Traceability in global governance

Abstract

An increasingly important challenge in global governance, which in some issue areas has been labelled ‘traceability’, has been to track the cross‐border travels of objects that are associated with positive or negative effects. However, the common properties and identifiable patterns of variation of traceability across issue areas or industries have been insufficiently explored. We identify key properties of traceability systems, including the variation and interactions between the physical properties of the traced object, the positive or negative effects with which it is associated, the monitoring technology, and the institutionalized power relations that activate and constrain traceability systems. We examine and compare traceability systems for food safety, conflict minerals, pharmaceuticals, carbon emissions, money laundering and financial transactions. Understanding traceability in this way is important not only for these cases, but also for understanding interactions between objects, infrastructures, as well as monitoring and political mechanisms in global governance more generally.

Traceability and foreign corporate accountability in mineral supply chains

“…On the one hand, the level of concentration of deposits affects traceability: it is much easier to trace the provenance of minerals if deposits are concentrated in a few countries. On the other hand, geological particularities and the chemical composition of minerals can impact the ability to trace minerals (Muirhead & Porter, 2019). For instance, some minerals can only be extracted via large scale, industrial mining.…”

Shadow supply chains and criminal networks

“…As we know from research on bribery, intermediate structures or per sons are of critical importance for the organisation of illegal/legal proce dures and the "transformation" of the status of goods. The supply chain literature has shown that intermediate structures such as smelters for raw materials or sawmills in the illicit trade of wood are essential points where transparency and traceability will come to a chokepoint and even to a rapid stop (Muirhead and Porter 2019). So these points in a supply chain are of major concern in the tracking of illicit proceeds and of the partici pants in those stages of the supply chain.…”

La trazabilidad de los datos oficiales sobre delincuencia en España

“…La tercera opción y también la que puede generar más reticencias institucionales, tiene que ver con la mejora en la transparencia del proceso y gestión de estos casos, ya que permitiría un mayor control en la aplicación de la ley por los operadores jurídicos y en el cumplimento de los requisitos propios del proceso penal en el que está inmerso el caso (Muirhead & Porter, 2019). La trazabilidad no solo permite identificar los cambios ocasionados en el objeto a lo largo de su trayectoria, sino que también es posible verificar la efectiva aplicación de controles o normas externas en cada una de las fases.…”