Covid-19 and Economic Recession as two Concurrent Global Crises. Engulfing Supply Chain Workers

Fibha Frameen

• Publisher: GRIN Verlag
• Year: 2021
• Edition: 1
• eBook ISBN:
  9783346468901
• Topic: Law
• Subtopic: Financial Law
• Index: Law

Research Paper (postgraduate) from the year 2020 in the subject Law - Civil / Private, Trade, Anti Trust Law, Business Law, grade: 70, University of New South Wales, Sydney (Faculty of Law), course: Master of Laws, language: English, abstract: This paper aims to discuss the lethal effect of the Covid-19 pandemic on vulnerable garment workers in the global supply chain as well as suggest practical short term measures which can be implemented to protect vulnerable workers from the Coronavirus, increased poverty, mass layoffs and economic recession. According to the UN Guiding Principles, businesses have a responsibility to respect human rights by avoiding causing and contributing to adverse human rights impacts as well as addressing such impacts when they occur by implementing mechanisms to prevent and mitigate adverse human rights impacts that are directly linked to their operations, products or services by their business relationships. Over the years, there have been developments of soft laws such as the UN Guiding Principles and hard domestic laws within the business and human rights sphere. Concurrently, it may seem like a utopian dream to completely eradicate human rights violations occurring in the global supply chains, however, with effective mechanisms and safeguards in place, the damage caused to vulnerable victims can certainly be reduced by holding companies to account and setting strict international standards to follow. To mitigate the drastic effects of economic losses caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, there is an urgent need for collective efforts from states and companies to support developing countries and vulnerable workers who are at risk of human rights abuses.