ABSTRACT
The last decades have seen an increase in global f lows of goods, capital, people, services and ideas, thus an enhanced pace of globalisation. Powerful actors in this global economic order are multinational corporations (MNCs), which orchestrate their business to take advantage of a global division of labour. In the resulting global production networks, income-poor countries of the global South are frequently used as a source of cheap labour and, in addition, local social and environmental regulation tends to be weak or weakly enforced. Nation-states
may be unable or unwilling to monitor MNC business practices in their countries (Dicken 2010). Meanwhile, the rise of campaign non-governmental organisations (NGOs) paired with news media and significant interest by Northern consumers, has led to exposure of “sweatshop” practices and environmental damage caused by MNCs. High-profile examples include criticism of Nike in the 1990s and recently of Apple supplier Foxconn in China, Shell’s Brent Spar affair and activities in Nigeria, protests over labour relations at Coca-Cola suppliers in Colombia and the boycott of Nestlé following the companies’ efforts to sell baby milk in sub-Saharan Africa.
