Legal Interventions and Transnational Alliances in the Ali Enterprises Case: Struggles for Workers’ Rights in Global Supply Chains

Abstract

This article highlights the persistence of exploitative working conditions in global supply chains resulting from the constant need to externalise costs and increase consumption with a view to sustaining the “imperial lifestyle” of people in the Global North. While the law structures today’s global value chains and is designed to secure the economic interests of Global North companies that sit at the top of most of such chains, it also bears considerable potential for transformation and empowerment. The different legal interventions around the 2012 Ali Enterprises factory fire demonstrate that law is not only a direct product of dominant class interests, but that it can also open up opportunities for resistance and emancipatory struggle. Written from the perspective of one of the actors closely involved in the legal struggle for justice that followed the Ali Enterprises factory fire, both in terms of building transnational alliances as well as in the litigation itself, this chapter critically reflects on the achievements of the legal interventions carried out and also attempts to develop criteria for a holistic approach to what is often called strategic litigation.