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Position paper of the Treaty Alliance Germany. Since June 2014, a working group of the UN Human Rights Council has been working on a binding UN agreement with which the international community should regulate the activities of companies with a view to respecting human rights. The UN-Treaty aims to improve the protection of affected individuals and communities against human rights abuses by companies and to give them access to legal remedies. From 23 to 27 October 2017, the Working Group on the Agreement will meet in Geneva for the third time. The Ecuadorian leadership will present a proposal for elements of the future agreement by then. In a broad alliance of German non-governmental organisations, the Treaty Alliance Germany, the Global Policy Forum has prepared a position paper on the UN Treaty Process. In it, it calls on the Federal Government to cooperate constructively in the process and presents elements that should be included in a future agreement.
The signatory organisations expect the Federal Government to actively engage in the negotiations for an agreement that:

• obliges States to legally oblige companies established with them to respect human rights, including in their foreign operations, subsidiaries and supply chains;
• grants effective legal protection to persons concerned, including in the country of origin of an undertaking;
• regulates how states cooperate in cross-border cases to hold companies accountable;
• stipulates that the obligations under the UN Human Rights Agreement take precedence over those under trade and investment protection agreements;
• provide for an independent expert committee to receive state reports on the state of implementation of the agreement and to examine individual complaints against states;
• initiates a process to establish an international Court of Human Rights before which individuals can sue transnational corporations for human rights violations.

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The document provides general and statistical information on the textile industry in India. It discusses the structure and size of the textile market, as well as the government's policy framework and measures, such as tax planning and other subsidies. In addition, an overview of important Indian and foreign actors and investors is given. Finally, the document highlights challenges and possible developments. It is aimed primarily at economic operators.

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In October 2014, the Alliance for Sustainable Textiles was founded by representatives of business, civil society, standard organisations and trade unions to achieve social, environmental and economic improvements along the textile supply chain. After a little over a year of validity, are there any signs of initial success? Sabine Ferenschild, SÜDWIND e.V. Institute for Economics and Ecumenism, sees a shortcoming of the Textile Alliance in the fact that it is based on voluntary work. On the other hand, the consideration of all textile processing stages and the coverage of a wide range of content standards in the social as well as in the ecological sector are positive. At present, we cannot speak of success or failure, as the Alliance is busy creating its own foundations. Stefan Körzell, DGB, emphasizes that companies in particular must ensure that their global production sites or those of their suppliers are safe. This should not be voluntary, but requires stricter liability rules for companies, at national and international level. According to Thomas Silberhorn, Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development, the alliance is an example of how politics, business and civil society can work together on social and environmental improvements. But a critical awareness of consumers is also necessary to increase demand for sustainably produced goods and services, thereby incentivising companies to produce more sustainably.

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Dharaviin the heart of Mumbai is home to an estimated 1 million people and of the biggest slum economies in the world. With 86% of India’s total workforce working in the informal sector, this papers sheds light on the working and living conditions of a section of this invisible workforce as well as their collective struggles and organizing strategies for a more decent life.

The empirical findings suggest that despite massive barriers to organizing, informal garment workers develop innovative strategies to gain victories both vis-à-vis employers and the state by organizing collectively. The entry point are workers’ identities as women and citizens and their struggles around domestic violence, harassment housing and public services.

For many workers the trade union membership card gains importance as the first written proof of identity and the support of the collective serving as a protection against violence at home and in the community. In the absence of legal protection, this paper finds that trade union organizing is indispensable for combating rights violations and building bargaining power for increasing income.It also shows tha social protection schemes, where they cover informal garment workers, are only effective if workers organize collectively and pressure the state for effective access.

The paper shows how trade union as collective organizations of informal economy workers can be key agents to support the effective delivery of state services and contribute to the transitioning of workers from informal to more protected employment.

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The apparel export industry in Ethiopia began modestly in the 2000s, but increased significantly by the mid-2010s and will continue to do so in the coming years, positioning Ethiopia to be an important supplier country in the globalized apparel industry.

This paper provides an overview of the emergence and evolution of the apparel export sector in Ethiopia. It argues that the EPRDF government’s pro-active industrial policy played an important role in the development of the sector. While foreign firms are an important driver behind the growth of apparel exports, there are also locally owned firms exporting apparel, which makes Ethiopia distinct from most other Sub-Saharan African apparel exporter countries. Ethiopian-owned apparel firms exhibit diverse ownership patterns, including state-owned, party-owned, and private sector-owned firms. The first phase of industrial policy specifically focused on incentivizing local investment in apparel production for export while later phases of industrial policy shifted the focus to attracting foreign direct investment, in order to boost exports and generate employment more quickly as well as bring knowledge and global networks into the country. Despite the focus on exports, the EPRDF government closely has proposed import-substitution policies in the textile and apparel sector, which has helped the development of locally owned apparel firms by subsidizing the cost of learning to export as well as building a national supply chain from cotton to textile to apparel. The challenges for the government’s industrial policy approach is to retain the focus on local firms given their important role in productive transformation and to ensure incentives and support for local firms to export, and through this to increase their capabilities and value added, despite the existence of a protected domestic market.

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