ABSTRACT
This chapter reflects on the possibilities that contract law might offer in fostering corporate accountability for human rights issues in global value chains. To date, 84% of the large internationally operating companies avails over some form of a Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR)/Business Human Rights (BHR) policy. However, these corporate policies have not proven to be very effective so far. This might be partially explained by a mismatch between law and policy, especially in connection with contractual management of these issues. Most of the BHR/CSR policies do not, or in rather limited manner, address the way in which contractual mechanisms might be helpful in enhancing human rights compliance in supply chains, although they seem to recognize the need for contractual mechanisms as part of the solution (i.e., better BHR/CSR compliance). As it becomes clear that rather ineffective contractual measures are implemented, NGOs and governments might question the effectiveness of the corporate policies mentioning contractual arrangements and might even expect the non-financial reports to be more specific on the types of contractual measures implemented. Overall, strengthening these instruments seems pivotal to enhance human rights compliance in supply chains. Thus, corporate policies should be elaborated in connection with contractual management of CSR/BHR issues, and several ways to do so are elaborated upon in this chapter.
