Human Rights First Testifies at the Congressional Human Rights Caucus Briefing on Human Rights and Brand Accountability: How Multinationals Can Promot

In his testimony, Michael Posner, HRF President, discussed today’s trend among multinational corporations towards greater outsourcing and the need to develop a set of “rules of the road” for these supply chain operations, especially relating to the rights of factory workers. Posner identified challenges in developing these rules of the road and made several recommendations for addressing them. He outlined the need to determine what the rules are, or should be; decide how compliance with those rules will be assessed, and by whom; analyze how to address non-compliance with those rules once violations have been identified and reported, and develop models for sustainable compliance. Posner focused on the evolution of the Fair Labor Association (FLA), an organization that HRF helped to establish and sustain. The FLA is pressing companies to extend the boundaries of corporate accountability by requiring greater transparency, meaningful engagement between companies, NGOs, and the university community, and innovative approaches to promote sustainable compliance. Posner also urged the Congress to press the Executive Branch to engage in more aggressive bilateral diplomacy with China and other governments that restrict the right of freedom of association and other core labor standards.