Abstract
Voluntary private sector agreements are common as a tool to regulate industries including the enforcement of labor laws in domestic and overseas markets. Agreements cover many different industries, and they differ greatly in scope, implementation and monitoring. Challenging to enforce, they have often been criticized by consumer groups and have sometimes failed. This article examines one of the oldest and most prominent examples of a voluntary industry agreement in agriculture, the Harkin-Engel Protocol targeted at addressing the worst forms of child labor in the cocoa sectors of Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana. In 2006, the authors of this paper were first tasked by the U.S. Department of Labor to oversee the implementation of the Harkin-Engel Protocol on behalf of the U.S. Congress. They have since documented the Protocol’s implementation for more than eight years. This paper discusses the authors’ experience with private sector voluntary agreements for achieving social change in developing countries at the example of the Protocol. Special issues around the role of regulation and law within this process are our focus in this article.
Funding statement: Funding: U.S. Department of Labor, IL-23796-12-75-K/IL-23796C22.
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©2015 Law and Development Review
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Editorial
- Redefining and Analyzing “Development” and the Role and Rule of Law
- Articles
- The Paradoxical Roles of Property Rights in Growth and Development
- Yong-Shik Lee, “Call for a New Analytical Model for Law and Development”: A Comment
- Initial Reflections on an Interdisciplinary Approach to Rule of Law Studies
- The Importance of the Thin Conception of the Rule of Law for International Development: A Decision-Theoretic Account
- Tracking the Law and Development Continuum through Multiple Intersections
- The World Bank’s Sustainable Development Approach and the Need for a Unified Field of Law and Development Studies in Argentina
- Policy Space and Policy Autonomy under the WTO: A Comparison of Post-Crisis Industrial Policies in Brazil and the US
- Toward an Elaboration of a More Pluralistic Legal Landscape for Developing West African Countries: Organization for the Harmonization of Business Law in Africa (OHADA) and Law and Development
- Conceptualizing the Developmental State in Resource-Rich Sub-Saharan Africa
- Trade, Development and Child Labor: Regulation and Law in the Case of Child Labor in the Cocoa Industry
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Editorial
- Redefining and Analyzing “Development” and the Role and Rule of Law
- Articles
- The Paradoxical Roles of Property Rights in Growth and Development
- Yong-Shik Lee, “Call for a New Analytical Model for Law and Development”: A Comment
- Initial Reflections on an Interdisciplinary Approach to Rule of Law Studies
- The Importance of the Thin Conception of the Rule of Law for International Development: A Decision-Theoretic Account
- Tracking the Law and Development Continuum through Multiple Intersections
- The World Bank’s Sustainable Development Approach and the Need for a Unified Field of Law and Development Studies in Argentina
- Policy Space and Policy Autonomy under the WTO: A Comparison of Post-Crisis Industrial Policies in Brazil and the US
- Toward an Elaboration of a More Pluralistic Legal Landscape for Developing West African Countries: Organization for the Harmonization of Business Law in Africa (OHADA) and Law and Development
- Conceptualizing the Developmental State in Resource-Rich Sub-Saharan Africa
- Trade, Development and Child Labor: Regulation and Law in the Case of Child Labor in the Cocoa Industry