Integrating human rights in the sustainability governance of global supply chains: Exploring the deforestation-land tenure nexus

Abstract

In contemporary discourse, the need to address urgent environmental issues with a social perspective is widely acknowledged. While theories on policy integration have primarily focused on the national scale, limited attention has been given to the merging of environmental and human rights considerations in global supply chain sustainability governance. Drawing on policy integration theories, we develop an analytical framework for studying Human Rights and Environmental Integration (HREI) within global supply chain governance, specifically examining the deforestation-land tenure nexus in soy supply chains from Brazil to Europe. Our empirical analysis focuses on key policy instruments, including the Soy Moratorium, the Working Group on the Cerrado, the Round Table on Responsible Soy (RTRS), and the EU Regulation on deforestation-free products (EUDR). Drawing from extensive fieldwork in Brazil, we assess the integration of land tenure in these policy instruments, revealing a general weakness in this aspect. Nonetheless, grassroots organizations have played a crucial role in advocating for enhanced HREI, urging the inclusion of land tenure rights in instruments addressing deforestation. Our research highlights that, although global supply chain instruments may not entirely compensate for the deficiencies of domestic policies, they should, at the very least, strive to comprehensively address complex sustainability problems and prevent actions that could worsen existing issues or give rise to new sustainability problems. In conclusion, our study contributes to a more nuanced understanding of the opportunities and structural constraints associated with integrated approaches to interconnected human rights and environmental issues.

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