Multi-stakeholder regulation: privatizing or socializing global labor standards?

Abstract

This paper evaluates leading non-governmental labor regulation initiatives in the United States and Europe. It comparatively assesses the codes of conduct and monitoring systems within these initiatives, discusses their different models of regulation, and proposes criteria for evaluating their effectiveness. It identifies critical factors which appear to support more effective non-governmental regulation, such as substantive participation of local stakeholders; public transparency of methods and findings; and mechanisms that bring market pressures to bear on multi-national corporations, and simultaneously support processes of multi-stakeholder problem solving within factories and global supply chains.