Stephanie de Sousa Viera

What sparked your interest in researching sustainability in global value chains?

During my legal studies and professional practice in Brazil, my home country, I began to understand and witness the intersection between global trade and environmental degradation. This experience sparked my interest in gaining a deeper understanding of how transnational regulations, especially those originating in the Global North, affect legal and policy frameworks in developing countries, particularly Brazil. This led me to pursue a PhD focused on how sustainability norms are shaped, transferred, and internalized in the Global South within complex and unequal global value chains.

What is the focus of your current research, and what impact do you hope it will have?

My current work investigates how EU due diligence laws affect sustainability and human rights in global supply chains. I combine systematic evidence reviews, systems thinking, and discourse analysis to understand both outcomes and perceptions of these laws. I hope the research contributes to better understanding of regulatory dynamics and governance effects and supports more inclusive and effective approaches to sustainability governance.

What do you see as the biggest knowledge gaps in sustainable global value chains?

My research critically analyzes the extraterritorial impacts of the EU Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CSDDD) on Brazil’s evolving ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance) legal framework. I investigate how Brazil, while subject to international pressures, also acts as an agent in shaping its own sustainability agenda. I hope this research contributes to more democratic and inclusive approaches to transnational sustainability governance, approaches that recognize local constitutional and institutional contexts and support the internalization of external standards through legitimate, context-sensitive processes. My aim is to highlight not only the critical importance of international cooperation and dialogue in regulating global value chains but also the need for Brazil to adopt a proactive role in promoting structural, environmentally oriented changes to its ESG agenda.

How do you hope to collaborate with others in this research network?

From my perspective, one of the biggest knowledge gaps in sustainable global value chains is the limited understanding of how Global South countries engage with, resist, or transform under international sustainability pressures. There is a lack of knowledge about the complex interplay between global norms and domestic legal responses, especially how transnational regulations interact with constitutional law, legal pluralism, and socio-environmental justice in producing countries.