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UC Law Business Journal

Abstract

The global fashion industry is one of the world’s most polluting and exploitative sectors, emitting more greenhouse gases than all international flights and maritime shipping combined, driving extensive water contamination and waste, and relying on labor conditions that remain chronically unsafe and underpaid. Regulation has attempted to respond, but with limited success. Existing sustainability oversight—ranging from import bans and human rights due diligence statutes to environmental taxes and voluntary industry frameworks—remains fragmented and unevenly enforced, shaped by geopolitical tensions, protectionist agendas, and shifting policy priorities. This Article reviews the rapidly evolving landscape of fashion sustainability regulation over the past decade and a half. It surveys both fashion-specific and cross-sectoral legal frameworks, examining how different regulatory instruments have emerged and how they operate in practice. The analysis situates these developments within the broader political economy of the fashion industry, including buyer-driven global value chains, concentrated corporate power, and growing geopolitical competition in textile and apparel markets. Drawing on this review, the Article identifies several key trends shaping contemporary fashion governance. These include the growing emphasis on environmental sustainability relative to labor protections, the increasing use of trade policy and import restrictions as regulatory tools, and the persistence of environmental and distributive injustices within global supply chains. While regulatory intervention is expanding across multiple jurisdictions, significant gaps remain between policy ambition and the structural realities of fashion production and trade. By bringing these developments together, the Article offers a novel systematic overview of the current regulatory landscape and highlights the political, economic, and institutional dynamics that shape how sustainability regulation in the fashion sector is designed, implemented, and contested. In doing so, it provides a foundation for understanding and improving the evolving governance of one of the world’s most globalized and environmentally consequential industries.

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