It's all Bill Clinton's fault, apparently. Back in the 1990s, the US President reacted to fears that major brands were having their clothes and footwear made in sweatshops by setting up the Apparel Industry Partnership rather than pursuing a legislative solution.
In Britain, Clare Short, as Secretary of State for International Development in 1998, then followed Clinton's lead by bringing UK companies, unions and NGOs together to create the Ethical Trading Initiative.
So says the MSI Integrity non-profit which last year released the conclusions of a decade-long research project which it said showed how multi-stakeholder initiatives (MSIs) - including those in the apparel industry - were failing in their goals.
