Tag Archives: Bangladesh

We Need An Extraterritorial Law To Hold Companies Responsible For Clean Global Supply Chains.

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Six years ago, the deadliest garment industry accident in modern history killed more than 1,100 people and injured 2,500 in an apparel manufacturing facility, Rana Plaza, in Bangladesh. Perhaps the worst part is that the tragedy was entirely preventable, and the result of corrupt practices by the politically well-connected owner. The Rana Plaza building violated codes, with the four upper floors having been constructed illegally without permits. The foundation was substandard, and despite safety warnings that led shop owners and a bank branch on lower floors to immediately close, owners of the garment factories on the upper floors instructed employees to work the next day to keep up with customer demand. The customers that the garment factory was trying to satisfy? Mango, Primark, Walmart, the Dutch retailer C & A, Benetton, and Cato Fashions, among other recognizable global brands. And yet none of the US brands accepted responsibility for the problems in their supply chains that enabled this disaster (unlike non-US brands that contributed millions of dollars into a victim support fund).

Years later, not much has changed. Despite some recent encouraging developments, the current legal regime still does not do enough to hold international companies responsible for health and safety violations by their suppliers, and two-thirds of corporations continue to turn a blind eye to supply chain corruption. Such corruption can lower production costs and increase profits by enabling suppliers to engage in a wide range of insidious practices, including cutting critical corners on labor, health and safety. And when an accident does happen, companies can walk away free of any liability for the practices of their subcontractors, as in Rana Plaza. The beneficiaries of these corrupt practices are not only the owners of the supply factories, but also the multinational purchasers and their consumers in rich countries, who get cheaper goods at the expense of the health and safety of disadvantaged workers in low-cost manufacturing hubs.

This is ethically unacceptable.  And because we cannot expect companies to engage in responsible sourcing on their own volition, the right response is more expansive liability on companies that do not take sufficient steps to ensure clean supply chains. While the ideal solution might be some sort of broad international legal regime, that isn’t going to be feasible anytime soon, meaning that countries like the United States should act unilaterally and create a bill focused on bringing about clean supply chains.

The law I advocate here would have the following features:

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When Should Corruption Be Tolerated? The Case of the Padma Bridge

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In a recent post, Rick examined the Canadian Supreme Court case concerning a high-level corruption scheme implicating Bangladeshi government officials and executives at SNC Lavalin, a Canadian construction company, over a cancelled World Bank project in Bangladesh. The $1.2 billion project underlying the case was the Padma Bridge, a massive infrastructure that some estimated would increase the Bangladeshi GDP 1.2% each year.

Upon discovering the corruption scheme in 2011, the World Bank—recognizing the importance of the infrastructure project for the Bangladeshi people—initially responded by attaching conditions to the continued funding of the bridge. Specifically, the Bank requested that the Bangladeshi government (i) place all public officials involved in the investigation on leave pending the completion of the investigation, (ii) appoint a special inquiry and prosecution team, and (iii) agree to provide full access to investigative information. However, on June 29, 2012, the World Bank cancelled its funding of the project, deeming the Bangladeshi government’s response “unsatisfactory.”

Although neither the World Bank nor SNC Lavalin are involved in the project anymore, the government of Bangladesh is nonetheless moving ahead with the Padma Bridge, and has awarded the construction contract to a Chinese firm. Since the World Bank withdrew its involvement, the estimated cost of the bridge has climbed by over US$1 billion, and the expected completion date is being pushed back by two years to 2020. These climbing costs and greater delays suggest not only less efficiency, but also that even more money is being siphoned off by corrupt public officials, to the detriment of the Bangladeshi people.

Because of this, it may seem that the World Bank’s decision to disengage from the project, and allow the Bangladeshi government proceed on its own–without any Bank oversight–was a misguided policy. I understand this view, but on balance I do not agree. While the World Bank’s decision to terminate its involvement in the project may have increased costs and corruption in the short run, in this case the Bank made the right call. That does not mean that the Bank should have a “zero tolerance” policy that requires it to suspend any project where there is evidence of corruption of any kind. But in the particular circumstances of this case, withdrawal was the best of the Bank’s bad options.

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Anticorruption Truth Commissions? Lessons to be Learned from Human Rights and Transitional Justice

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A few months back, Anusha made the case for why “freedom from corruption” should not be regarded as a human right. She pointed out a number of legitimate distinctions between corruption and other human rights violations, as well as practical problems with framing corruption in this way. But there are other ways in which corruption does resemble a human rights violation: namely, in the harm it causes. Like widespread human rights abuses, the harm stemming from corruption is often diffuse and difficult to quantify, often with many victims (not always identifiable) and numerous perpetrators. For practical and functional purposes, in the case of systemic corruption–as in the case of regimes with pervasive human rights abuses–it may not be possible to make reparations to all of the victims or to hold all of the offenders to account.

Thus, even if it is impossible – or undesirable – to fully integrate the anticorruption and human rights agendas, it is still worth considering what lessons we can draw from the human rights regime and incorporate into the anticorruption field. Consider, in particular, one mechanism designed to deal with instances of mass atrocities and systematic human rights violations: the truth commission. In the human rights and transitional justice context, truth commissions are temporary bodies responsible for investigating and publicizing past rights abuses committed by public and private actors. As a general matter, truth commissions prioritize gathering information and establishing an accurate record over punitive sanctions. Truth commissions also often involve a quasi-judicial element – which frequently entails granting amnesty to certain actors or referring cases to prosecutorial entities – and emphasize “bottom-up” victim participation. Certain elements of the truth commission model may be instructive in designing justice measures for corruption crimes.

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