The Spotlight and the Bottom Line: How Multinationals Export Human Rights

In 1996 Kathie Lee Gifford made front-page news. The well-liked television personality had lent her name to a discount line of women's clothing that, it was discovered, had been made by underage Central American workers. That same year, the Walt Disney Company was exposed contracting with Haitian suppliers who paid their workers less than Haiti's minimum wage of $2.40 a day. Nike and Reebok, makers of perhaps the world's most popular athletic footwear, were similarly and repeatedly exposed.

In all these cases, the companies accused were U.S. manufacturers of consumer products. They were being targeted for human rights violations committed abroad not by their own managers or in their own plants but by the subcontractors who produced their products in overseas facilities. Traditionally, the corporate response to this subcontractor problem has been predictable, if unfortunate. U.S. firms have argued that they cannot realistically or financially be held responsible for the labor practices of their foreign suppliers. "The problem is, we don't own the factories," a Disney spokesperson protested. "We are dealing with a licensee."

Recently, though, this attitude has started to change. As a direct result of heightened human rights activism, sharper media scrutiny, and the increased communication facilitated by the Internet, U.S. corporations are finding it difficult to sustain their old hands-off policy. Under pressure, they are beginning to accept responsibility for the labor practices and human rights abuses of their foreign subcontractors.

CODES OF CONDUCT