Transnational Labour Law and Governance: Advancing Workers’ Rights in Global Value Chains

Authors

• Judy Fudge, McMaster University
• Guy Mundlak, Faculty of Law and Department of Labour Studies, Tel-Aviv University

Author ORCID Identifier

0000-0001-8676-6610 (Judy Fudge)

0000-0002-3719-8669 (Guy Mundlak)

Abstract

TRANSNATIONAL LABOUR GOVERNANCE is a multiscalar assemblage of agents, institutions, instruments, and legal concepts that has emerged to address the governance gap caused by the mismatch between the global nature of production and the territorial format of labour law (Blackett & Trebilcock, 2015; Hepple, 2005; Kolben, 2011; Mundlak, 2024). This special issue investigates some of the key components in this assemblage and identifies features that make a transnational labour law approach distinctive. In this introduction to the special issue, we begin in Section II by describing the governance gap and its impact on the wages and working conditions of supply chain workers, emphasising the shortcomings of national labour laws to address transnational problems. As a result, this gap has led to the proliferation of transnational labour governance initiatives. In Section III we note the governance shift over the past decade away from voluntary compliance towards legally enforceable norms, and discuss two types of innovative hard-law initiatives that have recently moved up the global policy agenda: mandatory human rights due diligence (MHRDD), and import bans against products made with forced labour. Their innovation results from the application of public law instruments directly to corporations by imposing legal duties on them to respect key labour rights in their businesses and supply chains. We contrast these forms of transnational labour governance with prefigurative forms of transnational labour law that empower supply chain workers and their representatives in the processes and mechanisms of labour governance. Drawing on the four articles that comprise this special issue, in Section IV, we suggest that no single type of governance initiative can be isolated from the others, and that, for this reason, it is important to investigate the interactions of multiple initiatives within the web of transnational labour governance. We briefly discuss the four articles that comprise the special issue, highlighting the contribution each makes to understanding how transnational labour law and governance can advance workers’ rights in global value chains.

Recommended Citation

Fudge, Judy and Mundlak, Guy (2026) "Transnational Labour Law and Governance: Advancing Workers’ Rights in Global Value Chains," Comparative Labor Law & Policy Journal: Vol. 46: Iss. 2, Article 2.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.60082/2819-2567.1134
Available at: https://digitalcommons.osgoode.yorku.ca/cllpj/vol46/iss2/2