From Contested Endogenization to Regulatory Unravelling of Mandatory Human Rights Due Diligence: Extending the Endogeneity of Law Framework

Abstract

Drawing on the endogeneity of law framework, this study examines how business, legal, public, and civil society actors constructed the meaning and practice of mandatory human rights due diligence in the context of the German garment industry and the German Supply Chain Act. Using interview, document, and observation data spanning the period 2019 to 2026, our findings reveal a two‐stage process: an initial phase of contested endogenization in which actors experienced with private regulation prevented convergence on a managerialized interpretation of the law, followed by regulatory unravelling in which changes in the political‐economic climate provided avenues for substantively weakening the law and preventing its implementation. We discuss how the dual processes of managerializing a law and legalizing of organizations is complicated by three boundary conditions: the complexity of the regulatory issue, the field's regulatory maturity, and the degree of regulatory uncertainty. Connecting the endogeneity of law framework with research on the public and private governance of global supply chains allows us to theorize refinements to this framework when applied to contested, complex governance fields, and to derive a set of theoretical and practical implications for public supply chain regulation.