ICAR is pleased to announce the publication of "Fashion’s Next Trend: Accelerating Supply Chain Transparency in the Garment and Footwear Industry," the second report from the Transparency Pledge coalition. Building on the coalition’s previous efforts, this report takes stock of supply chain transparency as of late 2019, updates information from the 2017 report “Follow the Thread," provides an overview of positive new developments in the industry, and makes additional recommendations aimed at improving apparel companies’ due diligence practices on human rights.

ICAR’s new report, The Benefits of Transparency: A Business Case for the Apparel and Footwear Supply Chain Transparency Pledge, makes the business case for companies to adopt greater supply chain transparency measures, showing that when they do, businesses enjoy better reputations, greater operational efficiency, improved legal compliance, and increased access to capital.

A new report by ICAR and Focus on Labour Exploitation (FLEX) takes stock of progress made under current modern slavery reporting requirements and issues recommendations to improve these laws and corporate reporting practices under them.

ICAR, Frank Bold, and the Business and Human Rights Young Researchers Summit are pleased to announce the publication of a new report that explores evidence based economic arguments for companies to promote human rights. The report is entitled “Good Business: The Economic Case for Protecting Human Rights.”

A new report published by CORE and ICAR reveals that that a third of companies that have supplied uniforms for UK public sector workers, including the armed forces and prison officers, have not reported on what they are doing to tackle slavery in their supply chains.

Our report ‘Who Made Our Uniforms?’ reveals that few contractors supplying uniforms and specialist safety clothing to the UK public sector are transparent about their ethical standards and international suppliers.

This paper provides an overview of the GSP program and a related regional trade preference program for sub-Saharan African countries, identifies gaps in implementation, and proposes recommendations for Congress and the administration to enhance the legal structure and enforcement of the GSP with a view to improving human rights, including labor rights, globally. 

ICAR and DIHR originally published the NAPs Toolkit in July 2014 with the aim of providing the first building blocks towards a common framework for developing and evaluating NAPs on business and human rights. Since its publication, various components of the Toolkit have been utilized by state actors, civil society organizations, national human rights institutions (NHRIs), and academia to inform their work on NAPs, including through the creation of official and shadow National Baseline Assessments and assessments of existing NAPs. 

Accountability Counsel, the International Corporate Accountability Roundtable (“ICAR”), and OECD Watch are conducting research to evaluate the National Contact Point (“NCP”) peer review process and identify opportunities for improvement, with the ultimate aim of ensuring that NCPs are functionally equivalent and provide effective access to remedy. 

The directory shows which organizations are generating, or will be generating, public information related to labor rights in the apparel industry. The impetus behind the directory came from a meeting that ICAR and C&A Foundation jointly hosted in October 2016, which was attended by data generating, gathering, and policy advocacy organizations. During this meeting, participants agreed that having a map of available data on labor rights in the apparel industry would help to facilitate collaboration, identify gaps in available information, and ensure that the data being produced is useful for policy advocacy organizations.

This August 2017 report updates the ICAR-ECCJ November 2015 publication by incorporating assessments of the NAPs of Norway, Colombia, United Kingdom (2016 iteration), Italy, Switzerland, and United States.  

On June 27, 2017, ICAR, along with the Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility (ICCR), and the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) filed an amici curiae brief in support of the petitioners in Jesner v. Arab Bank, PLC, which is scheduled to be heard at the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) on October 11 of this year. The case will determine whether the Alien Tort Statute (ATS) can provide an avenue to deliver justice to victims of corporate harms. The ATS permits non-Americans to sue for international human rights abuses.

Public procurement – the purchase by the public sector of the goods and services it needs to carry out its functions – is a major component of the overall global economy, accounting for €1000 billion per year and on average 12% of GDP in OECD countries.

Human rights standards to which governments have signed up, such as the widely-supported UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, oblige public buyers to ensure respect for human rights in their supply chains.  At the same time, the recently-adopted 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda highlight the role of government procurement as part of the transition to sustainable production and consumption.

ICAR is pleased to announce the publication of "Follow the Thread: The Need for Supply Chain Transparency in the Garment and Footwear Industry," which was developed by a coalition of 9 organizations, including ICAR.

The coalition consists of Clean Clothes Campaign, Human Rights Watch, IndustriALL Global Union, the International Corporate Accountability Roundtable, the International Labor Rights Forum, the International Trade Union Confederation, the Maquila Solidarity Network, UNI Global Union, and the Worker Rights Consortium. 

In December 2016, the United States government launched its first NAP on Responsible Business Conduct. In response, ICAR has conducted a structured assessment of the U.S. NAP, using the NAPs Checklist developed and published by ICAR and the Danish Institute for Human Rights (DIHR) as part of the ICAR-DIHR NAPs Toolkit. The NAPs Checklist lays out a set of twenty-five criteria that address both the content of NAPs and the process for developing them.

The International Corporate Accountability Roundtable (ICAR) and the Danish Institute for Human Rights (DIHR) proudly announce the launch of National Action Plans on Business and Human Rights: A Toolkit for the Development, Implementation, and Review of State Commitments to Business and Human Rights Frameworks. 

The International Corporate Accountability Roundtable (ICAR) and the European Coalition for Corporate Justice (ECCJ) have conducted structured assessments of current National Action Plans (NAPs) on business and human rights. To date, only four countries - the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Denmark, and Finland - have released NAPs on business and human rights. At the same time, a number of other governments have begun the process of developing such NAPs or have publicly announced an intention to do so. As such, it is essential that the four existing NAPs be closely analyzed in terms of their content and processes in order to assess best practice and to suggest areas for improvement going forward.

Tainted Lands takes the most comprehensive look to date at how corruption is fuelling the global land grabbing crisis, which has seen millions of people displaced from their homes and farmland.

The report calls on companies and governments to ensure that land deals are transparent, are corruption-free, and protect the rights of local communities.