Summary
The European Union and governments of various economies in the world are currently developing supply
chain legislation for businesses, aiming to protect the environment and human rights in supply chains.
These laws regulate firms active on home markets in these countries, but in terms of environmental and
human rights risks also apply to global supply chains. Legislative initiatives assume that firms have the
ability to influence many suppliers and their conditions of production abroad. Illustrated by the urgent
case of garment production exported to Europe, we conclude that current import–export relations
could limit the scope and impact of such supply chain legislation. If patterns as visible in the garment
sector hold more broadly, policymakers that are ambitious about the impact of supply chain legislation
on environment and human rights face a policy trilemma: they must sacrifice one out of three current
design features of such legislation: designing legislation unilaterally for their home markets, letting
regulation apply to supply chains across the world, or giving firms the ability to freely choose their
suppliers. We discuss the different combinations of design options that could advance sustainability in
supply chains.