Trang (Mae) Nguyen (Temple University Beasley School of Law), Scott Nova (Worker Rights Consortium), Zhang Jingjing (University of Maryland Carey School of Law), Aaron Halegua (NYU Law School-Center for Labor and Employment Law and U.S.-Asia Law Institute)

This panel will discuss the human rights problems created by the global supply chains that are anchored in Asia and ask why solutions are so elusive. These problems include: abuse of workers at factories under contract to multinationals; pollution and destruction of habitats by the factories, supporting infrastructure, and raw materials extraction; and in Xinjiang, forcing ethnic minorities to work in farms and factories that export their products. Since the global supply chain model emerged in the 1990s, responses have included self-regulation by factories and their multinational clients, sometimes in response to consumer boycotts in rich countries; attempted intervention using local law or laws of the investor or buyer country; “naming and shaming” by NGOs; and foreign government sanctions. Speakers will assess why these approaches have often failed, identify successes, and offer their own prescriptions.