Fashion Law Journal
Recent data suggests that the fashion industry has been exponentially growing almost daily, valued to be approximately $3 trillion.[1] Fashion is seen to reflect on the symbolic meaning and social ideals. It is representative of the characteristics of modernity and culture. Inevitably everyone participates in fashion to certain degrees.[2] Participants value innovation and are driven to partake in what is ‘original,’ ‘cutting edge,’ ‘fresh,’ ‘leading,’ or ‘hot.’ But with time, those qualities are attributed to others and another trends takes shape. Shifting from trend to trend emerges ‘fast fashion.’ The desire ‘to be in fashion’- manifested in the practice of dressing captures the aspect of current socialization, characterized by both the pull of continuity with others and push of innovation towards the new. Often fast fashion is referred to be “one of the most influential phenomena in Western Civilization since the Renaissance.”[3] The legal realm protects innovation and continuity by the law of intellectual property. While neglects the designer’s duty and accountability of increase in the introduction of trends leading to premature product replacement and fashion obsolescence. It has major negative environmental and social impacts, particularly on those at the bottom of the supply chain.[4]
The debate origins in the deeply rooted problems with the structure of the garment industry. In order to pace with the current demands, the industry is based on outsourcing cheap labour from countries like Bangladesh, India, or Vietnam. However, manufacturers dominate the overabundance of labour to squeeze the cost of production. Therefore the model leads to a disregard of safety measures and labour standards. These horrors took the frontpages after the 2012 Tarzeen Fires and 2013 Rana Plaza Disaster which devasted the lives of thousands of workers but no adequate compensation could be derived.
In the traditional contracting system the manufacturers under typical circumstances are relieved of any ‘direct’ responsibility to the garment workers, since they are employed by the contractors.[5] But, contractors typically have limited resources and are unable to resolve workers’ complaints. Due to the oversupply of contracting businesses and the subsequent underbidding competition between contractors, worker wages are reduced. Individual contractors are put in danger by the knowledge that there are always contractors willing to accept any manufacturer’s order for a meagre profits. While this is going on, manufacturers gain from the competition and frequently purposefully pit contractors against one another to obtain the lowest price.
In the context of worker conditions an important aspect to consider is the International Labour Organization (ILO) Code of Practice, 2021. These Sectoral ILO codes of practice are based on international labour standards and other sectoral guidelines. Chemical substances, physical and ergonomic risks, tools, machines, and equipment, as well as building and fire safety, are all included. The purpose of this code is to provide guidance to those in the public and the private sector having obligations, responsibilities, duties and rights regarding safety and health in the textiles, clothing, leather and footwear industries. The contribution of code is to promote a preventive safety and health culture, protection of workers, formation and implementation of coherent national policy and programmes. Promotion of effective consultation and corporation between governments, employers, workers and their organizations and representatives and improvement of knowledge and competence in these industries. This code is applicable to all aspects of the textile clothing, leather and the foot-ware industry and hence also applies to the fashion industry. These standards have come to be known and respected for employers and enterprises functioning in developing countries where shortfalls of personnel, governmental budgets, and ethical and legal practices are prevalent, even if the standards are not enacted into domestic law.
Unlike governments, corporate concern is not the adoption of international norms to improve the welfare and working conditions of their citizens.[6] Thus, international standards of workplace fairness may be replicated in national domestic statutes and may be relied upon in promulgating corporate codes of conduct with varying levels of commitment, monitoring, and enforcement. But in the corporate sector there is, at the very least, a recognition of the standard, and a proclamation of the firms’ commitment to adhere thereto.
What the fashion industry ought to be must investigate the convergence between Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and Corporate Governance (CG) in the self-regulation of companies in a less vigilant environment. Traditionally, CG denoted the rules of business decision-making and directs the internal mechanism of companies. It includes the customs, policies, law and institutions – seeks companies to assure regulators and investors to be fully transparent and accountable. Simultaneously, CSR is concerned with how corporate companies contribute to the growth of a society. Therefore, it may be described as the degree to which an organization accepts cognitive responsibility for its actions and inactions, as well as the effects on its stakeholders. The known contributions of this system in USA are the development of industry-specific and sector-wise regulation, such as pollution control, working conditions and consumer protection. Therefore, making US Model Business Principles a benchmark for developing self-regulated responsibility at the company level.
Instances of developing economies following the strategies for CSR and CG convergence in their company suggest positive outcomes. Like in Thailand, alongside the legislative initiative for labor issues the passages of the Tambon Administration Organization (TAO) Act, 1994, and the New Thai Constitution of 1997 and the National Decentralization Act, 1999, are evidenced as landmark public sector efforts to enhance power sharing between public private and civil society sectors and increase community-business partnership. In Malaysia the Bursa Malaysia CSR Framework provides a set-guidelines for Malaysia public-listed companies focusing on 4 core areas of CG strategies: the environment, community, workplace and marketplace. Indeed, the CSR and CG convergence improve relationships between companies and their stakeholders in strong economies and most of the developing countries where there are strong public interest advocacy groups to oversee convergence.
The aim of CSR and CG becomes to establish a differentiated form of competitive advantage founded on ethical manufacturing and on terms of high health and safety standards and the ratification of ILO core conventions.
[1]Mckinsey&Company ,The state of fashion, 2019, available at
https://www.mckinsey.com/~/media/mckinsey/industries/retail/our%20insights/the%20state%20of%20fashio
n%202019%20a%20year%20of%20awakening/the-state-of-fashion-2019-final.ashx
[2] Fashion and modernity (Christopher Breward & Caroline Evans eds., 2005)
[3] LARS SVENDSEN, FASHION: A PHILOSOPHY 7 (John Irons trans., Reaktion 2006)
[4] Anika Kozlowski, Michal Bardecki and Cory Searcy, Environmental Impacts in the Fashion Industry: A Life-cycle and Stakeholder Framework The Journal of Corporate Citizenship, No. 45, Textiles, Fashion and
Sustainability17-36 (2012).
[5] Lam, Leo L. “Designer Duty: Extending Liability to Manufacturers for Violations of Labor Standards in Garment Industry Sweatshops.” University of Pennsylvania Law Review 141, no. 2 (1992): 623–67. https://doi.org/10.2307/3312361.
[6] Arnold M. Zack, The International Labor Organization and the Translation of International Norms into Domestic Law, Cambridge University Press on behalf of the American Society of International Law (2010), pp. 576https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5305/procannmeetasil.104.0576
Author: Adrija Sinha Sarkar
