Assessing Apple's Supplier Code of Conduct in Relation to Human Rights

This essay delves into Apple's supplier code of conduct, examining its alignment with the United Nations Guiding Principles of Business and Human Rights. It highlights the importance of business enterprises respecting human rights, ensuring safe working conditions, and conducting operations ethically. The essay notes that while Apple's code of conduct aims to protect human rights and complies with environmental and social responsibility standards, the company has faced allegations regarding poor working conditions and human rights violations in its factories, particularly in China. These allegations include long working hours, harsh management, and safety issues, prompting Apple to conduct inspections and address these concerns. Desklib offers students access to a variety of solved assignments and study resources.

Running Head: HUMAN RIGHTS
HUMAN RIGHTS
Name of the Student:
Name of the University:
Author Note

1
HUMAN RIGHTS
It can be said that the suppliers of Apple have a Code of Conduct which ensures the
fulfillment of the responsibilities as stated in the United Nations Guiding Principles of Business
and human rights ("Supplier Responsibility", 2017). The Guiding principles state that Business
Enterprises should respect human rights and must ensure that same are not violated. They should
take into consideration the impacts of their operations on their employees and the environment. It
can be said that to ensure the protection of human rights certain measures need to be undertaken
by the business enterprises. The protection of human rights needs to comply with the national
laws on protection of human rights. It can be said that every business enterprise irrespective of
its size ad turnover must take measures and formulates policies to ensure that the human rights of
the employees are not infringed.
Code of Conduct for the suppliers of Apple aims to ensure the protection of human
rights. It can be said that the Code of Conduct aims to provide safe and working conditions to the
employees, treat the employees with respect and dignity, to conduct its operations in fair and
ethical manner and take steps to prevent any harm caused to the environment. It can be stated
that the Code of Conduct not only complies with the law but also with the recognized standards
of environmental and social responsibility such as the United Nations Guiding Principles ("UN
Guiding Principles Reporting Framework", 2017). It can be said that such policy statement must
be approved by the senior level of the Business enterprise in consideration, which in this case is
Apple.
The code of conduct has been devised by consulting people with expertise in this field.
Such people could already be working in the organization or could be hired for the
aforementioned purpose. It is to be mentioned that according to the United Nations Guiding
Principles of Human Rights every business enterprise must express the statement of commitment
of protecting Human Rights to the public. It should be available to public. Such statement should
be communicated to the parties who have contractual relationships with the business enterprises.
It can be mentioned that the Code of Conduct of the suppliers of Apple is freely available to the
public and is communicated to all the parties doing business who have contractual relationships
with Apple. It is also important to state that the aforementioned statement must be communicated
internally to the employees within the organization. Whether the Code of Conduct is followed
by every supplier is assessed regularly and the reports of such assessment is communicated to the
executive management of Apple ("Apple - Supplier Responsibility - Auditing and Compliance",
2017). However, Apple has received several complaints about the working conditions of its
factory in china (Foley, 2017). It has been alleged by the workers that the operations carried on
by the factory of Apple in China are in violation of the Code of Conduct. Many workers have
committed suicide due to the long hours of work, harsh management and the safety issues. Many
have also been victims of fatal accidents. Apple has conducted many inspections to assess the
truth of these allegations.

2
HUMAN RIGHTS
Reference List
Supplier Responsibility. (2017). Apple. Retrieved 3 December 2017, from
https://www.apple.com/supplier-responsibility/
UN Guiding Principles Reporting Framework. (2017). Ungpreporting.org. Retrieved 3
December 2017, from https://www.ungpreporting.org/
Foley, S. (2017). Apple admits it has a human rights problem. The Independent. Retrieved 3
December 2017, from http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/apple-admits-it-has-a-
human-rights-problem-6898617.html
Apple - Supplier Responsibility - Auditing and Compliance. (2017). Apple.com. Retrieved 3
December 2017, from https://www.apple.com/sg/supplierresponsibility/auditing-
compliance.html