Promoting International Respect for Worker Rights through Business Code of Conduct

This Article explores the promotion of international respect for worker rights through codes of conduct for U.S. businesses operating abroad. The emphasis is on codes of conduct that have been expressly developed to apply to U.S. corporations or their suppliers. Therefore, codes developed by international organizations to deal with labor practices of multinational corporations, without regard to the country of origin of the corporation, are beyond the scope of this article. Part I of the Article describes several codes of conduct promoting fair labor standards that apply to U.S. businesses operating abroad. Part II outlines administrative and legislative efforts designed to encourage U.S. companies to adhere to such codes. Part III discusses the extent to which the codes have contributed to the promotion of international respect for worker rights; the emphasis is on the Sullivan and MacBride Principles because these two sets of principles have been in existence for relatively long periods of time, and therefore it is possible to make some inferences about their effectiveness in promoting worker rights abroad. The Article presents some tentative conclusions regarding the feasibility of using codes of conduct to promote international respect for worker rights