The most important component of the 2001 Harkin-Engel protocol was the requirement that the industry develop “credible, mutually acceptable, voluntary, industry-wide standards of public certification, consistent with applicable federal law, that cocoa beans and their derivative products have been grown and/or processed without any of the worst forms of child labor” by July 2005.
As we know, that deadline came and went without such a standard in place. The extension of the deadline until 2008 modified the original requirement and required the certification scheme to cover only 50% of the cocoa growing areas of Ghana and the Côte d’Ivoire while maintaining 100% coverage as the ultimate goal. Continue reading “The Harkin-Engel Protocol – Part 1”
