On April 24, 2013, more than 1,100 people died when Rana Plaza - a factory building outside Dhaka, Bangladesh, where garment workers were forced to toil despite evidence of acute structural flaws - collapsed to the ground.
The disaster highlighted profound and systemic failures in the fashion industry, including a widespread disregard for workplace safety and labor protections. It also drew attention to the industry's status as a major polluter - the sector is responsible for at least 8% of global greenhouse gas emissions.
In response to the Rana Plaza collapse, lawmakers worldwide enacted a wave of regulations that sought to address social and environmental concerns related to the fashion industry, an economic behemoth with supply chains that stretch across borders and oceans. In a recent study, Meital Peleg Mizrachi, a postdoctoral fellow in Yale's Department of Economics, analyzes this regulatory landscape.
The study, published in the UC Business Law Journal and coauthored by Rachel Chambers, an assistant professor of business law of the University of Connecticut, identifies key trends shaping regulation, including a growing emphasis on environmental issues over labor protections and persistent gaps between regulatory ambitions and the structural realities of fashion.
