“The main difference, the reason we couldn’t sign the accord, is Europe has a different legal environment than we do in the United States and Canada. The accord had some provisions that in the U.S. and Canada would subject us to potentially unlimited legal liability and litigation,” Mr. Jorgensen said. Regarding the funds that the North American retailers are offering, he said, “we don’t want one dollar of that to go to lawyers — we want every cent of that to go to the factories.”

Mr. Jorgensen said the $100 million in loans and other financing was an important component. “The Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers Association has asked that financing be made available,” he said. “It’s hard to get loans there, and if you get a loan, it’s expensive. We’re trying to make capital available on a low-cost basis so that repairing a situation where safety issues doesn’t go unremediated because of financing problems.”

Labor rights advocates, however, called the plan inadequate.

“It’s clever,” said Scott Nova, executive director of the Worker Rights Consortium, a monitoring group based in Washington. “It’s designed to sound like the accord. They talk about inspections. They talk about renovations. They can use all the rhetoric they choose, but if you look at the substance, there’s very little there.”

He added, “They can walk away whenever they want and there is no real obligation to pay a penny to repair and renovate factories.”

Under the terms of the agreement, participating retailers can leave the alliance whenever they like, though if they do so before two years are up, they must pay what remains of their five-year financial commitment to the alliance.

The 70 companies in the European-dominated effort announced details of their plan on Monday, saying they would have all of the factories they use in Bangladesh inspected within nine months and would have remediation plans developed for those with safety problems. They pledged “to ensure that sufficient funds are available to pay for renovations and other safety improvements.”

Bangladesh is the world’s second-largest apparel exporting nation, after China; Europe buys about 60 percent of its exports and the United States around 25 percent.