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The attached paper examines this situation, and makes recommendations to governments, including the U.S. Government regarding how best to promote labor rights in global markets.Trade agreements such as NAFTA have become the poster child for American anger about globalization. The two Democratic candidates have vowed not only to "review all existing trade agreements" but to add stronger labor and environmental standards to new agreements. While many have condemned the Democrats for pandering and called them protectionist, few scholars or journalists have examined whether their proposed solution--forging bilateral or regional labor/ trade links, rather than at the multilateral level-- will work. Trade agreements with Central America and various Middle Eastern and Latin American country are unlikely to have much effects on global labor standards.

But labor rights are not on the agenda for the current round of trade talks, the Doha Round. Moreover, we don't know if such links actually empower workers or lead to improved labor rights governance.

The United States is not alone in developing such links. But because each nation takes a different approach to linking labor rights and trade, policymakers may be sending confusing signals on how to promote labor rights; what labor rights are core labor rights; and how important these rights are to good governance. Thus, our approa ch to linking labor rights to trade agreement may have unintended consequences.

Recommendations:

We recommend that trading nations work towards a common approach to trade/labor links. In addition, national trade policymakers should:

• collaborate on capacity building (the supply side of good governance) to send a consistent message regarding the importance of labor rights;

• focus on the demand side of good governance by including language regarding political participation and due process rights in the labor rights chapters of trade agreements and

• finance and disseminate research on what kind of trade/labor links actually work.

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We also recommend that governments work at the WTO to:

• explore a “no standards lowering clause,” as delineated in China’s accession agreement to the WTO;

• remake the generalized system of preferences (GSP) to advance good governance and to make the system of preferences universal and incentive based;

• ensure that nations can not ignore their labor laws in their export processing zones; and

• seek clarity regarding whether WTO members can use policies such as procurement or social labeling policies to reward responsible market actors that promote labor rights.

The attached paper examines this situation, and makes recommendations to governments, including the U.S. Government regarding how best to promote labor rights in global markets.

Susan Ariel Aaronson, Research Associate Professor at George Washington University, is the author (with Jamie Zimmerman) of Trade Imbalance: The Struggle to Weigh Human Rights in Trade Policymaking (Cambridge: 2007). Please visit her Trade and Human Rights Blog.

Michèle Rioux is a professor of Political Science at the University of Quebec in Montreal. She is a specialist in political economics and is currently researching international organizations and global governance.

Susan Ariel Aaronson & Michele Rioux:

Striking a Proper Match?
Strategies to Link Trade Agreements and Real Labor Rights Improvements: