Global Value Chain Law: Constituting Connectivity, Contracts and Corporations

Introduction

Ongoing struggles over vaccine supplies forcefully illustrate the extent to which Global Value Chains (GVCs) serve as central infrastructures of the global economy and global society. While the COVID-19 pandemic might have been a revelation in this respect, the centrality of GVCs dates back to the dawn of colonialism.

Historical Context

Both historically and in contemporary times, GVCs produce profound environmental and socio-economic externalities in jurisdictions often incapable of or unwilling to effectively regulate abhorrent working conditions and environmental degradation. Hence, the question of how to legally regulate cross-border economic processes, including the capability of democratically organized political processes to effectively regulate GVCs, is a central legal problem within fields such as:

1. Competition law
2. Contract law
3. Corporate law
4. Environmental law
5. Human rights law
6. Labour law

Regulatory Developments

Until recently, voluntary soft law measures were the preferred regulatory tools in relation to GVCs. In the last few years, a decisive move towards hard national and EU regulation has taken place, thereby raising the question of to what extent this changes the rules of the game.

Project Overview

On the backdrop of this development, GLOBALVALUE develops a novel and systematic socio-legal approach to GVC Law. This is done in a threefold manner:

1. Historical Sociological Reconstruction: Through a historical sociological reconstruction of GVC Law going back to colonial law, countering the currently dominant ahistorical approaches to GVC Law.

2. Comprehensive Case Studies: Through three comprehensive case studies in relation to the global pharmaceutical, wine, and trade fairs industries. Spanning five continents and nine national jurisdictions, the case studies will illuminate the effects of contemporary hard and soft law practices of GVC law.

3. New Conceptual Framework: Through the development of a new concise conceptuality of GVC law with direct implications for our understanding of core legal concepts such as contract, legal order, and economic constitutionalism.