Beyond Codes of Conduct and Monitoring: An Organizational Integrity Approach to Global Labor Practices

This article analyzes the "best practices" of several companies at the leading edge of the global labor rights movement and offers guidance to companies seeking to enhance the effectiveness of their human rights programs. While leading companies still continue to devote significant resources to monitoring and compliance, the companies following the "organizational integrity" approach are exploring other initiatives designed to prevent rights violations from occurring in the first place and to enable remediation of problems which are uncovered. This article analyzes the three essential components of the organizational integrity approach: (1) Cooperation with NGOs, (2) Training and remediation programs for problems uncovered through monitoring, and (3) Integration of proactive rights-sensitive sourcing policies with overall company strategy.