Document Type

Article

Publication Title

Minnesota Journal of Global Trade

Abstract

Increasingly, discussion in the international policy community on the relationship between liberal trade and labor rights has focused on the issue of compliance with core universal rights, which have a close relationship to the rights contained in general international human rights instruments such as the UN Declaration and the UN Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. Competitiveness-based claims about "social dumping" have become less prominent, and the notion that the objective should be to achieve some kind of "level playing field" between developed and developing countries is now heard less frequently, even from labor rights advocates on the left of the political spectrum. In sum, contrary to the picture still painted by some free traders, the claim for a trade and labor rights link is not some fanatical or protectionist adventure to attempt harmonization of conditions of work across the world, regardless of different economic and cultural conditions, but rather an attempt to ensure respect for core labor standards conceived of as universal human rights.

First Page

261

Volume

14

Publication Date

2005

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