Publicaties

The EU- China Comprehensive Agreement on Investment (CAI) presents a balancing act in labour rights protection. For the EU, labour rights protection constitutes an integral part of every trade and investment agreement it negotiates. China rarely includes labour provisions in trade and investment agreements. This article discusses current EU and Chinese approaches to integrating labour rights in trade and investment agreements, then introduces ...

Because existing legal frameworks have proven inadequate for the transnational regulation of business, various voluntary forms of governance are relied upon to fill the gaps. Of these, the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises ('the Guidelines') is unique. Though not legally binding on MNEs, it is one of the only government-backed multilateral instruments that applies directly to firms and which is enforced by a unique complaint ...

In this feature paper, we introduce voluntary sustainability standards (VSS) and canvas the research that has been conducted on VSS from different academic disciplines. We identify four main areas of research on VSS and explore them. First, we focus on research on the institutional design of VSS, which highlights the diversity among VSS. Next, we explore studies that try to assess the impact of VSS on key sustainability dimensions. Third, we ...

This paper analyzes the current role of regional organizations in the implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and its 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). We construct a conceptual model and distinguish four potential roles that regional organizations can play in the implementation of the SDGs: the translating role, supporting role, coordinating role and monitoring role. We apply this framework to the European Union and ...