Searching for Human Rights: Free Trade Agreements in Asia

2014 ◽  
pp. 217-245
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Free Trade ◽  
Free Trade Agreements ◽  
Trade Agreements

Seoul’s next leader will prioritise global ambitions

2021 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
South Korea ◽  
South Asia ◽  
Free Trade ◽  
North Korea ◽  
Free Trade Agreements ◽  
Trade Agreements ◽  
Content Type

Significance Moon Jae-in’s preoccupations in his final year as president will remain local -- not least, coordinating policy on North Korea with the Biden administration. However, his successor, to be elected in March 2022, will have broader horizons. Impacts Ignoring Pyongyang may prompt new and potentially bloody provocations, as happened to President Lee Myung-bak in 2010. South Korea will pursue fresh free trade agreements. Its declared intention to join the CPTPP has not yet yielded a specific roadmap. Asia will remain Seoul’s main focus; South Asia, especially India, offers many untapped synergies. ‘Top table’ ambitions such as the G7 summit will make it more difficult for Seoul to ignore human rights in its diplomacy, as it used to.

scholarly journals On Legal Positivism’s Word and our ‘Form-of-(non-)Living’

Global Jurist ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 16 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Luca Siliquini-Cinelli
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
International Law ◽  
Free Trade ◽  
Legal Theory ◽  
Free Trade Agreements ◽  
Trade Agreements ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
Legal Positivism ◽  
Legal Validity ◽  
Political Form

AbstractThis paper is about two stories. The more reassuring one states that by establishing that a norm is valid because of its source, not its merit, legal positivism is, in its various forms, perhaps one of the greatest achievements in Western legal theory and practice. From constitutionalism to human rights policies, from criminal to international law and free trade agreements, from contracts to torts and e-commerce, legal validity, predictability, and coherence have found their most powerful ally in positivist thought. This contribution argues that it is time for a different, neorealist story: the metaphysical, ontological and biopolitical essence of its language demonstrates that legal positivism has in fact played a fundamental role in the substitution of action with behaviour, and consequently, in the normalisation of humankind’s self-annihilating animality as post-historical and post-political ‘form-of-(non-)living.’

scholarly journals A critique of the extraterritorial obligations of the EU in relation to human rights clauses and social norms in EU free trade agreements

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Clair Gammage
Keyword(s):  
Sustainable Development ◽  
Human Rights ◽  
Social Norms ◽  
Free Trade ◽  
Free Trade Agreements ◽  
Trade Agreements ◽  
Eu Law ◽  
Recent Developments ◽  
Labour Standards ◽  
The Eu

This article examines the nature of the EU’s obligations in relation to human rights and social norms in its free trade agreements (FTAs) with a view to problematising the extent to which such clauses are justiciable and enforceable. While human rights do not fall within the area of exclusive EU competence, it is widely accepted that the EU may be liable for contributing to human rights violations in the context of trade agreements under international law and EU law. Conversely, it will be shown that social norms, including labour standards and principles such as sustainable development and environmental protection, which are increasingly set out in the Trade and Sustainable Development (TSD) chapters of FTAs, raise more complex questions regarding the territorial reach of EU law. It is submitted that EU FTAs are constructed in such a way as to exclude rights with the effect that the extraterritorial obligations of the EU in relation to human rights clauses and social norms are unlikely to be judicially enforceable in practice. However, in spite of the territorial limitations of EU law in relation to human rights clause and social norms, recent developments in the case law of the Court of Justice of the EU (CJEU) suggest that the EU is nevertheless under an obligation to ensure its trade agreements with developing countries are conducted in a ‘development-friendly’ manner. To conclude, this article advances the argument that the obligation to engage in ‘development-friendly’ trade may serve to extend the territorial reach of EU further, albeit within the confines of trade and cooperation agreements.

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