Code of Labour Practices for the Apparel Industry Including Sportswear

Code of labor practices which Clean Clothes Campaign seeks to have agreed to and enforced by companies at international level. The code sets forth minimum standards for wages, working time and working conditions and provides for observance of all of the core standards of the International Labour Organization

Does ratification matter and do major conventions improve safety and decrease pollution in shipping?

We develop a method which measures the effect of the major international conventions in the area of safety, pollution, search and rescue and work related measures. We further distinguish between the effect of entry into force and the status of ratification of a convention by its parties. We use standard econometric models and base our analysis on a unique dataset of 30 years of monthly data where we correct for other factors which can influence safety such as safety inspections and ship economic cycles. The results show a complex picture where the average time between adoption and entry into force was calculated to be 3.1 years. Overall, the more parties ratify a convention, the more likely safety is improved and pollution is decreased although one can detect a certain level of non compliance. The immediate effect of entry into force presents a mixed picture where most negative effects can be found with legislation in the area of safety management and pollution, followed by technical areas. The effect of legislation in the areas related to working and living conditions and certification and training is smallest. Seasonality can be found with peaks in December and January for all conventions but are less important for pollution.

Workers Rights Consortium Assessment re Easy Group (Mariveles/BEZ, Philippines): Easy Fashion Corporation, Allen Garments, & Kasumi Apparel Ltd. Corporation: Summary of Findings and Recommendations

Report of an assessment of labor practices at three closely related manufacturing facilities located in the Bataan Economic Zone (BEZ) in Mariveles, Phillipines. The WRC’s assessment has been carried out in response to three principal complaints: working hours and compensation, misuse of a contract labor system, and freedom of association and collective bargaining

ISO and Social Standardisation: Uncomfortable compromises in Global Policy-Making

This paper intends to explore the involvement of ISO, the world’s most iconic standard-setting institution, in the field of social responsibility, leading to the publication of the ISO26000 standard in November, 2010. Through several aspects of this experience, an almost decade-long process, I will show how ISO developed a new political structure aimed specifically at creating global policy, originating one the most sophisticated frameworks in existence to consensualise "universal" sociopolitical principles and infuse them with the legitimacy of a "global" technocracy and liberal institutions. Moreover, I will use the latest ISO26000 experience to argue that conceptual and institutional minimalism, which favours "soft" approaches towards global policy-making, paradoxically results from combining a technocratic aim for global compatibility with more participatory decision-making arrangements involving previously excluded socio-political actors. In that sense, ISO’s upgraded participatory mechanisms solved certain deadlocks suffered by previous initiatives only to affront and spark a new round of contradictions and consequences. Thus, I will conclude commenting on the intrinsic relationship between global standards, governance and complexity, and the difficulties of politically articulating programmes with dissimilar functional differentiation

APPOINTING JUDGES THE EUROPEAN WAY

This Article looks at methods of judicial selection in Europe as a way to contrast and perhaps better understand and improve the systems of judicial selection used in the United States. The article argues that in Europe, judicial independence is prized above and beyond any other possible positive trait. The democratic legitimacy of European judges derives from the intimate connection between democracy and the rule of law. Legitimacy does not attach, in the public eye, to a single political institution, but rather to the system as a whole