Toxic Sweatshops: Regulating the Import of Hazardous Electronics

City University of New York Law Review, Dec 2015

Allie Robbins

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Toxic Sweatshops: Regulating the Import of Hazardous Electronics

Toxic Sweatshops: Regulating the Import of Hazardous Electronics Part of the Law Commons 0 0 The C UNY Law Review is published by the Office of Library Services at the City University of New York. For more information please contact , USA Follow this and additional works at: http://academicworks.cuny.edu/clr Recommended Citation Allie Robbins, Toxic Sweatshops: Regulating the Import of Hazardous Electronics, 18 CUNY L. Rev. 267 (2015). Available at: http://academicworks.cuny.edu/clr/vol18/iss2/4 - TOXIC SWEATSHOPS: REGULATING THE IMPORT OF HAZARDOUS ELECTRONICS Allie Robbins † INTRODUCTION The rise in consumer use of personal electronic devices has led to a boon in electronics manufacturing worldwide. Along with the expansion of production have come serious questions about the safety of production processes, as large numbers of workers and their children have fallen ill. This article proposes that the United States create an Electronics Import Safety Commission, similar to the Consumer Protection Safety Commission (CPSC), to regulate the import of electronic devices and make sure that both workers and consumers are safe. In Part I, I outline some of the health concerns that have arisen in the global electronics-manufacturing sector. Part II provides a brief overview of the global electronics supply chain, while Part III explores some of the ways that the United States currently regulates global production. In Part IV, I detail key aspects of the CPSC and the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act of 2008 (CPSIA). I propose that the CPSC serve as a model for the development of the Electronics Import Safety Commission. † Allie Robbins is the Assistant Dean for Academic Affairs at the City University of New York School of Law. R R R R R R R R R R R CUNY LAW REVIEW HEALTH CONCERNS IN ELECTRONICS MANUFACTURING A lot has been written recently about the increasing use of electronic devices by infants and toddlers, and the concern that this use might negatively impact their brain development.1 The American Academy of Pediatrics’s most recent policy statement on the topic discourages screen media exposure for children less than two years of age.2 Little attention has been paid, however, to potential long-term health effects of manufacturing those electronic devices. Even less attention has been paid to the health of the children of those workers. “The issue of reproductive toxicity, when children fall ill because of the accumulation of various toxic compounds over a long period in their parents’ bodies, has not surfaced very often because many parents blame themselves and keep their children’s condition hidden.”3 Yet the issue is very real and quite serious. Many individuals who have labored in semiconductor factories have experienced not only death and long-term illness themselves, but have also suffered “infertility and miscarriages.”4 Those who are able to conceive sometimes give birth to children with chronic debilitating illness.5 It is critical that we pay attention to these members of the electronic device revolution as well. While little has been done to address reproductive toxicity, slow but important progress is being made in addressing the health and safety concerns of workers who work in electronics manufacturing plants. On April 21, 2014, “the ninth civil division of Seoul High Court . . . ruled . . . that the leukemia claimed the lives of former Samsung Electronic semiconductor plant workers Hwang Yu-mi and Lee Sook-young constituted an industrial accident,” ending years of legal battles over Samsung’s complicity in the 2015] deaths of these two young women.6 “The court acknowledged that they had been exposed to benzene and ionizing radiation, both known causes of leukemia.”7 “The court also acknowledged the possibility of ‘partial exposure to harmful substances’ for the three other victims, but did not recognize their diseases as industrial accidents.”8 This case led to an unprecedented “public apology to workers who contracted rare cancers linked to chemicals at its semiconductor plants and to the surviving family members.”9 “The company’s statement fell shy of accepting a connection between some of the diseases, including leukemia, and carcinogens used in its plans, a link Samsung has always denied.”10 The apology did state, however, that “Samsung would make ‘appropriate compensation to those who were affected and their families.’ ”11 On January 16, 2015 , Samsung announced that it would “compensate all former workers who contracted leukemia and other diseases after working at its display and semiconductor facilities.”12 In a huge breakthrough for workers who have become ill with leukemia, Samsung Electronics’s chief negotiator Baek Soo-hyun stated, “Samsung workers who left two decades ago could be compensated, while those who left a decade after the illnesses developed would also be included for monetary compensation.”13 This game-changing judicial decision, and Samsung’s apolog (...truncated)


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Allie Robbins. Toxic Sweatshops: Regulating the Import of Hazardous Electronics, City University of New York Law Review, 2015, Volume 18, Issue 2,