AMJAD NAZEER

Corporate Globalization and Human Rights Abuses in Sweatshops: The Case of NIKE’s
Operations in Pakistan, Indonesia and Vietnam

(The Context of Children Rights, Rights of Citizenry, Gender Equality and Labour Rights)

By: Amjad Nazeer

1/1/2010
 Corporate Globalization and Human Rights Abuses in Sweatshops: The Case of NIKE’s
Operations in Pakistan, Indonesia and Vietnam

(The Context of Children Rights, Rights of Citizenry, Gender Equality and Labour Rights)

“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” Martin Luther King.

“If we cannot make globalization work for all; in the end it will work for none”
Kofi Annan.
Introduction:

Borrowing its name from an ancient goddess of victory in war, Nike is now the official brand-name of
the largest sports and apparel corporation in the world. ‘Blue Ribbon Sports’ was its genesis that later
on transformed herself into Nike in the beginning of 1970s. Symbolized by the sign of ‘swoosh’ Nike
is now a name synonymous with the world of sports. In his search for light, sportive yet robust
athletic shoes, Phillip Knight, the founder, CEO and chairman of Nike picked up the idea from a
Japanese shoe manufacturer Onitsuka while working in partnership with the Oregon University coach
Bill Bowerman in the sprouting years of 1960s. Starting with as minor a distributor of shoes as from
the back of his car, Nike’s success is skyrocketing. Its sale moved from $10 million to $270 million in
1970s. ‘A fitness and flying revolution for feet’ what the American athletes were looking for, is the
secret of Knight’s Nik’s popularity. Within two decades Nike emerged as an athletic shoe juggernaut
in 1980s and 1990s.

Come the age of free market, sprawling mantra of media, advertisement and transnational investment
in the 1990s the Greek goddess ‘symbolized by swoosh’ became ubiquitous trespassing the ring of
sports. May it be the city centre of Northern metropolis or the supermarkets of Southern towns; Nike’s
sign is conspicuously present. No surprise that its’ annual return shot up to the phenomenal amount of
$12 billion in 2000s and exceeding $22 billion late 2008/9. Nike’s CEO Phil Knight is the 5th richest
man of America, worth $5 billion1. Headquartered in Oregon USA, Nike is still a top sportswear with
its attractive jingles, ‘run on air,’ ‘just do it,’ and ‘running’. Star sportsmen like Michael Jones and
Tiger Woods are paid as high as $8-10 million dollars just to wear a Nike swoosh. Bear in mind, the
amount exceeds the salary of 700,000 workers for a month in a Nike factory in Indonesia, Pakistan or
Vietnam. Suppose Mr. Knight gives up his one year’s profit the salary of all Nike workers could be
doubled. Thanks to globalization, free trade zones and cheap labour supply in third world countries2.

1
The Big One, A Documentary Michael Moore, See: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qfQzAbpdH_U
2
History of Nike, Iconography explained, Nike’s heritage, Swoosh and Brief History, See:
http://xroads.virginia.edu/~CLASS/am483_97/projects/hincker/nikhist.html
& Korky Van About.Com: Shoes, From Greek Myth to Sports and fitness powerhouse, See:
http://shoes.about.com/od/athleticshoes/a/nike.htm

Amjad Nazeer Corporate Globalization and Human Rights Abuses 2

Lead by USA and Britain in 1980s neo-liberal approach of economic development began to dominate
the national and international landscape of political priorities. Cutting down the role of the state, free
flow of capital, profit maximization and private provision of employment was adopted as the driving
force behind economic development. End of cold war in 1989 unleashed new opportunities and
territories for global investors. Developing countries began to look for foreign investment for their
national growth employment generation. Tariffs were slashed; free trade zones set up, taxes toppled
over and labour laws and environmental concerns were only a remote consideration in their
investment negotiations. Multinational and Trans-national Corporations i.e. MNCs and TNCs
materialized the opportunities and rapidly transplanted their production-units and supply-chains in the
poor countries where labour supply was abundant and material cheap. So much so around 60,000
TNCs are now operating across the globe with 800,000 supply-chains all over the world3.

The Case Description:

Following the suit, Nike’s 900 supply factories are situated in 50 countries, all poor and
underdeveloped. In order to have a focused discussion and better analysis, I will confine my reference
to Indonesia, Vietnam and Pakistan only. Given the horrible conditions of work, ridiculously low
wages and exploitation of child-labour Nike’s factories were critically renamed as sweatshops. The
issue came to fore when USA’s ‘Life Magazine’ published the story of a 12 years old Tariq in 1996.
Stitching diligently and immersed in the pile of Nike footballs, as was shown in the picture, the boy
worked for a Nike factory in Pakistan for 12 to 14 hours a day. It was the first story ever that
unmasked an ugly face of ‘the goddess’ to American public. Several articles, news-stories and
documentaries followed, unfolding the dreadful reality of globalized production and supply.

75 to 80% of Nike labour comprises on 10-14 years boys and mostly girls. Girls usually outnumber
boys save on the supervisory positions. Most of the girls are struck if they get married, otherwise fired
at the age of 35 to replace with a young and energetic lot. Unionization is strictly prohibited. Normal
working hours run from 12-16 hours and overtime is a must. The day is interspersed with one hour
lunch-break; toilet use is permitted twice a day and water intake is rationed. Young workers keep in-
hailing machine fumes, toxic glue and lather and cloth wool. 77% of them get lung cancer or acquire
swear respiratory diseases4 and turnover is high.

According to internal pricing and production documents5 each worker should produce one shirt every
6.6 minutes and against each shirt or a pair of shoe which is sold from $150-250 a worker is paid 30-
40 cents around 310th to 460th part of its retail price. On average every worker sews one pocket every

3
Sorcha McLeod, 2005, Business and Human Rights in Rohna K.M.Smith and Christien van den Anker Ed. The essentials of
Human Rights, 2005, p.28-29, London, Great Britain.
4
Sweatshops: Poverty is awesome: See: http://www.toolness.com/nike/faq.html
5
The Corporate by Mark Achbar, Jennifer Abbott, Joel Bakan, (documentary film), See:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=3203253804055041031#

Amjad Nazeer Corporate Globalization and Human Rights Abuses 3

17 seconds, means 3338 pockets in a day6. Though occasionally, if the poor workers demand higher
remunerations they are either beaten up by the supervisors or by the local police. Verbal abuse is a
norm to speed up the work. In a typical Vietnamese factory only 1 doctor is available to 6000 workers
and only for 2 hours a day. Young workers keep collapsing due to unbearable heat, toxic air and poor
nutrition. In April 1997, 10000 out of 13000 workers went on strike demanding a pay raise. One
worker was locked-up in a factory room for the whole week and was interrogated by the military for
organizing labour7.

Box 1.Once Indonesian Noble peace prize winner Jose Ramos-Horta said that ‘Nike should be treated as enemy,
in the same manner as we view army and the government as the perpetrator of human rights abuses.’ What is
the difference between the behaviour of Nike and Japanese imperial army in WW II. Yes! Nike has created
115000 jobs in Indonesia but only at subsistent wages which hardly contributes towards sustainable economic
development’. Source, Ibid.

Nike prefers hiring young girls in its apparel factories as girls in Indonesia, Vietnam and Pakistan are
normally obedient and docile due to cultural orientation. What else Nike is doing, if not contributing
towards the feminization of poverty. A gender neutrality assumption of globalization is proves false8
on visiting any of the Nike’s supply factories.
Box 2. The famous American basketball player Micheal Jordan, sponsored by millions of dollars to wear Nike
outfits, once happened to see other side of Nike in China and Indonesia where 12-14 years old girls were forced
to work for 12-14 hours a day. He was moved so much that he gave all 26 million USD that he made that year
for the sweatshops welfare in China and Indonesia9.

In Vietnam sweatshops, if a worker fails to produce her monthly quota, she is struck with a
punishment of 15 to 20 % deduction from her salary. Beating, harassment and sexual abuse is not
uncommon. The factory owners are brutal and wield police force and local mafias to harass, beat up
and at times kill the workers who demand a higher remuneration or try to unionize. An atmosphere of
fear noticeably features workers’ behaviour. Misconduct and manhandling of one in front of other
workers serves as an instrument to set example for others to remain in limits10. In 2008, around 20,000
Nike workers organized a strike in Vietnam against the poor wages and awful working conditions11,
but in vain.

6
The Big One: A documentary film by Michael Moore.
7
Facts and FAQs about NIKE’s labour Abuses , See:
shttp://www- personal.umich.edu/~lormand/poli/nike/nikelabor.htm
8
Myra Marx Ferree and Aili Mari Tripp, 2006, Global feminism, p. 3-5, Newyork University Press, Newyork.
9
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d6ikyNu1Q_c&NR=1

10
Nike: The king of Social Injustice...Sweatshop, http://tpzoo.wordpress.com/2009/03/24/nikethe-king-of-social-injusticesweatshops/
11
Human rights for workers: How our global economy undervalues work andworking people, The durability of Nike’s sweatshops. See:
http://humanrightsforworkers.blogspot.com/2009/07/durability-of-nikes-sweatshops.html

Amjad Nazeer Corporate Globalization and Human Rights Abuses 4

Globalization and International Children Rights, Women Rights and Labour Rights Context:

Although experts and scholars disagree on the chronology, causes and consequences of globalization
but in the present context, I will emphasise transnational investment, production and supply aspect of
globalization. According to Frederic Jameson, ‘Globalization reflects the sense of an immense
enlargement of world communication, as well as of the horizon of the world market, both of which
seem far more tangible and immediate than in early stages of modernity’. David Held defines
‘globalization’ as ‘a process which embodies a transformation in the spatial organization of social
relations and (economic) transactions - assessed in their terms of extensity, intensity, velocity and
impact-generating transcontinental or inter-regional flows and networks of activity, interaction and
the exercise of power’.12

In reference to TNC’s practices in their supply-units we find them guilty of violating all international
human rights principles stated in various conventions. The Article 25 (1) states that ‘everyone has the
right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well being of (her)self and of her family.’
Similarly the right to an ‘adequate standard of living’ also makes a conspicuous appearance in Article
11 of IC-ESCR stating that, ‘the state parties recognize the right of every one to an adequate standard
of living for (her)self and her family’. The Convention on the Right of the Child also recognizes ‘the
right of every child to a standard of living adequate to the child’s physical, mental, spiritual, moral
and social development’ under Article 27. Work related rights and decent standard of living is also
recognized in all other regional conventions as well13. Slavery and slave-like practices are prohibited
both in customary and the treaty law. Slavery is prohibited together with the slave trade, servitude and
forced or compulsory labour in the Article 4, 5 and 6 of the American and other regional Conventions.
Article 1(1) of Slavery Convention defines slavery as ‘status or condition of a person over whom any
or all forms of powers attached to the right of ownership are exercised’. The condition implies
violation of the right of every one to be recognized as ‘a person’ before the law according to the
article 16 of IC-CPR. It is widely accepted that trafficking in women, forced prostitution and child
labour are modern-day-forms of slavery14.

‘The right to work, equal pay for equal work, and just and favourable remuneration is recognized by
UDHR Article 23. While Article 24 states that ‘everyone has a right to leisure and rest, including
reasonable limitations of working hours and periodic holidays with pay’. Article 7 of IC-ESCR states
that, ‘states parties recognize the right of everyone to the enjoyment of just and favourable conditions
of work’. The respective rights are enshrined in the additional Protocol of American Convention on
Human Rights (ACHR) under Article 6&7. In CEARD, states parties acknowledge ‘the right of
everyone....to equality before law in the enjoyment of the right to work, equal pay for equal work and

12
, Manfred B. Steger, 2009, Globalization: a very short introduction, p.13, Oxfaor University Press, Newyork.
13
Asbjorn Eide 2000, in Human rights: Concepts and standards, Ed. Symonides, Jansusz 2000, p.128-129, 141-
142, Ashgate publishing, England.
14
Manfred Nowak 2000 in, Ibid, p.80-81

Amjad Nazeer Corporate Globalization and Human Rights Abuses 5

to just and favourable conditions of work’. Likewise CEDAW reiterates same rights as ‘the right to
the same employment opportunities, the same criteria of selection, free choice of employment, the
right to promotion, job security and all benefits and the right to receive vocational training and equal
remuneration and equal treatment and equal respect of work of equal value and equal treatment in the
evaluation of the quality of work’ for women are acknowledged15.

According to the Article 25 of UDHR, ‘everyone shall have the right to social security as a member of
society. According to the social security clauses of ILO ‘minimum standard convention 1952,’ every
worker has a right to medical care, sickness-benefit, injury-benefit, family maternity benefit,
invalidity and survivors’ benefit. Under Article 5 of IC-ESCR states take ‘gender needs and obstacles’
into considerations. The Article 9 & 16 under special protocol of ACHR 1988 provides benefits of
work related accidents, occupational diseases, child-birth and special benefits in case of mental or
physical disabilities16.

Convention on the rights of the child adopted in Nov.1989 and entered into force on Sept 1991 is
acceded by 191 states, the largest number comparing with any other convention. In the said
conventions, the child is considered as a ‘full member of the society’ though family is considered her
natural and fundamental group but the child is never a property of the family. The convention assumes
child as an active subject of the rights not an object of the adults. In their formative age children are
susceptible to any kind of influences and are not in a position to defend their rights. It states that every
child under the age of 18 shall be considered as a child and most of the rights acknowledged by the
convention are non-derogable. ILO Convention 138 specifies working age as 15 but in many countries
the age is 18 or even higher. Under Article 31, ‘every child has a ‘right to leisure, to rest, to play and
engage in recreational activities’ being crucial for the development of the child as capable and
potential member of the society. The right to education (28), freedom of expression (13), the right to
health & health facilities (24) and the right to social security and insurance (26) and all of these rights
are interdependent an interconnected17. In reference to the working conditions of Nike factories, not a
single right of the workers and children is respected.

Critical Role of NGOs, Media and Academic Experts:

‘Slavery if the shoe fits,’ ‘poverty is awesome,’ ‘we can end sweatshops, boycott Nike’, buy shoes
that are made under suitable working conditions, ‘dot it just’, Nike the King of Sweatshops,’ were the
main slogans of NGOs and media resistance to Nike. Several strategies such as letters, emails, sign
petitions, naming and shaming campaigns and seminars were organized to compel Nike from
avoiding its shameful and abusive practices in Asian countries. It is their efforts that established the
fact of TNCs’ involvement in a range of labour rights and workplace abuses but it is the child-labour
issue that mainly the attention of global media and transnational NGOs. Foul Ball Campaign and
15
Katarina Tomasevski 2000, p.240-249 Ibid,
16
Asbjorn Eide 2000, p.146-147, Ibid
17
Youri Kolsov 2000, p.160-163 Ibid.

Amjad Nazeer Corporate Globalization and Human Rights Abuses 6

Global March against Child Labour gave further impetus to the gravity of the situation to be
addressed. John Patret an MIT graduate wanted to customise Nike shoes with the label ‘Sweatshops’.
His order was cancelled. How ironic! But there fact was revealed.

World Visions (WV) and Community Action Abroad (CAA) - which is now Oxfam-Australia - were
the first two NGOs that started campaigning against Nike sweatshops. WV later on engaged with
Nike to devise an education project for its workers in Asia but Oxfam had reservations. Currah, the
Director of CAA wrote to WV in 2000 that, ‘my concern is that ‘the corporation’ is using its
relationship with WV to undermine the campaign to persuade it to improve the working conditions in
its supply-factories.’ The Director of WV wrote back to CAA that ‘it still supports the cause and this
engagement must not be seen as WV’s connivance to some of its’ controversial operations’. It is clear
that despite having a common goal in mind the two NGOs had diversified approach to deal with the
problem18. Succumbing to the pressure and after repeated denials and blatant lies, it was for the first
time in 2002 that Nike concedes the detestable working conditions in its supply factories.19

On the other hand a new product politics is emerging with the efforts of conscientious citizens and
civil society. The customers are beginning to brood-over what they buy and how it affects the end
producer. Clean Clothe Campaign against exploitative garments factories in Europe and No Sweat
campaign against Nike in America is slowly but gradually changing the behaviour of brand-conscious
TNCs20.

Additionally, the increased transitional economic operations, technological development and social
intensification processes, protests and consumer boycotts are also turning international. NGOs and
internet campaigners are increasingly convincing world consumers to boycott Nike – and other TNCs
products – producing their goods under unfavourable working conditions. It is a new way of
‘punishing’ the abusive producers 21 . But knowing the possible hazards of their operations the
corporations still try to trivialize acts and events of rights abuses. International Multi National
Monitor came up with a list of top 100 corporate criminals in 1990 and Nike is one of them.

18
Barbara Rugendyke , NGOs as advocates for development in the globalized world, p.165:
http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=zmmgl6XQEuAC&oi=fnd&pg=PR13&dq=barbara+rugendyke&ots=98YOO-
oL8&sig=PCdYy_UefEs4_61lYn4ACAEBT7c#v=onepage&q=nike&f=false
19
Rob Van Tulder and Alex Van Zwart, International business Society Management: Linking corporate responsibility, p279-284
http://books.google.com/books?id=mdj_bgKbzFMC&printsec=frontcover&dq=International+business+Society+Management:+Li
nking+corporate+responsibility,&lr=&cd=1#v=snippet&q=oxfam%20nike&f=false
20
Michele Mitchelette et al, Politics, products and markets: Exploring political consumerism past and present, 2004, p.127-129,
New jersey
21
Monore Friedman, Boycotts: Effecting change through market and media, 1999, p. 159-160, Routledge, Great Britain,
London.

Amjad Nazeer Corporate Globalization and Human Rights Abuses 7

State Behaviour of Indonesia, Vietnam, Pakistan and & USA in Particular:
With a deregulated economy, massive unemployment and legal ambiguity of TNC’s accountability to
home or host country, Asian states remain either helpless or unwilling to impose any restrictions.
Government of Pakistan is taking every measure to attract FDI whatsoever. Say, all Nike products
have free shipping facility. When Nike severed its contract with the supply chains of Pakistan close to
2000s, Government of Pakistan made umpteen efforts to pull it back and it finally returned in 2007.
Pakistan’s former president used to say that FDI and TNCs are like birds on a tree, any minor
disturbance might cause them fly away. In a similar tone the former prime minister would say that
Pakistan offers the best environment for FDIs as we providing them a hundred percent equity in profit
and returns, implying zero taxation on foreign companies22. Already existing trade unions were made
ineffective, directly or indirectly.
The Socialist Republic of Vietnam has a state owned trade union and is extremely hostile to other
trade union and turns a deaf ear to any organization voicing labour concerns and injustices. Vietnam
police brutally quashed protest demonstration against Nike in 2008 and 100 union leaders were fired
from job. In Indonesia, a new Manpower Bill prohibits independent unions and strikes on public
places while allowing arbitrary ejections from companies, and required advance submission of names
of strike leaders to a military dictator who had murdered millions of civilians. Roughly 30% of Nike’s
total business cost goes to payoffs for Indonesian generals, government officials and cronies23. The
USA constitution states it very clearly that any corporation found guilty of using slave labour to
produce its products will be prosecuted but Nike and no other TNCs has ever been brought to justice
for their slavery-like practices in 3rd world countries.

Nike’s Response: Policies, Codes of Conduct and Improvement Efforts:

After prolonged denials, debates and consumer actions Nike agreed to come up with some favourable
policies and collaborative efforts to support its workers abroad. In 2004 Nike rolled out its elaborate
plan to improve conditions in its supply-chains which describes that by 2011, CSR will be a driving
force behind of Nike’s operations, excessive overtime in contact factories eliminated, compulsory
educational training arrangements made, freedom of association ensured, multi-brand collaboration on
compliance issues in 30% of the supply chains achieved, lean manufacturing in all our supply-chain
removed, collective bargaining training provided, true value of labour and adequate wages promised,
workers rights protected and collaborative efforts between, governments, trade unions NGOs and
corporations enhanced and possible support in this regard extended. According to Nike herself
compliance quality in contact factories is gradually improving24. Despite every effort it is difficult to

22
Nike returns to Pakistan, June 2007, BusinessAssurance.com, http://businessassurance.com/nike-returns-to-pakistan/
23
Human rights for workers, July 2009, The durability of Nike;s sweatshops,
http://humanrightsforworkers.blogspot.com/2009/07/durability-of-nikes-sweatshops.html
24
Responsibility Document, See: http://www.nikebiz.com/responsibility/documents/3_Nike_CRR_Workers_C.pdf

Amjad Nazeer Corporate Globalization and Human Rights Abuses 8

change corporations over all approach which is more charity oriented than based on rights and dignity
of a persons. The following graph is an apt illustration of that.
Percentage
50
40
30
Europe
20
US
10
Asia Pacific
0
Human Rights Health safety Child Labour Forced Labour Freedom of Ass Code of ILO
Policy Policy Policy Policy Policy Condunct Conventions

The number of companies with health & safety policy is higher than overall number of those with
human rights policies as corporations see them to be unrelated issues, Source: Benchmarking
corporate policies on labour & human rights goals Occasional Paper Series, Capital Matters,
Harvard School of Law, N0.5, Nov, 2009

Another such admirable effort was Nike’s - along with few other TNCs - accreditation to the Fair
Labour Association (FLA) in 2008. The most distinctive recognition by FLA, which is still awaited
for Nike, demonstrates the corporation’s commitment and systematic efforts to bring its contact
factories to the levels to labour compliance standards25.

Nike Foundation and Save the Children’s (USA) partnership to empower adolescent girls was one
such effort. The Nike Foundation awarded Save the Children $1.58 million grant for a three-year
project. The Foundation began part of its work with leading local, national and international
organizations aimed at education, improvement of health removing injustices to adolescent girls and
creation of economic opportunity for girls. Maria Eitel, the president of Nike Foundation said that ‘we
are excited for working with Save the Children....and to demonstrate the benefits of investing in girls,
both as a means to improve the lives of girls themselves and the positive impact that this will have on
their communities’ 26.
On November 2009 in Washington D.C, Nike, and four other top U.S Companies agreed to back up
an international programme for the improvement of compliance with labour standards and
competitiveness in their supply-chain-factories. The made a commitment that Nike, Gap, Levi-
Strauss, Walmart and the Walt-Disney will together contribute 1$ million to a joint programme,

25
Fair labour assoctiona releases its annual 2008 annual report, FLA highlights new strategies for preventing labour rights
violations: October 6, 2009, See :
http://www.fairlabor.org/images/NewsandPublications/NewsReleasesandStatements2009/2008_apr_release.pdf

26
Save the Children UK, June 28th, 2007, Nike Foundation and Save the Children team up to empower adolescent girls
,http://www.savethechildren.org/corporate/partners/nike-foundation-and-save-the.html

Amjad Nazeer Corporate Globalization and Human Rights Abuses 9

‘Better Work’ of ILO and International Finance Corporation - a private sector lending arm of the
World Bank. The programme will contribute towards assessment and training for better compliance
with labour standards. Better work brings Governments, Corporations, Employees and Workers
together to assess labour standards’ compliance, take remedial measures and publish periodical
reports27. According to Climate Count Scorecard Nike scored on top in 2009 for its voluntary efforts
to reduce its climatic contamination efforts. Climate Scorecard evaluates 90 corporations on their
voluntary efforts to minimize their environmental degrading operations23.

In June 2009 Greenpeace name and shamed supermarkets and hose manufacturers whose mindless
consumption of raw material is denuding forest and causing climatic shifts in the Amazon .Recently a
group of TNCs including Nike came up with a moratorium with Greenpeace that they would stop
buying leather from Brazilian Amazon region - the largest cattle range in the world – as the suppliers
are clearing more and more forest to clear pastures for their cattle. Tatiana Carvalho, a Greenpeace
campaigner termed it as a great step but he warned that tracing the origin of leather is difficult act as it
is bought and sold in the open market. Without an effective tracking system, it is difficult for the
producer to know where a piece of leather is coming from deep from the Amazon or from the forested
land or from the grazing lands of the country. But still it is demonstrates Nike’s commitment to
reduce deforestation in the Amazon. The moratorium is moving towards success and in July 2009,
Greenpeace made its fourth consecutive report public28.

The Analysis:
‘World has enough for everyone’s need but not for everyone’s greed’. Mahatma Gandhi.

Business friendly economists stress that controversies and campaigns over large corporations’
overseas operations such as sweatshops’ hue and cry adversely affects the companies’ smooth supply
of products, inflicts damage to their reputation and downturns share prices. Others argue that fair
corporate-supply chain relations and compliance with labour standards actually reduces employees’
turnover, improves supply chain production potentials and multiplies long term returns29.

Business creates both positive and negative impact on society. Since long, the questions, though not
with the urgency of present times, have been raised about social responsibilities of business such as
the legitimacy of the profit, limits of public control, profit dividends to the shareholders, redistribution
of wealth, and obligations to the community and the place where resource are extracted or labour is

27
Nike,Unilver, HP, Tope latest climate scorecard, GreenBiz. Com, See: http://greenbiz.com/news/2009/11/18/nike-unilever-hp-top-latest-
climate-counts-scorecard
28
Andrew Downie, September 22, 2009, Can Nike and Wal-Mart save Amazon?, The Christian Science Monitor:
http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Americas/2009/0922/p06s07-woam.html
29
Aoran Bernstein and Christopher Greenwald, November 2009, Capital Matters, Occasional Paper Series, No. 5,
http://www.law.harvard.edu/programs/lwp/pensions/publications/occpapers/occasionalpapers5.pdf

Amjad Nazeer Corporate Globalization and Human Rights Abuses 10

harnessed and lastly who should have the right to decide about and how far. Such questions gave birth
to the notion of corporate sustainability, corporate social responsiveness, corporate social
performance, corporate social responsibility, and ‘corporate citizenship’ quite recently. Precisely, in
the words of European Commission’s Directorate for Social Affairs, ‘CSR is a concept whereby the
companies integrate social and environmental concerns in their business operations and interactions
with the stakeholders on voluntary bases’30.

State vs. voluntary self-regulation debate is historical and is still on. Several public litigations have
been filed against TNCs for violating human rights and ILSs in USA and rejected under the clause
that ‘human rights observance is the responsibility of the state’ where a TNC is operating.
Nevertheless the growing influence and power of TNCs in the absence of any binding regulation of
corporate governance demands that corporations should take the responsibility along with the home
and the host state. Although corporations have always been asserting for self-regulation than state-
imposed legislation but whatever changes we have seen or the code of conduct and compliance
principles corporations adopted are the result of NGOs and citizen’s pressure or international trade
unions31. But the point is that along with the globalization of investment-capital, we must stress the
globalization of opportunities, fair representation, human values and social justice.

Under the leadership of Kofi Annan UN took Global Compact Initiative and Norms of Business in
1999. Involving more than 100 corporations including Nike, UN came up with 10 principles and 18
norms based on ILS, HRL and environmental principles without creating any compulsory and
legislative apparatus. The key objective was to create a sense of Corporate Citizenship and CSR.
Being an inter-state organization, UN is not in a position to enforce standards and measure progress,
unless the Corporate voluntarily go for any such independent assessment and measure progress32.

As UN is gradually coming out of its difficulties for being undermined in post 9/11 wars, I think in
dealing with the excesses of TNCs like Nike and hundreds of other such species, UN has a special
role to play in coordination and support from the home and host-states, NGOs, the Corporations and
conscientious citizens. The former commissioner for OHCHR has worked on a project Realizing
Rights: Ethical Globalization Initiative that motivated CEOs of the 10 large TNCs in creating
Business Leaders Initiative for Human Rights (BLIHR) to work on how human rights can be made
consistent with business operations and how can HR principles be integrated into the their business
policies. Two of them have already made some progress and working UN is working with other 8 to

30
Michael Blowfield and Allan Murray, Corporate Responsibility: A critical introduction, 2008, p.13-15. Oxford University Press, USA.
31
Sorcha McLeod, 2005, in Busnines and human rights 2000, Ed. Smith, R.K, The essentials of human rights, p.28-29.
32
Brigette Hamm 2005, The need to strengthen the responsibilities of business for human rights, in Michael Windfuhr, 2005, Beyond Nation
State: Human rights in times of globalization, p.255-269 and Mary Robinson, 2005,Corporate social responsibility and workplace standards,
p.266-269.

Amjad Nazeer Corporate Globalization and Human Rights Abuses 11

enshrine HR principles in their business policies33. A predominant tendency of the supremacy of the
market is to commoditize everything and once you commoditize something you can do anything to it
or inflict any sort to violence to it, may it be nature or a human person34. What TNCs do is no more
than machinize or commoditise workers and eke out as much as production in as minimum time as
possible.

As IHR principles were originally devised to be protected and fulfilled by the states through various
acts of commission and omission. But in the present times one country’s direct or indirect violation of
human rights in the jurisdiction of other countries and the effects of globalizations are seriously
challenging the state’s capacity to address these issues. Resource constrain makes the challenge even
bigger. Corporations make investment decisions on the basis of taxes, environmental regulations,
availability of required material, labour laws and wage levels that diminishes the will and the capacity
of the states to regulate the TNCs setting up their businesses in their countries. Poor countries with
higher levels of unemployment are usually afraid of imposing any lest the companies choose
otherwise35.

Elimination of child labour from sweatshops has been facing all such difficulties as mentioned above.
But some progress was necessarily made in this context. Kneeling down to CSOs pressures on World
Federation of Sporting Goods Industry (WFSGI), FIFA and intentional football brands an
international meeting was convened in coordination with ILO, UNICEF, Faire Trade Foundation,
Anti-Slavery International, Save the Children Fund, Oxfam, Sialkot (Pakistan) Chamber of
Commerce and the Government of Pakistan to address the issue in sports industry of Pakistan in
November 1996. In February 1997, the Government of USA, WSFGI and Sporting Goods
Manufacturing Association proposed a strategy to abolish child labour from sports industry. Thereby
sports TNCs and NGOs created a partnership that included registration of all contractors to ensure that
no football stitcher is below 14 and establishments of an internal monitoring department to monitor
age and arrange required training. A social disaster mitigating programme was devised to rehabilitate
children removed from football-stitching and provision of adequate schooling, discouraging new
entrants, community awareness on health and growth consequences of child labour, and income
generating opportunities to recover the income loss.

Razia and her family regularly received football stitching work from a local contractor at their home. One such morning the
contractor told her that he is no more allowed to deliver home-based football stitching for child labour involvement in the
family. He also told her that if she is interested in doing football stitching work she will have to come to the factory at the
workplace. Living far from the industry and haven four little children, it was not possible for her to commute for work. Her

33
Mary Robinson, Ibid, p.255-269 & 266-269.
34
Michel Foulcat 2005, Method in The global resistance reader. Ed. by Louise Amoor, p.88-89,).
35
(Michel Windfuhr 2005, Ibid, p.12-13).

Amjad Nazeer Corporate Globalization and Human Rights Abuses 12

husband was a daily wage labourer who would cooperate with his wife and children in football stitching. Additional income
helped them to have batter food and participate in socio-cultural activities of the community. Her husband was a casual
building worker and when he would not find a daylong work economic difficulty would further. Within a few days the family
has lost a significant portion of their monthly income. After a couple of month or so she came to know that a football
manufacturer was planning to set up a village based football manufacturing centre. The news was a sigh of relief for her as
she supposed that she will be able to go to village based manufacturing centre but only if her elder daughter who was just 13
could take care of her younger children. Adopted from Source: Bahr A. Kazmi & Magnuse Macfarlane, p.194

The partnership reported implementation of the programme to FIFA, WFSGI and international media
on November 1998 on the first day of the World Cup. The programme was implemented in Pakistan’s
sports industry with varied effects. Some of the families who lost their supplementary income were
not happy. The box above illustrates one such case36.

Conclusion - Where does the responsibility of human rights lies:

International human rights law was constituted by the states and for the states to respect and promote
human rights within its jurisdiction, ill suited to deal with the trans-state or transnational entities,
currently known as TNCs or MNCs. The law needs to retailer itself in order to respond to the
challenges of globalization. To our dismay, ‘a Corporate’ constitutes an entity of a ‘social citizenship’
hence entitled to the right to life, liberty and property. Therefore, it is by law, difficult to restrain their
operations or coerce them to comply with certain standards. The first thing that international law
needs to do is to ‘depersonalize’ the corporate to come up with different sets of national and
international regulations. They corporate need to be democratized and held accountable to the citizens
and the state wherever they operate and where they are registered. It is ‘people’ not the ‘profit’ that
should be placed at the heart of all business interventions. The corporations, more than often not only
undermine ILS, rather undermine the whole democratic system as well. Working together might help
us to win over the corporate greed. Better alternatives are available to process and provide goods and
services to fulfil essential human needs. It is not the shareholders whom the corporations are
answerable alone but it is the people, the environment, future of humanity and they have a duty to.
The corporations must not be immune from democratic and human rights norms and standards. They
are subject to same demands as made from a democratic system of governance and that is of
transparency, accountability, empowerment of the people and respecting principle of equality and
human dignity.

At the end it is futile to expect that MNCs, TNCs and Business Groups and Chains alone can make
things better. Without a cooperation and collective action from states, civil society, individual citizens
and consumers, NGOs and UNOs, it is never possible to constitute a just and socially responsible
society and a dignified life for everyone. As a measure of corporate social responsibility whatever
initiatives have been taken by TNCs most of them offer inadequate and poor services coupled with the

36
Rory Sullivan, Ed. 2003, Business and human rights: Dilemmas and solutions, p. 179-193, Greenleaf Publishing Limited, Shiefield, UK.

Amjad Nazeer Corporate Globalization and Human Rights Abuses 13

absence of independent assessment and driven by a charity approach. Even then they leave no stone
unturned to manipulate their alliance with global compact, labour standards and other such
associations to build their image amongst customers that might yield in bigger sales and larger profits.

In nutshell, social issues, as we have seen, are always complicated and multidimensional and ask for
multidimensional and far-reaching solutions, which are sometimes out of the capacity of
underdeveloped countries. NGOs too have limited capacity and business organizations, are willing to
take, but a partial responsibility, given the very nature and purpose of their investment.

******

Amjad Nazeer Corporate Globalization and Human Rights Abuses 14