The Buck Stops Where? Responsibility in the Global Economy

On 24 April 2013, the Rana Plaza factory complex in Savar, Bangladesh collapsed, killing 1,127 people. This is the worst incident in a long history of fires and building collapses in sweatshops. When such disasters occur, responsibility ascriptions are notoriously complex and clumsy. In this case the factory owners were held criminally responsible. But moral responsibility was ascribed to many other agents, from the Bangladeshi government for failing to implement proper labour standards, to multinational clothing companies who bought clothes made in the factory, to individual consumers of the products.

When international economic activity leads to severe harms responsibility ascriptions are not clearly understood, allowing blame to be passed from one agent to another without resolve. This problem applies not only to catastrophe but also to chronic economic harms. Complex processes involving countless individuals and multiple public and private institutional actors, transcending national legal systems, enable the majority of actors to wash their hands of responsibility.

This one-day conference aims to raise and explore problems surrounding the following questions: do we have responsibilities as participants in the global economy? What are the grounds of these responsibilities? What kinds of responsibilities are they? What are the responsibilities of different types of individual and collective agents such as citizens, consumers, states and corporations?

Attendance is free. Please register via eventbrite.

Schedule:

9.30       Welcome and Registration

10.00     Keynote Speech

• Elizabeth Ashford (St Andrews)

11.00     Tea and Coffee

11.15     Session 1: Responsibility within Structures (Chair: Emily McTernan)

• Janelle Poetzsch (Ruhr-Universitat Bochum), “Sweatshop Labour, Structural Injustice and the Role of Corporations”

• Melanie Brazzell (Humboldt University) “Positioning Ourselves: Iris Marion Young on Oppression, Shared Responsibility and Sweatshops”

• Kristian Hoyer Toft (Aalborg University), “Liberal CSR and New Marxist Challenges”

12.45     Lunch

13.45     Session 2: Consumer Responsibility (Chair: Saladin Meckled-Garcia)

• Sabine Hohl (Zurich University), “Contribution-Based Consumer Responsibility”

• Jan Willem Wieland (VU University Amsterdam), “Do You Care Enough?”

• Nina Van Heeswijk (University of Gothenburg), “Global Justice, Special Relations and the Global Economy”

15.15     Tea and Coffee

15.30     Session 3: Collective Responsibility (Chair: Avia Pasternak)

• Sara Chant (University of Missouri), “Collective Moral Responsibility and Collective Free Action”

• James Dempsey (University of Warwick), “Moral Responsibility and Business Culture”

• Dimitrios Efthymiou (University of Southampton), “State Responsibility in the EU: A Normative Account”

17.00     Break

17.30     Panel Discussion: "Responsible Conduct in the Global Economy: what is it and how do we get there?" (Chair: Elizabeth Ashford)

• Phillip Booth (Institute of Economic Affairs)

• Peter Frankental (Amnesty International)

• Ashok Kumar (International Union League for Brand Responsibility)

• Michael Solomon (Profit Through Ethics)

19.00     Drinks reception

For further information, please contact [email protected], or visit the conference blog: http://responsibilityintheglobaleconomy.wordpress.com/