The calamitous Rana Plaza factory collapse in 2013 focused international attention on labour rights' violations and factory safety in Bangladesh's dominant ready-made garment industry which is almost wholly dependent on exports to the EU. In response, the EU and the ILO launched the Bangladesh Sustainability Compact, with the core objective of promoting continuous improvement in labour rights and factory safety in the industry. The uniqueness of the Compact stems from its nature as a form of experimentalist governance involving both governmental and non-governmental actors. Being primarily an EU-led initiative based on balancing trade, sustainable development and human rights' objectives, it is underpinned by the possible option, if the Compact fails, of withdrawing trade preferences. This article will examine the rationale for the Compact, its main features, and its effectiveness as a form of 'global experimentalist governance'.

The Union is a peace project based on the economic integration of the Europe. This Union could achieve its goals only through the maintenance of political integration. Political integration requires the integration of states and integration of peoples as well. Integration of peoples is only possible through the achievement of democratic and political legitimacy. Union citizens should be provided with the proper conditions to feel the sense of belonging to the Union in order to achieve political legitimacy. Therefore, the development of human rights by the Union would help increase the sense of belonging for the Union citizens in relation to the constitutional nationalism. The institutions of the Union did not pursue a human rights-focused policy in its early period. The European Court of Justice made judgments related to the human rights only within the framework of the economic purposes in the early period of its establishment. The legitimacy of the fundamental rights such as the supremacy of the Union law was begun to be questioned in the course of time. Human rights-related reactions of the constitutional courts of the member states helped the Union to realize the importance of the human rights policies. The European Parliament, as the democratic body of the Union, brought the human rights policies to the agenda through its political initiatives, and the European Court of Justice did the same through its judgments. vii The need for more clear, transparent and foreseeable rights protected under the Union law emerged in the course of time. Therefore, a fundamental rights catalogue was codified in the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the EU.The legal status of the Charter was made equal with the status of the Treaties under the Lisbon Treaty. Thus, a human rights document to be taken as a basis for the measures of the Union was drawn up. This thesis discusses the Charter considering its place in the historical and constitutional developments in the EU human rights law. It focuses on the position of the Charter in the general progress of the human rights policy. In addition, the Charter"s influence on the relations within the Union and between the Union and member states was analyzed. It was examined whether the Charter resulted in a functional and effective development in favor of the human rights law or not.

Workers producing garments in developing countries for European brands are often described as ‘slaves to fashion’. They are denied decent work, a core ILO objective and a UN Sustainable Development Goal (SDG). Instead, they are employed in unsafe factories prone to frequent deadly fires or building collapse, subject to anti-union discrimination and violence. The deprivation of their labour rights and poor working conditions might lead to the conclusion that they are in fact ‘modern slaves’, and thus modern slavery is fuelling the garment supply chain which is, in turn, propelled forwards by the fast fashion demands of European consumers. Modern slavery within supply chains can be tackled by brands and retailers, typically those seen as responsible for such abuse and it can be tackled through trade and development policies by actors such as the European Union (EU). In Bangladesh, the EU is the country’s largest trading partner in garments, and it has considerable leverage to improve labour rights, in doing so tackling modern slavery in the supply chain, utilising trade conditionality. The EU has to date lacked a policy focus on tackling modern slavery in its external relations, but with the adoption of the UN SDG 8 which combines elimination of modern slavery with decent work, there is scope for bringing about longstanding change. This paper argues for more normative interconnections between decent work and modern slavery in both national and EU external relations policies.

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