5: Conclusion

Applying the rules of a foreign legal system correctly and appropriately always presents a significant challenge for a practitioner. That challenge is only increased by the availability of a significant number of variations in the formulation of the claims and of course by uncertainties and controversies within the law. In the context of a search to introduce accountability into the textile industry worldwide, the common law will be called upon in what are presently some of its most changeable areas. The claims which will be in contemplation in the case about to be heard in Dortmund will face numerous obstacles and may be hanging from the slim possibility of the German court taking an active and particularly sympathetic approach.

What is nevertheless certainly clear is that the meaning and operation of industry codes of conduct or ethical conduct measures are not necessarily apt to achieve what might be taken as their obvious purpose. The present case is one to watch for practitioners interested in the potential development of a new international line of liability, as well as for academics and comparatists interested in the performance of and treatment given to English liability rules in a German court in this unusual new context.

The case will at the very least also serve to highlight the weaknesses in legal recourse for victims of production disasters hoping to impose responsibility right in the engine room of exploitation – retail in the West – and expose an awkward tension. Driving up the costs of retailers’ ethical intervention measures by seizing upon them to attach liability in damages may do little to resolve the underlying problem of regulatory failure. By moving production abroad, retailers still have the freedom to pick the regulatory piper’s tune. In structuring their relationships to ensure distance, they are also likely one way or another to pay that piper a price set only by their own ethical whims.

Thomas Thiede 1 , Andrew J Bell 2