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"Global Exchange/International Labour Human Rights Fund: US Business Principles for Human Rights of Workers in China, 1999" [2005] ELECD 264; in Tully, Stephen (ed), "International Documents on Corporate Responsibility" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2005)

Book Title: International Documents on Corporate Responsibility

Editor(s): Tully, Stephen

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781843768197

Section: Chapter 41

Section Title: Global Exchange/International Labour Human Rights Fund: US Business Principles for Human Rights of Workers in China, 1999

Number of pages: 2

Extract:

41. Global Exchange/International Labour Rights
Fund: US Business Principles for Human
Rights of Workers in China, 1999

Commentary: Global Exchange is a human rights NGO. The Business Principles
(www.globalexchange.org/campaigns/sweatshops/china/principles.html) arose in
response to a 1998 report by the National Labor Committee documenting links
between leading US corporations and working conditions within China. They have
since been endorsed inter alia by Amnesty International USA, the Consumers'
Federation of America and the Fair Trade Foundation. For academic commentary, see
Orentlicher D. and Gelatt T. (1992), `Public law, private actors: the impact of human
rights on business investors in China', Northwestern Journal of International Law and
Business, 14, 66­129. For an analogous initiative, see Coalition for Justice in the
Maquiladoras, `The Maquiladora Standards of Conduct', San Antonio, Texas, 1991 in
(1992) The CJM Newsletter 1. For academic commentary, see Compa L. and Hinchliffe-
Darricarrere T. (1995), `Enforcing international labor rights through corporate codes
of conduct', Columbia Journal of Transnational Law, 33, 663­716.


As companies doing business in China, we seek to hear and respond to the concerns of work-
ers making our products. We want to ensure that our business practices in China respect
basic labour standards defined by the ILO, and basic human rights defined by the UN
Covenants on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, and Civil and Political Rights, signed
by the Chinese government, as well as China's national laws. To this end, we agree to imple-
ment and to ...