This is a past event
80% of global trade is connected with the international production networks of transnational corporations (TNCs or MNCs). GVCs exist in national, regional, and transnational legal regimes, including soft law and other private mechanisms. The UN 2030 Agenda with 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) is part of that framework. The GVCs have sufficient incentive to address SDGs in their business dealings. Regarding methods to ensure compliance with and enforce SDGs, private sector initiatives include soft instruments, such as the UN Guiding Principles and OECD Guidelines or adjusting their business operations by incorporating stricter audit and supplier-selection processes.
Although the private sector is a critical stakeholder in achieving SDGs, its challenges encompass vagueness and lack of enforceability in the regulatory framework and inadequate monitoring and assessment practices. Moreover, the transnational private schemes may further exacerbate the disbalance in the power dynamic between companies of the global North and their suppliers in the global South. The GVCs structures enable MNC to reduce their costs and increase competitiveness on the market, but they also allow the GVC leaders to avoid liability for the total social and environmental cost of their production processes. While the policy considerations favour holding MNCs accountable for adverse human, social, and environmental impacts throughout the GVCs, the existing corporate and contract doctrines do not reflect these policies.
The topic will explore solutions that emerged as a response to these challenges. First, the topic will explore answers to overcome the problem of privity concerning enforcement of human rights abuses in GVCs, such as innovative remedial solutions, broadening the theory of privity, and new concepts, such as the concept of ‘network liability’ or the ‘concept of production liability.’ Second, the topic will explore the new model contract clauses, such as the American Bar Association Model Clauses for Human Rights, and the Chancery Lane Project model clauses for sustainable GVC management, as examples of using contracts as the primary tool to monitor and manage adverse environmental impact throughout GVCs effectively. Third, the topic will outline broader theoretical concepts that can further frame these conversations (e.g., TWAIL and Proactive Law Theory).
Bio:
Nevena brings ten years of practical and academic experience designing, developing, and delivering courses and training programs in international commercial law and arbitration. She is currently an Honorary Lecturer at the University of Aberdeen, School of Law.
She was a guest lecturer at the University of Pittsburgh School of Law (US), the Prince Sultan University, College of Law, Female Campus (Saudi Arabia), Faculty of Law at the University of Zenica (Bosnia and Herzegovina), International Sarajevo University (Bosnia and Herzegovina), and University of Verona & CILE's Summer School (US/Italy), teaching courses on CISG, contract and commercial management, technology and law, and international commercial arbitration. She is a trainer in various national and international training programs for B&H judges, in-house counsels, arbitrators, and students.
Nevena's research and teaching focus on the impact of sustainable development goals on private commercial relationships. She is a Ph.D. Candidate at the Faculty of Law at the University of Zenica, focusing on bridging production and product conformity through sustainable consumption and production patterns in international sale of goods contracts. Nevena is the author of the national monographs on the Civil Procedure and Energy Law in volumes of the International Encyclopaedia of Laws. She published a dozen articles and book chapters on international dispute resolution and international commercial law. She holds an LL.M. in International Law from the University of Pittsburgh, School of Law (2016), and an LL.M. in Civil Law in the EU from the University of Sarajevo, School of Law (2015).
- Speaker
- Ms Nevena Jevremovic
- Hosted by
- Centre for Commercial Law
- Venue
- Online Event
- Contact
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Seminar is Free to attend. Please contact Mr Georgi Chichkov for event link at georgi.chichkov@abdn.ac.uk