Promoting better working conditions in global supply chains through public procurement

Summary

How can public procurement initiatives be designed effectively to promote and secure better working conditions in transnational supply chains?

Researchers

Project background and aims

Recent years have seen a resurgence of interest in the potential and actual use of public procurement as a means of promoting respect for labour rights. At the transnational level, there is growing interest in leveraging the purchasing power of the state to augment existing public and private efforts to address labour and human rights violations in global production networks. Scholarly and activist attention to date, however, has focused largely on the desirability or legality of such measures. Some efforts have also been made to map existing initiatives globally. This project focuses on questions of regulatory design - and more specifically of compliance and enforcement – which we suggest remain under-examined in either the domestic or international context.

Output

  • John Howe, Hannah Irving and Ingrid Landau, 'Public Procurement and Labour Standards Improving the Victorian Fair Jobs Code and Lessons for the Secure Australian Jobs Code' (2023) Centre for Employment and Labour Relations Law and Social and Sustainable Procurement Program.
  • I. Landau and J. Howe, ‘Government Purchasing and the Implementation of Modern Slavery Regulation’ (2022) 44(3) Sydney Law Review 347.
  • Workshop on Public Procurement and Modern Slavery, Worskhop organised by Plus Alliance Partners, King’s College London and the University of NSW, in collaboration with the Business, Human Rights and the Environment Research Group at the University of Greenwich, London, UK,29 November 2019.
  • 4th Labour Law Research Network (LLRN) Conference, Valparaíso, Chile, 25 June 2019.
  • Innovate Rights: New Thinking in Business and Human Rights Academic Consultation, Australian Human Rights Institute, University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia, 14 May 2019.
  • Socially Responsible Public Procurement: An Exploration of the Role of the State in Labour Governance in Global Production Networks, Workshop at Queen Mary University of London, London, UK, 16 November 2018.