Codes: Apple, its Stakeholders, and its Chinese Laborers, Law at the End of the Day, June 16, 2006. 

 

 

 (Brent Dirks, 'This American Life' Issues Stunning Retraction On Show Critical Of Apple, Foxconn, AppAdvice.com)

 

 

It is possible to surmise that voluntary codes—when coupled with monitoring from outside sources (for example NGOs or the media)—may well tend to affect corporate behaviour at least to some small extent. It also now appears to affect the behavior of CSR civil society and media monitors as well. This essay focuses on Apple's relationship with its monitors and the development, at least in initial outline, of the form that the discipline of transparency monitors will take--with particular attention to the recent monitoring misrepresentation retracted from This American Life.

Ruminations XXXIX: Transparency As Property

Transparency is coming to be understood as a concept that serves as both norm (substantive rules, instrumental use) and technique (process, method, metrics).  In its dual roles, transparency has both broadened its measuring and expanded its governance effect. Transparency has come to stand for (i) an identifiable set of information (data), (ii) the generation of that data and its mechanics; (iii) the categorization of that data (data grouping) (iv) the generation of assessment metrics through which data is contextualized, (v) the use of that data (and assessments) by data generators, and (vi) the use of that data  (and assessments) by others.  While this basis for theorizing transparency helps explain much, it yet perhaps misses some important nuances.

 (Pix (c) Larry Catá Backer 2012)

These remarks suggest that though it is useful to approach understandings of transparency within this norm-technique matrix, this approach does not fully capture the nuances of the concept.  I would suggest another layer--the notion of transparency as property.

Part XXIV—Zhiwei Tong (童之伟) Series: Petitioning System and the Constitution of China (Part II)

 (Zhiwei Tong, PIX (c) Larry Catá Backer)

For 2012, this site introduces the thought of Zhiwei Tong (童之伟), one of the most innovative scholars of constitutional law in China.   Professor Tong has been developing his thought in part in a essay site that was started in 2010.  See, Larry Catá Backer, Introducing a New Essay Site on Chinese Law by Zhiwei Tong, Law at the End of the Day, Oct. 16, 2010.  Professor Tong is on the faculty of law at East China University of Political Science and Law.  He is the Chairman of the Constitution Branch of the Shanghai Law Society and the Vice Chairman of the Constitution Branch of the China Law Society.

The  Zhiwei Tong (童之伟) Series focuses on translating some of Professor Tong's work on issues of criminal law and justice in China, matters that touch on core constitutional issues.  Each of the posting will include an English translation from the original Chinese, the Chinese original and a link to the original essay site. Many of the essays will include annotations that may also be of interest.  I hope those of you who are interested in Chinese legal issues will find these materials, hard to get in English, of use.  I am grateful to my research assistants, YiYang Cao and Zhichao Yi for their able work in translating these essays.

TABLE OF CONTENTS FOR THE SERIES AVAILABLE HERE.

Fugitive Disentitlement and the Juridical Presumptions of Administrative Agencies in the United States

Courts in the United States have all sorts of procedural mechanisms for acting summarily against disrespectful litigants.  These mechanisms make sense as punitive devices in the context of equity--a litigant ought not to preserve her rights intact where she has failed to conform her behavior to the rules applicable to all parties. Some of these have been written into statute.  One of them is the so-called principle of fugitive disentitlement:

(Pix (c) Larry Catá Backer)