Question 2 – what should global supply chain governance look like?

Supply chains can be improved by ensuring that the companies selling the end product are held accountable for abuses and violations of basic workers’ rights all along the supply chain. Top-tier firms should be made to ensure that all facilities within their supply chains maintain the same standards as those set for primary facilities. In this regard, it is worth nothing that many of the companies at the top of the chain and who benefit most (in value terms) actually hold monopoly status over the end product, so identifying them and holding them accountable should not be difficult.

Question 5 – what are the benefits and drawbacks of global supply chains as a 'model' for production and development?

The plusses of global supply chains are that they create some form of job, livelihood, income, access to market, and economic development. The minuses, however, are that these incomes are so low as to be non-sustainable. Most often, the jobs produced are precarious and provide only limited access to markets at the bottom of the value chain, with few opportunities to move up to higher levels of development. Abuse of basic workers’ rights is rife in the absence of regulation from government or the companies that benefit from the supply chain.