Associate Professor Marshall is the Director of the RMIT Business and Human Rights Centre and an Australian Research Council DECRA fellow. She is a cross-disciplinary scholar whose research focuses primarily on business and human rights and labour law and development. She has undertaken empirical studies of business impact on human rights in a diverse range of countries, including Bulgaria, India, Indonesia, Australia and Cambodia, and has published widely based on her findings. Her high standing as a scholar has been recognised through the award a number of large multi-country grants, and she has undertaken collaborations with scholars from Cambridge University, Harvard University, Melbourne University and RMIT. Dr Marshall’s long term partnerships with the technical arm of the International Labour Organisation, Oxfam Australia and CORE UK has enabled her to produce research of a highly applied nature, which has had a strong policy influence and provided meaningful lessons for business and other relevant organisations. Dr Marshall holds a Bachelors of Arts with a double major in Social Theory and Political Science and a Bachelor of Law from the University of Melbourne. She studied a Masters of Science in Development Studies at the London School of Economics and Political Science, where the focus was on economic policy. In 2015, she was awarded a Doctor of Philosophy in Regulation, Justice and Diplomacy which she undertook at the RegNet School of Regulation and Global Governance, Australian National University under the supervision of Peter Drahos, Valerie Braithwaite and John Braitwaite.
Throughout recent economic history, social struggle over the regulation and distribution of socia... more Throughout recent economic history, social struggle over the regulation and distribution of social costs, benefits and risks associated with capitalist economic relations have been both pervasive and continually evolving. Such contestation surrounding how capitalist forms of accumulation, production and exchange are constituted and regulated by broader social norms and relationships has often been characterised as a struggle over the terms on which capitalist economies are ‘socially embedded’—in Karl Polanyi’s influential language. These regulatory processes draw on state and non-state actors, a range of formal organisations and social institutions, as well as broader and more nebulous features of the social environment. Importantly, the concept of embedding also entails a particular normative view of how the costs, benefits and risks associated with participation in capitalist economic relations should be managed and distributed. The normative view usually associated with a Polanyi...
By 2006, seven years after the transition to capitalism began, informal work in Bulgaria constitu... more By 2006, seven years after the transition to capitalism began, informal work in Bulgaria constituted somewhere between 20 per cent and 35 per cent of overall work. It was an entrenched feature of the Bulgarian economy. The aim of this chapter is, first, to track the way that national and international factors converged in the 1990s to create dramatic social change, leaving at least a third of the working population in Bulgaria stranded in informality. It is, second, to assess the expansion of the contract of employment as a means to achieve formalisation. In 2011, Bulgaria’s labour law underwent reform, following a successful campaign for the extension of employment laws to cover home-based workers. The state’s expansion of employment law was in part, a reflection of Bulgaria’s desire to demonstrate adherence with European Union (EU) recommendations as part of its integration into the EU.
This chapter explores the contemporary relevance of Berle and Means’ fundamental questioning of t... more This chapter explores the contemporary relevance of Berle and Means’ fundamental questioning of the purposes of the corporation. The issues considered concern the contemporary nature of the modern corporation as a new institutional form, and the determination of its purposes. The chapter draws on legal and empirical sources to examine the purposes of the corporation: the interpretation by courts of the duty imposed on directors to act in the interests of the corporation; a survey of company directors to assess what influence directors’ duties have on the extent to which directors are adopting stakeholders’ approaches; and research on how corporations define their business objectives as this provides insight into how corporations define their purposes.
This article is centrally concerned with the mechanisms and processes through which human rights ... more This article is centrally concerned with the mechanisms and processes through which human rights in transnational business practices can be respected and remedied when breached, with a particular focus on workers’ rights in global garment supply chains. The United Nations (‘UN’) Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (‘UNGPs’) represent a high-level attempt to provide a normative framework for these issues.
This chapter canvasses a long-term vision for improving the lives of poor and precarious workers ... more This chapter canvasses a long-term vision for improving the lives of poor and precarious workers who work in informal conditions. It proposes a bold, transnational initiative that aims to promote a global living wage and regulate supply chains. The chapter puts forward three interrelated regulatory pathways out of informality. First, the promotion of Global Living Wages through a multilateral instrument such as an International Labour Organization (ILO) Convention or United Nations treaty, which would also establish an International Living Wage disputes mechanism for enforcement of these minima; second, the setting up of National Living Wage Tribunals empowered to hear disputes concerning non-payment of living wages due to supply chain dynamics and to hold parties in the supply chain responsible for non-payment; third, the fostering of local pathways out of informality.
Some of the worst human rights conditions globally are found in Rajasthan’s sandstone quarries. T... more Some of the worst human rights conditions globally are found in Rajasthan’s sandstone quarries. This paper asks if state-based regulation in the economic-North advanced under the Business and Human Rights agenda: disclosure-based regimes, due diligence compliance regimes and trade-based regimes, could advance efforts to improve respect for human rights in this sector. It adopts fields of struggle lens and global value chain theoretical approaches to business power and governance to understand the challenging political and economic dynamics that entrench harm within sandstone quarrying in Rajasthan. This analysis suggests that company-based disclosure and due diligence regimes will struggle to ameliorate these dynamics whilst trade-based approaches hold some potential to generate meaningful change.
This report examines the multiple barriers for vulnerable, informal quarry mining workers in Raja... more This report examines the multiple barriers for vulnerable, informal quarry mining workers in Rajasthan to gain concrete improvements in their working conditions and redress for serious human rights harms suffered. it presents guidance about the role of non-judicial redress mechanisms that aim to hold transnational business who sell, buy and process stone mined in Rajasthan responsible for these conditions. It also provides proposals about ways that businesses can be encouraged to adopt practices of human rights due diligence in relation to their supply chains. Due diligence is an ongoing, proactive and reactive process through which companies can ensure that they respect human rights.
Development Economics: Regional & Country Studies eJournal, 2016
This report studies the human rights impact of the PT Weda Bay nickel mining company on indigenou... more This report studies the human rights impact of the PT Weda Bay nickel mining company on indigenous and seaside communities in north-west Indonesia, and their attempts to stop the mine or gain fair compensation for loss of their land. It demonstrates the immense barriers to accessing meaningful redress for communities that are remote.In 1998, a mining license was granted to PT Weda Bay nickel in respect to land located on Halmahera island in north Maluku, Indonesia. The mining licence would allow the company to proceed with a nickel mine, with potential for the extraction of 500 million tons of nickel. As of July 2016, the project remained suspended due to weak market conditions and in order to seek new investors, and the project had not yet entered phase one of construction. However, extensive land preparation for the construction project had already begun, as part of the project’s feasibility and exploration phase.The project was embroiled in significant controversy over the disrup...
There has been considerable speculation recently regarding the effect of the growing prevalence o... more There has been considerable speculation recently regarding the effect of the growing prevalence of institutional investors in the equity markets on investee company behaviour. Institutional investors include superannuation funds, banks, mutual funds and insurance companies. It has been posited that the growth of institutional investors may lead to the pursuit of what is generally referred to in the human resource literature as ‘high commitment’ employment practices in investee companies.1 This may be because institutional investors are using ‘voice’ mechanisms to pressure investee companies to adopt ‘high commitment’ human resource practices. For the purposes of our study it is sufficient to note that these labour management practices typically involve managerial attempts to motivate and manage workers through a series of workplace practices that incorporate the interests of employees rather than through strict command and control structures.2 These might include investment in staff...
As the global debate on business and human rights considers how to improve business respect for h... more As the global debate on business and human rights considers how to improve business respect for human rights, and ensure access to remedy – through implementation of the United Nations Guiding Principles and/or through negotiation of a binding legal instrument – the case studies examined in this report contribute insights about the kinds of effects non-judicial mechanisms produce, under what conditions, and how they contribute to broader systems of remedy. Non-judicial redress mechanisms have an explicit purpose of providing access to remedy. Individual remedy is understood as redress to specific individuals in a particular case in response to a human rights abuse. The right to an effective remedy in international law combines procedural and substantive elements: “practical and meaningful access to a procedure that is capable of ending and repairing the effects of the violation” and “where a violation is established, the individual must actually receive the relief needed to repair the harm” in a timely and affordable way. Across ten cases we examined, the non-judicial redress mechanisms fell short of delivering individual remedy both procedurally and substantively, although in five cases we documented some form of positive result from the perspective of claimants seeking remedy. National and transnational non-judicial grievance mechanisms can sometimes contribute to problem-solving and provide access to compensation or a venue in which to mediate a settlement. In our cases, the result of mediation or other non-judicial process largely did not align with the remedy desired by complainants or meet the standard of “relief needed to repair the harm”. The research points to the fact that the effectiveness of a transnational non-judicial mechanism is not myopically reliant on its own institutional design or process rules. Rather, it is also the result of its interaction within a broader system in how it generates leverage, manages relationships at different levels, engenders commitments and resourcing, and is able to navigate complex power imbalances in a way that serves its purpose of providing access to remedy.
In light of the labor crisis that has unfolded in Europe with record level unemployment, growing ... more In light of the labor crisis that has unfolded in Europe with record level unemployment, growing precariousness of employment and increasing inequality, it would seem logical that measures be undertaken at national and international levels to ease the consequences of the crisis for workers. Governments have responded to such conditions the past by creating major social pacts with labor to bolster consumption and faith in the economic system. The U.S. New Deal came out of such a crisis. Yet instead of softening the burden of the crisis for labor, it has been amplified by most national labor law reform processes.There are numerous explanations for the U.S. led financial crisis of 2007 and the sovereign debt crisis of 2009/10 in Europe. No legitimate explanations focus on labor as the cause. Yet labor has been targeted in austerity measures that aim to rebalance national budgets and reduce indebtedness. The reason why austerity is being chosen over other policy options is because of the dominance of financial markets, combined with restrictions that the E.U. economic and monetary union places on countries to adjust to economic shock. Because the union has removed the tool of adjusting exchange rates, which is the normal way to effect “external devaluation,” “internal devaluation” at the member state level is the only means available to restore public finances and lower nominal wage costs. This is giving rise to a crisis of a different type. So much economic policy is currently focused on “restoring confidence in the markets,” yet it is now impossible to restore the confidence of the financial markets and the majority of citizens at the same time. Until financial interests less dominate nations, it seems likely that labor will continue to carry the burden of a crisis for which it was not responsible. This paper examines contrasting views about the causes of the 2007 U.S. financial crisis, and the 2009/10 European sovereign debt crisis. It presents data on the effects of the crisis on labor, showing that inequality has increased, although the wealth of the top quintile was reduced by financial market losses. Unemployment and informal work have also increased dramatically. It then briefly assesses alternatives to the labor law reforms that have been rolled out across Europe, focusing on financial re-regulation. It concludes by examining why these tools are not being employed by nation-states following the crisis, and why other measures have been preferred.
Wide agreement over the need to reform the personal scope of the application of labour law has em... more Wide agreement over the need to reform the personal scope of the application of labour law has emerged at a national and supranational level. Great ideas are only the beginning of any law reform process, however. As labour law scholars we often act as if change is driven by ideas, even as we observe and write about other causes of institutional change. The puzzle of how institutional change occurs in practice has absorbed regulatory and institutional theorists for some time. This paper draws on the work of Kathleen Thelen, in particular. It is concerned with two strategies of purposeful institutional change and with the question of how agents of social change bring about reform. These strategies are here termed ‘complementary layering’ and ‘experimental displacement’ and illustrated with case studies drawn from the textile, clothing and footwear industry in Australia and head-load work in Maharashtra, India; two of the most innovative examples of strategies to expand the scope of labour market regulation worldwide. A mixed methodology entailing interviews with workers and regulatory agents, legal analysis and broader political economy analysis is employed to explore the strengths and weaknesses of these strategies for bringing about institutional change in practice.
Home-based work – entailing, for example, sewing clothes, constructing shoes, putting together sh... more Home-based work – entailing, for example, sewing clothes, constructing shoes, putting together shopping bags, and making a range of crafts – is a valuable source of income to people during economic crises and transformation. Homeworking grew in Bulgaria as a response to the transition to capitalism after 1989 when privatisation and economic structural transformation resulted in great job losses. During the economic crisis of 2008/9 homeworking has again provided economic refuge to those who lost their jobs or who were unable to subsist off their existing incomes. Despite the important role of homeworking in the Bulgarian economy and for the people who rely on it for their livelihoods, it is both indicative of and creates economic and social vulnerability. This report addresses how regulatory measures, in tandem with a number of short and long term organisational initiatives, might remedy the poor conditions and vulnerability of home-based workers in Bulgaria. It reports on evidence from various sources regarding the conditions and livelihoods of homeworkers in Bulgaria. Its central finding is that almost no homeworkers in Bulgaria are receiving legally stipulated minimum wages.
Throughout recent economic history, social struggle over the regulation and distribution of socia... more Throughout recent economic history, social struggle over the regulation and distribution of social costs, benefits and risks associated with capitalist economic relations have been both pervasive and continually evolving. Such contestation surrounding how capitalist forms of accumulation, production and exchange are constituted and regulated by broader social norms and relationships has often been characterised as a struggle over the terms on which capitalist economies are ‘socially embedded’—in Karl Polanyi’s influential language. These regulatory processes draw on state and non-state actors, a range of formal organisations and social institutions, as well as broader and more nebulous features of the social environment. Importantly, the concept of embedding also entails a particular normative view of how the costs, benefits and risks associated with participation in capitalist economic relations should be managed and distributed. The normative view usually associated with a Polanyi...
By 2006, seven years after the transition to capitalism began, informal work in Bulgaria constitu... more By 2006, seven years after the transition to capitalism began, informal work in Bulgaria constituted somewhere between 20 per cent and 35 per cent of overall work. It was an entrenched feature of the Bulgarian economy. The aim of this chapter is, first, to track the way that national and international factors converged in the 1990s to create dramatic social change, leaving at least a third of the working population in Bulgaria stranded in informality. It is, second, to assess the expansion of the contract of employment as a means to achieve formalisation. In 2011, Bulgaria’s labour law underwent reform, following a successful campaign for the extension of employment laws to cover home-based workers. The state’s expansion of employment law was in part, a reflection of Bulgaria’s desire to demonstrate adherence with European Union (EU) recommendations as part of its integration into the EU.
This chapter explores the contemporary relevance of Berle and Means’ fundamental questioning of t... more This chapter explores the contemporary relevance of Berle and Means’ fundamental questioning of the purposes of the corporation. The issues considered concern the contemporary nature of the modern corporation as a new institutional form, and the determination of its purposes. The chapter draws on legal and empirical sources to examine the purposes of the corporation: the interpretation by courts of the duty imposed on directors to act in the interests of the corporation; a survey of company directors to assess what influence directors’ duties have on the extent to which directors are adopting stakeholders’ approaches; and research on how corporations define their business objectives as this provides insight into how corporations define their purposes.
This article is centrally concerned with the mechanisms and processes through which human rights ... more This article is centrally concerned with the mechanisms and processes through which human rights in transnational business practices can be respected and remedied when breached, with a particular focus on workers’ rights in global garment supply chains. The United Nations (‘UN’) Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (‘UNGPs’) represent a high-level attempt to provide a normative framework for these issues.
This chapter canvasses a long-term vision for improving the lives of poor and precarious workers ... more This chapter canvasses a long-term vision for improving the lives of poor and precarious workers who work in informal conditions. It proposes a bold, transnational initiative that aims to promote a global living wage and regulate supply chains. The chapter puts forward three interrelated regulatory pathways out of informality. First, the promotion of Global Living Wages through a multilateral instrument such as an International Labour Organization (ILO) Convention or United Nations treaty, which would also establish an International Living Wage disputes mechanism for enforcement of these minima; second, the setting up of National Living Wage Tribunals empowered to hear disputes concerning non-payment of living wages due to supply chain dynamics and to hold parties in the supply chain responsible for non-payment; third, the fostering of local pathways out of informality.
Some of the worst human rights conditions globally are found in Rajasthan’s sandstone quarries. T... more Some of the worst human rights conditions globally are found in Rajasthan’s sandstone quarries. This paper asks if state-based regulation in the economic-North advanced under the Business and Human Rights agenda: disclosure-based regimes, due diligence compliance regimes and trade-based regimes, could advance efforts to improve respect for human rights in this sector. It adopts fields of struggle lens and global value chain theoretical approaches to business power and governance to understand the challenging political and economic dynamics that entrench harm within sandstone quarrying in Rajasthan. This analysis suggests that company-based disclosure and due diligence regimes will struggle to ameliorate these dynamics whilst trade-based approaches hold some potential to generate meaningful change.
This report examines the multiple barriers for vulnerable, informal quarry mining workers in Raja... more This report examines the multiple barriers for vulnerable, informal quarry mining workers in Rajasthan to gain concrete improvements in their working conditions and redress for serious human rights harms suffered. it presents guidance about the role of non-judicial redress mechanisms that aim to hold transnational business who sell, buy and process stone mined in Rajasthan responsible for these conditions. It also provides proposals about ways that businesses can be encouraged to adopt practices of human rights due diligence in relation to their supply chains. Due diligence is an ongoing, proactive and reactive process through which companies can ensure that they respect human rights.
Development Economics: Regional & Country Studies eJournal, 2016
This report studies the human rights impact of the PT Weda Bay nickel mining company on indigenou... more This report studies the human rights impact of the PT Weda Bay nickel mining company on indigenous and seaside communities in north-west Indonesia, and their attempts to stop the mine or gain fair compensation for loss of their land. It demonstrates the immense barriers to accessing meaningful redress for communities that are remote.In 1998, a mining license was granted to PT Weda Bay nickel in respect to land located on Halmahera island in north Maluku, Indonesia. The mining licence would allow the company to proceed with a nickel mine, with potential for the extraction of 500 million tons of nickel. As of July 2016, the project remained suspended due to weak market conditions and in order to seek new investors, and the project had not yet entered phase one of construction. However, extensive land preparation for the construction project had already begun, as part of the project’s feasibility and exploration phase.The project was embroiled in significant controversy over the disrup...
There has been considerable speculation recently regarding the effect of the growing prevalence o... more There has been considerable speculation recently regarding the effect of the growing prevalence of institutional investors in the equity markets on investee company behaviour. Institutional investors include superannuation funds, banks, mutual funds and insurance companies. It has been posited that the growth of institutional investors may lead to the pursuit of what is generally referred to in the human resource literature as ‘high commitment’ employment practices in investee companies.1 This may be because institutional investors are using ‘voice’ mechanisms to pressure investee companies to adopt ‘high commitment’ human resource practices. For the purposes of our study it is sufficient to note that these labour management practices typically involve managerial attempts to motivate and manage workers through a series of workplace practices that incorporate the interests of employees rather than through strict command and control structures.2 These might include investment in staff...
As the global debate on business and human rights considers how to improve business respect for h... more As the global debate on business and human rights considers how to improve business respect for human rights, and ensure access to remedy – through implementation of the United Nations Guiding Principles and/or through negotiation of a binding legal instrument – the case studies examined in this report contribute insights about the kinds of effects non-judicial mechanisms produce, under what conditions, and how they contribute to broader systems of remedy. Non-judicial redress mechanisms have an explicit purpose of providing access to remedy. Individual remedy is understood as redress to specific individuals in a particular case in response to a human rights abuse. The right to an effective remedy in international law combines procedural and substantive elements: “practical and meaningful access to a procedure that is capable of ending and repairing the effects of the violation” and “where a violation is established, the individual must actually receive the relief needed to repair the harm” in a timely and affordable way. Across ten cases we examined, the non-judicial redress mechanisms fell short of delivering individual remedy both procedurally and substantively, although in five cases we documented some form of positive result from the perspective of claimants seeking remedy. National and transnational non-judicial grievance mechanisms can sometimes contribute to problem-solving and provide access to compensation or a venue in which to mediate a settlement. In our cases, the result of mediation or other non-judicial process largely did not align with the remedy desired by complainants or meet the standard of “relief needed to repair the harm”. The research points to the fact that the effectiveness of a transnational non-judicial mechanism is not myopically reliant on its own institutional design or process rules. Rather, it is also the result of its interaction within a broader system in how it generates leverage, manages relationships at different levels, engenders commitments and resourcing, and is able to navigate complex power imbalances in a way that serves its purpose of providing access to remedy.
In light of the labor crisis that has unfolded in Europe with record level unemployment, growing ... more In light of the labor crisis that has unfolded in Europe with record level unemployment, growing precariousness of employment and increasing inequality, it would seem logical that measures be undertaken at national and international levels to ease the consequences of the crisis for workers. Governments have responded to such conditions the past by creating major social pacts with labor to bolster consumption and faith in the economic system. The U.S. New Deal came out of such a crisis. Yet instead of softening the burden of the crisis for labor, it has been amplified by most national labor law reform processes.There are numerous explanations for the U.S. led financial crisis of 2007 and the sovereign debt crisis of 2009/10 in Europe. No legitimate explanations focus on labor as the cause. Yet labor has been targeted in austerity measures that aim to rebalance national budgets and reduce indebtedness. The reason why austerity is being chosen over other policy options is because of the dominance of financial markets, combined with restrictions that the E.U. economic and monetary union places on countries to adjust to economic shock. Because the union has removed the tool of adjusting exchange rates, which is the normal way to effect “external devaluation,” “internal devaluation” at the member state level is the only means available to restore public finances and lower nominal wage costs. This is giving rise to a crisis of a different type. So much economic policy is currently focused on “restoring confidence in the markets,” yet it is now impossible to restore the confidence of the financial markets and the majority of citizens at the same time. Until financial interests less dominate nations, it seems likely that labor will continue to carry the burden of a crisis for which it was not responsible. This paper examines contrasting views about the causes of the 2007 U.S. financial crisis, and the 2009/10 European sovereign debt crisis. It presents data on the effects of the crisis on labor, showing that inequality has increased, although the wealth of the top quintile was reduced by financial market losses. Unemployment and informal work have also increased dramatically. It then briefly assesses alternatives to the labor law reforms that have been rolled out across Europe, focusing on financial re-regulation. It concludes by examining why these tools are not being employed by nation-states following the crisis, and why other measures have been preferred.
Wide agreement over the need to reform the personal scope of the application of labour law has em... more Wide agreement over the need to reform the personal scope of the application of labour law has emerged at a national and supranational level. Great ideas are only the beginning of any law reform process, however. As labour law scholars we often act as if change is driven by ideas, even as we observe and write about other causes of institutional change. The puzzle of how institutional change occurs in practice has absorbed regulatory and institutional theorists for some time. This paper draws on the work of Kathleen Thelen, in particular. It is concerned with two strategies of purposeful institutional change and with the question of how agents of social change bring about reform. These strategies are here termed ‘complementary layering’ and ‘experimental displacement’ and illustrated with case studies drawn from the textile, clothing and footwear industry in Australia and head-load work in Maharashtra, India; two of the most innovative examples of strategies to expand the scope of labour market regulation worldwide. A mixed methodology entailing interviews with workers and regulatory agents, legal analysis and broader political economy analysis is employed to explore the strengths and weaknesses of these strategies for bringing about institutional change in practice.
Home-based work – entailing, for example, sewing clothes, constructing shoes, putting together sh... more Home-based work – entailing, for example, sewing clothes, constructing shoes, putting together shopping bags, and making a range of crafts – is a valuable source of income to people during economic crises and transformation. Homeworking grew in Bulgaria as a response to the transition to capitalism after 1989 when privatisation and economic structural transformation resulted in great job losses. During the economic crisis of 2008/9 homeworking has again provided economic refuge to those who lost their jobs or who were unable to subsist off their existing incomes. Despite the important role of homeworking in the Bulgarian economy and for the people who rely on it for their livelihoods, it is both indicative of and creates economic and social vulnerability. This report addresses how regulatory measures, in tandem with a number of short and long term organisational initiatives, might remedy the poor conditions and vulnerability of home-based workers in Bulgaria. It reports on evidence from various sources regarding the conditions and livelihoods of homeworkers in Bulgaria. Its central finding is that almost no homeworkers in Bulgaria are receiving legally stipulated minimum wages.
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