Make Rules on Rights Binding for Businesses

(Geneva, May 30, 2016)—Delegates at the 2016 International Labour Conference should initiate a process to develop a binding, international convention to protect human rights in global supply chains, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today. Governments, employers, and workers from around the world are meeting in Geneva for the annual labor summit, starting on May 30, 2016, to discuss how to ensure “decent work” in global supply chains.
The report, “Human Rights in Supply Chains: A Call for a Binding Global Standard on Due Diligence,” draws upon two decades of Human Rights Watch research on child labor and other labor rights abuses, environmental damage, and violations of the rights to health, land, food, and water, in the context of global supply chains.
Human Rights Watch multimedia publications on labor rights abuses:
Indonesia: Child Tobacco Workers Suffer as Firms Profit
Philippines: Children Risk Death to Dig and Dive For Gold
Ghana: Child Labor Fuels Gold Supply Chain
Israel: Settlement Agriculture Harms Palestinian Children
US: Child Workers in Danger on Tobacco Farms
US: Tobacco Farms No Place for Teens
Cambodia: Labor Laws Fail to Protect Garment Workers 
Tanzania: Hazardous Life of Child Gold Miners
Ghana: Mine Accident Highlights Risk to Children
Qatar: Migrant Construction Workers Face Abuse
Kazakhstan: Migrant Tobacco Workers Cheated, Exploited
Fingers to the Bone: Child Farmworkers in the US
Bangladesh: Toxic Tanneries
Vietnam: Torture, Forced Labor in Drug Detention
Bangladesh: 2 years after Rana Plaza, Workers Denied Rights
Israel: Businesses Should End Settlement Activity
UAE: Trapped, Exploited, Abused
UAE: Abuses at NYU, Louvre, Guggenheim Project
Kazakhstan: Migrant Tobacco Workers Cheated, Exploited
Russia: Migrant Olympic Workers Cheated, Exploited