Human Rights, Labor Rights, and International Trade

Human Rights, Labor Rights, and International Trade

Author: Lance A. Compa

Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press

Published: 2003-08-30

Total Pages: 324

ISBN-13: 9780812218718

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"A significant contribution to current legal, political, and economic discourse on workers in the global economy."—International and Comparative Law Quarterly


Forced to Be Good

Forced to Be Good

Author: Emilie M. Hafner-Burton

Publisher: Cornell University Press

Published: 2011-02-23

Total Pages: 235

ISBN-13: 0801457467

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Preferential trade agreements have become common ways to protect or restrict access to national markets in products and services. The United States has signed trade agreements with almost two dozen countries as close as Mexico and Canada and as distant as Morocco and Australia. The European Union has done the same. In addition to addressing economic issues, these agreements also regulate the protection of human rights. In Forced to Be Good, Emilie M. Hafner-Burton tells the story of the politics of such agreements and of the ways in which governments pursue market integration policies that advance their own political interests, including human rights.How and why do global norms for social justice become international regulations linked to seemingly unrelated issues, such as trade? Hafner-Burton finds that the process has been unconventional. Efforts by human rights advocates and labor unions to spread human rights ideals, for example, do not explain why American and European governments employ preferential trade agreements to protect human rights. Instead, most of the regulations protecting human rights are codified in global moral principles and laws only because they serve policymakers' interests in accumulating power or resources or solving other problems. Otherwise, demands by moral advocates are tossed aside. And, as Hafner-Burton shows, even the inclusion of human rights protections in trade agreements is no guarantee of real change, because many of the governments that sign on to fair trade regulations oppose such protections and do not intend to force their implementation.Ultimately, Hafner-Burton finds that, despite the difficulty of enforcing good regulations and the less-than-noble motives for including them, trade agreements that include human rights provisions have made a positive difference in the lives of some of the people they are intended-on paper, at least-to protect.


Human Rights and Labor Solidarity

Human Rights and Labor Solidarity

Author: Susan L. Kang

Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press

Published: 2012-07-24

Total Pages: 335

ISBN-13: 0812206029

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Faced with the economic pressures of globalization, many countries have sought to curb the fundamental right of workers to join trade unions and engage in collective action. In response, trade unions in developed countries have strategically used their own governments' commitments to human rights as a basis for resistance. Since the protection of human rights remains an important normative principle in global affairs, democratic countries cannot merely ignore their human rights obligations and must balance their international commitments with their desire to remain economically competitive and attractive to investors. Human Rights and Labor Solidarity analyzes trade unions' campaigns to link local labor rights disputes to international human rights frameworks, thereby creating external scrutiny of governments. As a result of these campaigns, states engage in what political scientist Susan L. Kang terms a normative negotiation process, in which governments, trade unions, and international organizations construct and challenge a broader understanding of international labor rights norms to determine whether the conditions underlying these disputes constitute human rights violations. In three empirically rich case studies covering South Korea, the United Kingdom, and Canada, Kang demonstrates that this normative negotiation process was more successful in creating stronger protections for trade unions' rights when such changes complemented a government's other political interests. She finds that states tend not to respect stronger economically oriented human rights obligations due to the normative power of such rights alone. Instead, trade union transnational activism, coupled with sufficient political motivations, such as direct economic costs or strong rule of law obligations, contributed to changes in favor of workers' rights.


Environment, Human Rights and International Trade

Environment, Human Rights and International Trade

Author: Francesco Francioni

Publisher: Hart Publishing

Published: 2001-06

Total Pages: 391

ISBN-13: 1841132179

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Images of tear-gas filled streets during the 1999 WTO meeting in Seattle woke the world up to the fact that there was a major controversy brewing about the legitimacy of the ability of the organization and sister institutions to trump nationally enacted laws protecting the environment and human rights in the name of free trade. Francioni (law, U. of Siena) presents the contributions of 12 academics from the field of international law who, on the whole, recognize that the complaints of protestors are legitimate and real and recommend some specific policy and legal changes in the structures of the international financial institutions and in free trade treaties between countries. The articles separately focus on genetically modified organisms, intellectual property rights, environmental law, technology transfer, labor rights, human rights sanctions, child labor, and the impact of NAFTA on the environment. Distributed by ISBS. c. Book News Inc.


Labour Laws and Global Trade

Labour Laws and Global Trade

Author: B. A. Hepple

Publisher: Hart Publishing

Published: 2005-03-25

Total Pages: 327

ISBN-13: 1841131601

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This book provides a comprehensive analysis of the new methods of transnational labour regulation that are emerging in response to globalisation.


International Labor Standards and International Trade

International Labor Standards and International Trade

Author: Mr.Stephen S. Golub

Publisher: International Monetary Fund

Published: 1997-04-01

Total Pages: 38

ISBN-13: 1451845537

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This paper reviews controversies regarding linkage of international trade and labor standards. Pressures for international harmonization of labor standards arise in the context of increased trade between countries with large disparities in wages, and also reflect the history of labor standards. A critical distinction is made between standards related to fundamental human rights and those related to employment conditions. The main conclusion is that trade sanctions to enforce labor standards should not be an option, but that international agreements on core labor standards, with voluntary compliance, may, apart from being worthwhile on ethical grounds, defuse calls for protection.


Human Rights in Labor and Employment Relations

Human Rights in Labor and Employment Relations

Author: James A. Gross

Publisher: Cornell University Press

Published: 2009

Total Pages: 256

ISBN-13: 9780913447987

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Collection of papers on the proposition that workers' rights are human rights and how they relate to labour activism and advocacy in a market-driven global economy. Considers health and safety at the workplace, child labour, freedom of association, protection of migrant and forced labour, human rights from a corporate perspective, employment discrimination, etc., referring to the situation in the United States and other industrial countries, and elsewhere. Includes an ILO contribution, co-authored by Barbary Murray, entitled "Human rights of workers with disabilities".


Global Trade, Labour Rights and International Law

Global Trade, Labour Rights and International Law

Author: Aneta Tyc

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2022-12

Total Pages: 232

ISBN-13: 9780367748012

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This book provides a set of proposals for how best to guarantee effective enforcement of labour rights worldwide. The linkage between labour standards and global trade has been recurrent for some 200-years. At a time when the world is struggling to find a way out of crisis and is striving for economic growth, more than ever there is a need for up-to-date research on how to protect and promote labour rights in the global economy. This book explores the history of the fi eld and also provides an overview of emerging trends and opportunities. It discusses the most recent problems including: the effectiveness and the role of the International Labour Organization (ILO) in the second century of its existence, the World Trade Organization (WTO) and its potential relevance in the protection of labour rights, the effectiveness of the US and the EU Generalised System of Preferences, the impact of corporate social responsibility (CSR) instruments on labour rights, and labour provisions in the international trade agreements concluded by the US and the EU. The book argues, inter alia, that trade agreements seem to be a useful tool to help pave the way out of the crisis and that the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) can be perceived as a model agreement and a symbol of a shift in perspective from long global supply chains to a focus on regional ones, local production, jobs and a rise in wages. The book will be essential reading for academics and students in the fi elds of human rights law, international labour law, industrial relations law, international sustainable development law, international economic law and international trade law. It will also be of interest to practitioners, non-government organisations (NGOs) and policy makers.


Human Rights and International Trade

Human Rights and International Trade

Author: Thomas Cottier

Publisher: International Economic Law

Published: 2005

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9780199285822

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Economic globalization and respect for human rights are both highly topical issues. In theory, more trade should increase economic welfare and protection of human rights should ensure individual dignity. Both fields of law protect certain freedoms: economic development should lead to higherhuman rights standards, and UN embargoes are used to secure compliance with human rights agreements. However the interaction between trade liberalisation and human rights protection is complex, and recently, tension has arisen between these two areas. Do WTO obligations covering intellectual property prevent governments from implementing their human rights obligations, including rights to food or health? Is it fair to accord the benefits of trade subject to a clean human rights record? This book first examines the theoretical framework of the interaction between the disciplines of international trade law and human rights. It builds upon the well-known debate between Professor Ernst-Ulrich Petersmann, who construes trade obligations as human rights, and Professor Philip Alston,who warns of a merger and acquisition of human rights by trade law. From this starting point, further chapters explore the differing legal matrices of the two fields and examine how cooperation between them might be improved, both in international law-making and institutions, and in disputesettlement. The interaction between trade and human rights is then explored through seven case studies:freedom of expression and competition law; IP protection and health; agricultural trade and the right to food; trade restrictions on conflict diamonds; UN norms on transnational corporations; the new WHOconvention on tobacco control; and, finally, human rights conditionalities in preferential trade schemes.