The Evolution of Model Contract Clauses: A View From Labor

Abstract

In 2018, the american Bar association's Working Group to Draft Model Contract Clauses to protect human rights in International Supply Chains (hereinafter the Working Group) published its first version of the Model Contract Clauses (MCCs 1.0). 1 as the Working Group explained in its commentary to the MCCs 1.0, "the foundational idea behind the present work is to move the commitments that companies require, whatever they may be, from corporate policy statements to the actual contract documents where those policies may have greater impact. " 2 It aimed to do so primarily through the adoption of representation and warranties clauses, which gave the buyers in a supply contract the contractual language necessary to easily reject non-conforming shipments of goods (those made in violation of the labor rights the buyer chose to protect in its Schedule p) or to terminate contractual relationships with their suppliers. the approach taken by the MCCs 1.0 came under some criticism by practitioners and academics, including the attendees of the January 2019 annual Symposium of the american University Law review, where the MCCs 1.0 were discussed and debated at length. 3 as a speaker at that Symposium, I made four overarching points about the MCCs 1.0 which related to the absence of the voice and agency of workers in a legal project ostensibly meant for their benefit. First, despite a global agreement in 1998 on a set of 'fundamental labor rights' which all states must respect, promote, and realize regardless of their level

Keywords: Labor rights, model contract clause, supply chains