One Step Forward or More Window Dressing? A Legal Analysis of Recent CSR Initiatives in the Garment Industry in BangladeshInternational Journal of Comparative Labour Law and Industrial Relations

Abstract: The Bangladesh ready-made garment industry has recently been the scene of a number of major accidents, with the collapse of the Rana Plaza on 24 April 2013 as the deadliest garment-factory accident ever known. Under renewed international pressure for multinational corporations (MNCs) to take responsibility for working conditions in these factories, two initiatives have been adopted with the involvement of leading European and North-American brands. With these initiatives, the MNCs claim to improve their corporate social responsibility (CSR) vis-à-vis those factories. From a regulatory perspective, they represent cases of transnational private regulation (TPR). Although CSR and TPR are increasingly common, these initiatives have been received with mixed enthusiasm, as they exist in a legal vacuum raising questions about their legal status, legitimacy, implementation and compliance mechanisms. These questions will be addressed in this article about the Bangladesh initiatives, in order to ascertain whether they have the potential to contribute to safe working conditions in the Bangladeshi garment industry, or rather if they should be seen as window-dressing.