► Politics of supply chain regulation and corporate due diligence
► Human rights, labour rights, and social inequalities in global value chains
► Corporate accountability and compliance in transnational perspective
► Strategies and practices by trade unions, social movements and civil society actors in the global economy.
► Opportunities and limitations of transnational participation and solidarity

Global value chains are key arenas for political struggles over human rights, labour conditions, sustainability, and economic power. This research area examines how new forms of regulation, such as supply chain laws, international standards, and sustainability metrics, are developing in transnational production networks, how they are implemented, and how they are the subject of multiscalar political struggles. The focus is on how state, corporate, and civil society actors develop, interpret, and implement rules of the global economy, and how this opens or closes new spaces of possibility for rights, participation, and social and ecological transformations.

Research Projects

► Legal Struggles in Transnational Supply Chains

Recent Publications

► Scheper, Christian / Ciesielski, Markus 2026: Catching Up, Pushing Back: The Politics of Due Diligence in Global Value Chain Regulation, in: Ulbert, Cornelia / Kaplan, Marcus (eds.): Global Trends: Prospects for Development and Peace, Vol 1: Multilateral Cooperation for People and Planet, Opladen/Berlin/Toronto: Verlag Barbara Budrich, 60-81. https://doi.org/10.3224/84743197.

► Scheper, Christian 2025: Sorgfaltspflichten und Rechtskämpfe: Gesetzliche Lieferkettenregulierung in Europa, in: GWP - Gesellschaft. Wirtschaft. Politik, 74: 2, 194-105. DOI: https://doi.org/10.3224/gwp.v74i2.08 

► Scheper, Christian 2025: Global governance, in: Jahn, Beate / Schindler, Sebastian (Hrsg.): Elgar Encyclopedia of International Relations: Edward Elgar Publishing, 151–152. DOI: https://doi.org/10.4337/9781035312283.00072. 

► Scheper, Christian (2025): Corporate due diligence in global value chains. In: Madelaine Moore, Christoph Scherrer und Marcel van der Linden (Hg.): The Elgar Companion to Decent Work and the Sustainable Development Goals: Edward Elgar Publishing, S. 370–381.

► Scheper, Christian / Engelhardt, Anne 2024: New Due Diligence Laws in Europe. Effective regulation of sustainability and human rights in global supply chains? (Global Governance Spotlight 1/2024). Bonn: Development and Peace Foundation.  

Room: LS 032
Phone: +49 (0)203-379-4424
E-Mail: christian.scheper[at]uni-due.de
Staff Portfolio

E-Mail: markus.ciesielski[at]htwsaar.de
Further information