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'.

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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