Abstract:Several scandals involving well-known electronics brands have highlighted the exploitative and unsafe conditions under which many workers operate in the industry's long and complex supply chains. As large-scale consumers of electronic goods public buyers potentially hold significant leverage over the behaviour of their suppliers through their buying power. Consequently, public procurement has the potential to be a significant influence on these supply chains and ultimately the human rights of those working in them. This article critically assesses legal options for the promotion of social considerations in the supply chain, considering in particular the potential of the EU legal regime for public procurement as a tool for improving working conditions and human rights in the electronics industry supply chain.

Effective biosecurity is an important requisite for the conservation of biodiversity. Preventing the introduction and spread of invasive species including pests, diseases and other organisms through biosecurity measures is important, not only for food security and agricultural health, but also links directly with the prevention of biodiversity loss. Although several international instruments are relevant in this regard, legal analysis of biosecurity at both the international and national levels remains limited. In light of the far‐reaching implications of biosecurity failures, there is an urgent need to recognize the nature of biosecurity and to understand how effective biosecurity frameworks can be developed. The present article seeks to contribute to this gap, first, by highlighting the nature of biosecurity as a regulatory concept; second, by providing an overview of some of the key international legal provisions and standards applicable to biosecurity; and, finally, by discussing some of the challenges which arise for the application of an international framework to biosecurity and the adoption of domestic biosecurity frameworks, particularly in the context of developing countries.

In this article, we advance on ongoing debates about how global supply chain monitoring can work to improve conditions for workers in those supply chains. We propose an approach to worker-driven monitoring and introduce a set of core elements that should form the basis of this new approach to monitoring labour conditions in global supply chains. We argue that supply chain workers' participation in labour monitoring systems cannot be confined to the moment of factory inspection. Instead it must be understood as part of a larger process which incorporates workers from the point of designing the systems that will be monitored through to the point of remediation. We conclude that such a systematic and comprehensive approach is necessary to ensure that monitoring processes are meaningful and place the rights of workers at their core.

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In the light of the current, increased interest in empirical legal studies, including the associated capacity limitations identified in the Nuffield Foundation's Inquiry on Empirical Research in Law , and in other arenas, this article seeks to contribute to the development of empirical legal studies by presenting in detail one approach to empirical research in the field of biosecurity (border controls and associated measures to protect human, animal, and plant life and the environment).The article focuses on the particular approach of grounded theory to legal inquiry in law, on the novel aspects of this research methodology, and on the potential, as identified by the present authors, for its application to biosecurity. The article examines some of the specific processes applied in the analysis of qualitative data, collected through the application of this methodology, focusing on the insights facilitated by the mixed-method approach to analysis developed by the authors. Finally, examples of the insights gained through both the application of grounded theory and the particular approach to data analysis are presented and evaluated.