Periodic Reporting for period 1 - CHAINLAW (Responsive Law for Global Value Chains)
Période du rapport: 2023-09-01 au 2026-02-28
CHAINLAW develops a novel conceptual and normative legal language for Global Value Chains (GVCs). GVCs are largely unknown as legal categories. This is highly problematic when the law is starting to legislate or decides cases about supply-chain responsibility. The core aim of CHAINLAW is to provide the concepts necessary for the law to be able to develop appropriate legislation for GVCs and approach cases involving supply-chain liability. The project does so by applying a combination of theoretical, doctrinal, empirical, technical, and normative analysis on the law of GVCs. CHAINLAW is ground-breaking by employing, first, a novel theoretical framework based on institutional theory that sets up a threefold legal typology of GVCs, thereby allowing their qualifications as part of the company, as contracts, and as a network simultaneously. CHAINLAW engages, secondly, in a multi-disciplinary analysis that traces this institutional understanding within various regulatory layers that govern GVCs and that include formal law, private and technological regulation. It proposes an analysis of the law on GVCs that integrates (i) legal doctrinal analysis of company and contract law and the legal debate on networks, (ii) socio-legal research on private regulation and documentary practices that are set up by companies (creating ‘paper trails’), contracting parties and within the GVC network, and (iii) socio-technical analysis of supply-chain technologies, as used by companies, commercial parties, and in networked processes. Third, CHAINLAW uses these insights to develop a strategy for how the law can govern GVCs, in private law including liability and through public law intervention. A final objective of CHAINLAW is to use the findings these regulatory layers in GVCs to develop a new responsive dogmatic approach to be able to study overlapping institutional layers in GVCs and the regulatory effects that they produce. We propose a doctrinal, private regulatory and digital GVC law for making GVCs work through law.
In the first two years, CHAINLAW produced first results. In terms of output, we count 5 published publications with additional 5 being accepted and several others in the stage of research, writing and in review. The CHAINLAW team participated and presented their work at 20+ conferences and engaged with stakeholders to maximise knowledge transfer. In substance, the CHAINLAW project advanced on the following ends:
1) With its institutional approach to GVCs, it broadened the understanding of what qualifies as part of the regulation of GVCs. Relatedly, this institutional-legal approach to GVCs was linked back to the distinct approaches of different regional powers, notably to the EU. We concretely discussed how the EU uses different sets of (economic) institutions for regulating GVCs globally and it hereby extends its regulatory power - indirectly by piggybacking on GVCs - beyond its territory. In that context, CHAINLAW contributed to understanding GVC regulation broadly to not encompass only genuine “supply-chain laws” (such as sustainability due diligence and reporting) but to also include consumption and thus consumer law approaches as a driving force behind GVCs and an important component in the institutionalisation as network. The CHAINLAW project also advanced legal fields so far rarely discussed in GVC research as central for the regulation of GVCs, such as competition law. For that work, worth highlighting are the PI Beckers’ work on GVCs in EU Law, Postdoc Ravalli’s forthcoming article and book on consumer law in the regulation of GVCs as networks and PhD Kotova’s engagement with the highly specialised competition law community on digitalized GVCs in the context of market-based competition law.
2) Furthermore, with the analysis of different regulatory layers in GVCs, the CHAINLAW project was able to coin the concept of GVC Laws as Techno-Laws and the idea of researching more closely a digital GVC law as a crucial element in the legal-regulatory architecture of GVCs. To that end, the project decided to include a Science and Technology Studies approach and thus consider regulation through objects and technology as part of what qualifies as legal GVC governance. For that purpose, the organisation of two workshops was essential, a smaller one held in Maastricht as part of the Globalization and Law Conference (December 2024) and a two-day self-standing workshop entitled “Bridging the Digital/Industrial Divide in the Law on Global Value Chains” (June 2025). A core of this research strand is also furthered by PhD Eze’s research on GVC governance through documents as regulatory agents.
3) Ultimately, the project seeks to develop an “alternative” responsive legal doctrinal approach to the study of GVCs centred on institutions and their different regulatory layers. In the first two years, first theoretical steps were taken to link legal-doctrinal research to the study of institutions and non-state private and technological layers of regulation. In this regard, a theory-oriented paper is currently being written by the PI that develops a sociologically informed approach of institutional jurisprudence. In addition, a first conference is organised (planned for March 2026) that discusses how private law institutions and the private and technical layers of regulation produced in them can be integrated into a revitalising of “alternative legal dogmatics”. This initial work will form the basis for the further work in the coming years and will be spelled out for an era that is shaped by legal and political intervention into and struggles over GVCs.
1) With its institutional approach to GVCs, it broadened the understanding of what qualifies as part of the regulation of GVCs. Relatedly, this institutional-legal approach to GVCs was linked back to the distinct approaches of different regional powers, notably to the EU. We concretely discussed how the EU uses different sets of (economic) institutions for regulating GVCs globally and it hereby extends its regulatory power - indirectly by piggybacking on GVCs - beyond its territory. In that context, CHAINLAW contributed to understanding GVC regulation broadly to not encompass only genuine “supply-chain laws” (such as sustainability due diligence and reporting) but to also include consumption and thus consumer law approaches as a driving force behind GVCs and an important component in the institutionalisation as network. The CHAINLAW project also advanced legal fields so far rarely discussed in GVC research as central for the regulation of GVCs, such as competition law. For that work, worth highlighting are the PI Beckers’ work on GVCs in EU Law, Postdoc Ravalli’s forthcoming article and book on consumer law in the regulation of GVCs as networks and PhD Kotova’s engagement with the highly specialised competition law community on digitalized GVCs in the context of market-based competition law.
2) Furthermore, with the analysis of different regulatory layers in GVCs, the CHAINLAW project was able to coin the concept of GVC Laws as Techno-Laws and the idea of researching more closely a digital GVC law as a crucial element in the legal-regulatory architecture of GVCs. To that end, the project decided to include a Science and Technology Studies approach and thus consider regulation through objects and technology as part of what qualifies as legal GVC governance. For that purpose, the organisation of two workshops was essential, a smaller one held in Maastricht as part of the Globalization and Law Conference (December 2024) and a two-day self-standing workshop entitled “Bridging the Digital/Industrial Divide in the Law on Global Value Chains” (June 2025). A core of this research strand is also furthered by PhD Eze’s research on GVC governance through documents as regulatory agents.
3) Ultimately, the project seeks to develop an “alternative” responsive legal doctrinal approach to the study of GVCs centred on institutions and their different regulatory layers. In the first two years, first theoretical steps were taken to link legal-doctrinal research to the study of institutions and non-state private and technological layers of regulation. In this regard, a theory-oriented paper is currently being written by the PI that develops a sociologically informed approach of institutional jurisprudence. In addition, a first conference is organised (planned for March 2026) that discusses how private law institutions and the private and technical layers of regulation produced in them can be integrated into a revitalising of “alternative legal dogmatics”. This initial work will form the basis for the further work in the coming years and will be spelled out for an era that is shaped by legal and political intervention into and struggles over GVCs.
The progress made on the institutional study of GVCs led to new legal understandings of GVCs that go beyond the state of the art. Rather than treating GVCs mainly as part of corporate law (the company’s responsibility as understood in most supply-chain legislation), CHAINLAW advanced a network- and market-based approach to the study of GVCs. Concretely, this led to considering consumer law and competition law approaches as relevant for GVCs and as fruitful for advancing a new legal GVC language. In that respect, tracing the relevant GVC laws and their institutional approaches to the regional powers (specifically the EU) is also a clear advancement beyond the state of the art. By proposing differences in the law of GVCs between the regional powers, CHAINLAW transcends not only the public/private distinction that has been shaping GVC research but also the political differences between different regional powers. In the focus on various layers of regulation, CHAINLAW further made advancements to coin a field of Digital GVC law as part of the study on the law of GVCs. In that context, it is worth highlighting that the integration of Science and Technology Studies into legal GVC research with its focus on objects and technologies as agents already led to a new legal perspective on GVCs. It adds to the relevant regulatory actors of states and private actors the design of technology including, architecture, interfaces and documentary design. Finally, by proposing responsive laws for GVCs as a new form of doing legal-doctrinal research, the project made first advancements to revitalise the debate on alternative legal approaches. Working with a framework of responsive legal dogmatics for GVCs has also proven fruitful for coherence within CHAINLAW and help the different research streams to develop in a common direction.