Earlier this month, investigative journalists disclosed that Indian garment factories responsible for the supply to global supermarket chains such as Marks & Spencer, Tesco and Ralph Lauren were exploiting their workers...the brands that use these suppliers in India are all part of the Ethical Trading Initiative (ETI)...

...The ETI is part of a trend known as multi-stakeholder initiatives (MSIs) that involve a “collaboration among various public and private actors—such as corporations, governments, CSOs, and rights holders—that have a stake in an issue.” These MSIs set global voluntary industry standards for its members to follow and are often punted as addressing issues of public concern such as human rights violations in specific industries. These MSIs are geared towards establishing a governance model to tackle a gap “where a state either cannot, or will not, fulfill its duty to protect its citizens against human rights violations by companies.”...

...Despite the increasing popularity of MSIs, it is clear that self-regulation through this governance model is not the answer to driving corporate accountability for matters of public concern such as human rights protection...

...While there are modest achievements such as the success with the elimination of child labor practices among the members of the ETI, for example, we need to revisit why public regulation does not suffice in holding corporations accountable in the first place?...