Beyond audit: the regulatory legitimacy of multi-stakeholder initiatives in the apparel sector

Abstract

ABSTRACT This article is about multi-stakeholder initiatives that seek to regulate the human rights impacts of global apparel supply chains (Apparel MSIs). MSIs aim to improve human rights for millions of apparel workers worldwide, but after two decades they show little evidence of such improvement. Civil society critics argue that MSIs are an ineffective, unreformable model of private regulation. This article contends that a particularly pressing issue facing Apparel MSIs is the manner in which they seek to control their targets of regulation and ensure regulatory compliance. Most Apparel MSIs rely predominantly on social audit to monitor and ensure compliance with human rights standards. Yet there is now a strong body of evidence showing that social audit is an inherently flawed tool that is not sufficiently powerful to implement meaningful and consistent change. Accordingly, this article argues that Apparel MSIs must urgently move beyond social audit as a regulatory technique. They must instead pay attention to power relations and complex political contexts, amplify the voice of workers and harness complementarity between public and private regulation. Apparel MSIs must transform to improve effectiveness, preserve legitimacy and realise their ultimate aim of improving human rights outcomes for apparel sector workers.