Public accountability within transnational supply chains: A global agenda for empowering Southern workers?

Abstract

In recent years, one of the central claims promoted by critics of “globalization” has been that the existing system of global economic governance is being undermined by the emergence of “accountability deficits.” According to this widespread view, the expanding power of multinational companies to influence the lives of workers in the global South, in the absence of adequate accountability mechanisms, is leading to increasing exploitation of Southern workers. Partly in response to such perceptions, a range of non-state actors have begun to explore new strategies that attempt to hold companies within transnational supply chains directly accountable for their impact on the lives of workers. In ..