A Baby-Step to Global Labor Reform : Corporate Codes of Conduct and the Child

The author argues that one of the major causes of exploitative child labor, the multinational corporation (MNC), may well provide a partial solution to the child labor problem. Under circumstances in which conventional processes and institutions of international law have failed and seem likely to continue failing to control child labor, corporate codes of conduct not only hold promise for reducing exploitative child labor, but have already proven useful in achieving that goal. The paper details the problem of exploitative child labor, reviews the international and national efforts to regulate child labor and illustrates how these efforts have largely failed. It goes on to examine the political and cultural difficulties that have impeded attempts to control child labor, reviews extra-legal codes of conduct from the past, and assesses the apparent and potential success of the strategy