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Article

1 Jan 2007

Author:
Susan Aaronson, George Washington Univ.

[DOC] Reality Bites: The Myth of Labor Rights as a Non-trade Issue

This article explores how the US and the EU have made labor rights a trade agreement issue. I focus on 3 case studies: the EU, the U.S., and the members of the WTO... I discuss what the EU and the US do to promote labor rights abroad. Both trade powerhouses use access to their huge markets as an inducement to change labor rights practices at the firm and governmental level within their trade partners. I stress that despite their shared objective, EU and US policymakers take very different approaches; these approaches are essentially “branded.” On the other side of the equation, many developing country trade partners are not always enthusiastic recipients of labor rights conditionality. But they have accepted such conditions in order to maintain good trade relations with the two trade behemoths. In addition, developing and middle-income countries also bring up questions of labor rights during WTO activities...