The Role of Voluntary Standards in German Development Policy

Abstract

This chapter will elaborate on the role of voluntary standards in German development policy. Today, social and ecological conditions of production are at the heart of intense discussions on globalisation. Of particular concern are production conditions in developing countries, where lack of capacity to implement international agreements is often observed. Private ecological and social standards play an important role in the efforts of private companies to introduce more sustainability in their supply chains. Since these developments directly affect developing countries, private standards have increasingly been of concern in German development policy. In some cases this chapter discusses private voluntary standards together with legally binding requirements. There are several reasons for this. Firstly, private standards often rely on binding international conventions—e.g. the International Labour Organization (ILO) core labour standards are the basis of almost every private social standard. Additionally, from a government’s point of view, both are ways to achieve the same objectives and some instruments—like modern trade and investment agreements—deal with both. Additionally, governments sometimes even rely on private standards when designing regulatory initiatives. For example, the Guatemalan government has made Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certification mandatory for forestry firms operating in the ‘Mayan Biosphere Reserve’ (IAWG 2011, p. 24). Therefore, a discussion of the issues surrounding private standards is often linked to legal instruments.