The role of human rights in implementing socially responsible seafood.

Sustainability standards for seafood mainly address environmental performance criteria and are less concerned with the welfare of fisheries workers who produce the seafood. Yet human rights violations such as slavery and human trafficking are widespread in fisheries around the world, and underscore the need for certification bodies and other seafood supply chain actors to improve social performance, in addition to addressing environmental challenges. Calls for socially responsible seafood have referenced human rights law and policy frameworks to shape the guiding principles of socially responsible seafood and to provide the legal machinery to implement these aspirations, but practical guidance on how to achieve this is lacking. To provide clarity on this challenge, we reviewed the literature concerning human rights in the seafood supply chain, and prepared an analysis of opportunities and challenges to implement socially responsible seafood through relevant human rights, legal and policy instruments. We observe that human rights laws are generally framed in favour of addressing violations of civil and political rights, but there remains considerable scope for applying economic, social and cultural (ESC) rights in this context. Other challenges include weakly defined ESC rights infringements, a lack of straightforward mechanisms to enforce human rights entitlements, and practical difficulties such as resources to support and secure rights. On the positive side, governments can draw on international instruments to inspire national policies and legislation to eliminate illegalities from the seafood supply chain. However, for socially responsible seafood principles to translate into tangible actions, these objectives must be rooted in clear legal obligations and be supported by sufficient national capacity and political will.

Seeing slavery in seafood supply chains.

The seafood supply chain is often long and fragmented, and slavery is a tenacious problem. The vast majority of workers are engaged in the early stages of production and often employed through subcontracts or brokers. We hypothesized that food companies could identify risks and implement improvements by adding a labor safety dimension to their tracking and traceability systems. We designed a five-point framework-the Labor Safe Screen-and tested it for 118 products. The framework combines the use of technology in existing platforms with the collection of industry data and authoritative human rights data. Eighteen food companies used three or more components of the framework and systematically documented their supply chains, engaged suppliers, and cross-checked results. The companies were able to identify areas where working conditions met minimum principles, were unknown, or were inadequate. Three companies also incorporated direct worker feedback to focus resources and improve working conditions. We conclude that food companies can effectively and efficiently assess and reduce risks of forced labor in seafood supply chains-not to claim "no slavery" but to greatly improve their awareness of the labor conditions in the making of the products they trade and to identify feasible targets for further diligence and remedies.

Early risk factors for miscarriage: a prospective cohort study in pregnant women.

Many pregnancies are lost during early gestation, but clinicians still lack tools to recognize risk factors for miscarriage. Thus, the identification of risk factors for miscarriage during the first trimester in women with no obvious risk for a pregnancy loss was the aim of this prospective cohort trial. A total of 1098 women between gestation weeks 4 and 12 in whom no apparent signs of a threatened pregnancy could be diagnosed were recruited. Demographic, anamnestic, psychometric and biological data were documented at recruitment and pregnancy outcomes were registered subsequently. Among the cases with sufficiently available data, 809 successfully progressing pregnancies and 55 subsequent miscarriages were reported. In this cohort, risk of miscarriage was significantly increased in women at higher age (>33 years), lower body mass index (< or =20 kg/ m(2)) and lower serum progesterone concentrations (< or =12 ng/ml) prior to the onset of the miscarriage. Women with subsequent miscarriage also perceived higher levels of stress/demands (supported by higher concentrations of corticotrophin-releasing hormone) and revealed reduced concentrations of progesterone-induced blocking factor. These risk factors were even more pronounced in the subcohort of women (n = 335) recruited between gestation weeks 4 and 7. The identification of these risk factors and development of an interaction model of these factors, as introduced in this article, will help clinicians to recognize pregnant women who require extra monitoring and who might benefit from therapeutic interventions such as progestogen supplementation, especially during the first weeks of pregnancy, to prevent a miscarriage.

Stress and reproductive failure: past notions, present insights and future directions.

PROBLEM: Maternal stress perception is frequently alleged as a cause of infertility, miscarriages, late pregnancy complications or impaired fetal development. The purpose of the present review is to critically assess the biological and epidemiological evidence that considers the plausibility of a stress link to human reproductive failure. METHODS: All epidemiological studies published between 1980 and 2007 that tested the link between stress exposure and impaired reproductive success in humans were identified. Study outcomes were evaluated on the basis of how associations were predicted, tested and integrated with theories of etiology arising from recent scientific developments in the basic sciences. Further, published evidence arising from basic science research has been assessed in order to provide a mechanistic concept and biological evidence for the link between stress perception and reproductive success. RESULTS: Biological evidence points to an immune-endocrine disequilibrium in response to stress and describes a hierarchy of biological mediators involved in a stress trigger to reproductive failure. Epidemiological evidence presents positive correlations between various pregnancy failure outcomes with pre-conception negative life events and elevated daily urinary cortisol. Strikingly, a relatively new conceptual approach integrating the two strands of evidence suggests the programming of stress susceptibility in mother and fetus via a so-called pregnancy stress syndrome. CONCLUSIONS: An increasing specificity of knowledge is available about the types and impact of biological and social pathways involved in maternal stress responses. The present evidence is sufficient to warrant a reconsideration of conventional views on the etiology of reproductive failure. Physicians and patients will benefit from the adaptation of this integrated evidence to daily clinical practice.