Work Package 2 - Seafood Supply Chain Due Diligence
The European Union is the biggest seafood market globally. With consumer power and progressive cooperate laws, the EU recently is considering passing a Mandatory Human Rights and Environmental Due Diligence Law (mHREDD). This law attempts to shape sustainable and responsible corporate behaviour by requiring compliance with human rights principles, including labour rights that are the main focus of this project. These requirements apply to entire global value chains, including direct and indirect suppliers outside of the EU jurisdiction.
The EU has been promoting a ‘Farm to Fork’ ideology as part of the green deal policy, aligning with the corporate efforts to create traceability through private auditing schemes and green labelling. However, studies already show that consumers are becoming more critical toward these green labels and associate them with green washing.
This project thus investigates how states can follow through the EU’s new Mandatory Human Rights and Environmental Due Diligence Directive. These policies put both ethics and sustainability in global supply chains on the table for corporations to address, with significant consequences for those who do not meet the ethical and sustainability requirements.
As mHREDD is implemented by EU member states, we anticipate the emergence of a traceability system for labour rights at sites of production (i.e. where commodities are produced in source countries). This project takes a novel approach to understanding and anticipating how mHREDD can be applied to Southeast Asian countries enmeshed in complex global seafood supply chains.
Methods: port mapping of key informants, multi-stakeholder workshops, key informant interview (in Europe, in Southest Asia), in-country reflections of emerging EU policies