Labour provisions have become more commonplace in trade agreements and increasingly comprehensive in their scope. The Handbook provides practical information in a format geared towards non-specialist audiences focusing on different approaches regarding the content and implementation mechanisms of labour provisions (including technical cooperation and dialogue). In this regard, the Handbook presents different case-studies, with particular focus on implementation of the labour provisions, specific effects, and challenges. Particularly, it emphasizes the importance of stakeholders' involvement in the implementation of the provisions. In addition, the Handbook explores other areas related to trade and labour, such as global supply chains, corporate social responsibility provisions in trade agreements and gender considerations.
Nearly half of trade agreements concluded in the past five years included either a labor chapter or labor provision that makes reference to international labor standards and ILO instruments. The evidence so far suggests that labor provisions have been an important tool for raising awareness and improving laws and legislations with respect to workers' rights, increasing stakeholder involvement in negotiation and implementation phases, and developing domestic institutions to better monitor and enforce labor standards. But challenges remain, particularly with respect to sustainability of impacts, coherence, and cooperative efforts. This new report, part of the Studies on Growth with Equity series, gives a full examination of the scope and effectiveness of these labor provisions.
This comprehensive Handbook explores the complex and volatile debate over globalisation and labour standards. It offers key insights into the impact of globalisation on workers, the obligations of corporations and international legal bodies in protecting workers’ rights and maximising the opportunities offered by international trade and investment.
The 25th anniversary edition of the NAFTA and NAALC monograph in the International Encyclopaedia of Laws, Labour Law and Industrial Relations is a comprehensive and up-to-date 270-page resource that contains essential background on the structure and operation of labour provisions in North American free trade agreements, including NAFTA, USMCA, CAFTA-DR, TPP, CPTPP, TTIP, CETA, EU-Mexico, and Canadian and US bilateral free trade agreements with partners in Latin America and around the world. It also contains a complete digest of all of the citizen petitions filed under the NAFTA labour side agreement since 1994. The monograph includes early petitions filed about trade union rights at the Honeywell and Echlin plants in Mexico, the McDonald's case in Canada, and the Washington Apple and DeCoster Egg cases in the United States – not to mention recent petitions filed about migrant worker rights under the H-2A and H-2B visa programs in the US. In addition to being the most complete compilation of NAALC cases in existence today, NAFTA and the NAALC Twenty-Five Years of North American Trade-Labour Linkage outlines the internal mechanics leading to the filing of a 2000 NAALC petition with the Government of Mexico about unequal treatment of migrant workers in the US, and describes changes in the treatment of petitions by US, Mexican and Canadian authorities over the last 25 years. It also contains a chapter that compares the NAALC to the OECD Guidelines for Multi-National Enterprises and highlights recent North American cases filed under the OECD Guidelines including the relatively lesser known 2004 Yucatan Markey Tex-Coco Tex petition, which was dual filed under both mechanisms, and dual petitions filed under NAALC and the OECD Guidelines about working conditions at Chedraui grocery stores in Southern California and Northern Mexico. Highlights in 25th anniversary edition include: the first reports issued under labour provisions of Canadian and US FTAs with Colombia; the latest developments in pending cases filed under CAFTA-DR and the US-Peru FTA, including the 2017 decision by the first ever Arbitral Panel established under the labour provision of CAFTA-DR in the Guatemala labour case; addition of the 2006 labour petition filed under the US-Jordan FTA; new sections comparing labour provisions in multi-lateral FTAs such as TPP, CPTPP, CETA, and the proposed TTIP; NAALC petitions filed with the Government of Mexico about sexism in recruitment for temporary agricultural labour programs in Canada and the United States; and a new chapter comparing the NAALC to labour provisions in the signed, but not-yet-ratified USMCA.
Deep trade agreements (DTAs) cover not just trade but additional policy areas, such as international flows of investment and labor and the protection of intellectual property rights and the environment. Their goal is integration beyond trade or deep integration. These agreements matter for economic development. Their rules influence how countries (and hence, the people and firms that live and operate within them) transact, invest, work, and ultimately, develop. Trade and investment regimes determine the extent of economic integration, competition rules affect economic efficiency, intellectual property rights matter for innovation, and environmental and labor rules contribute to environmental and social outcomes. This Handbook provides the tools and data needed to analyze these new dimensions of integration and to assess the content and consequences of DTAs. The Handbook and the accompanying database are the result of collaboration between experts in different policy areas from academia and other international organizations, including the International Trade Centre (ITC), Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), and World Trade Organization (WTO).
The book examines how international economic law affects the ability of states to regulate labour. It analyses the interactions between relevant norms and explains how linkages between economic law and labour navigate between two notions: fair competition and fundamental rights.
Mega-regional agreements have recently stirred controversy, producing a clash between the founding principles of liberalisation and protectionism, giving rise to competence issues between the European Union and its Member States. Although scholarly work has focused for years on the controversial “social clause”, it is now worth carrying out a detailed, legal analysis of the labour standards contained in the mega-regional trade agreements adopted and negotiated by the EU and the US. The topic gives rise to much controversy, as it is influenced by political convictions and election results. For this reason, it poses one of the most significant challenges to international labour law. Based on these considerations, this book examines the social dimension of three of the most relevant mega-regional trade agreements, namely TTP, CETA, and TTIP. It is argued that trade liberalisation should be accompanied by progress in the social and labour field.
