Posts Tagged ‘Tulane’

A significant report was published today by the Payson Center for International Development and Technology Transfer at Tulane University for the US Department of Labor.  The report, titled Oversight of Public and Private Initiatives to Eliminate the Worst Forms of Child Labor in the Cocoa Sector in Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana, March 31, 2011, reviews the progress made under the industry’s voluntary International Cocoa Initiative (ICI) created in 2002 to identify, monitor and prevent child labor in the cocoa farms of Ghana and the Ivory Coast. The study provides the following conclusions on the effectiveness and validity of the cocoa industry’s self regulation for supply chain traceability: … we conclude that Industry’s “certification” model does not yet conform with ISO 65 standards of certification. Industry has only partly established bodies with the appropriate mandate, and has not finalized the required processes to develop a “credible” certification system. … These mixed results seen over the past decade of Industry self-regulation leave unanswered the question of “is Industry able to self-regulate in the absence of enforceable legal repercussions.” The authors looked to potential analogs or solutions, discussing the US Conflict Minerals Law enacted as part of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and