Human rights in trade: the EU’s experience with labour standards conditionality and its role in promoting labour standards in the WTO: Tamara Takács

2012 ◽  
pp. 111-126
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Labour Standards

scholarly journals Should a Human Right Discourse be Applied to Labour Standards?

2015 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 75
Author(s):  
Morteza Shirzad
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Human Right ◽  
Labour Rights ◽  
Comprehensive Theory ◽  
Universal Human Rights ◽  
Public Rights ◽  
Labour Standards ◽  
Rights Discourse ◽  
Human Rights Discourse

Whether a rights discourse should be applied to labour standards, entails addressing two issues. Firstly, what are the philosophical grounds for labour rights and whether they are human rights at all? Even if they cannot be regarded as human rights, should they be applied strategically? While, there is no single comprehensive theory identified to provide sufficient grounding for all labour rights, this paper argues, firstly, that labour rights certainly lack characteristics of universal human rights since they are time-bound and place-bound. Secondly, while recognising the relatively large strategic turn to human rights discourse by labour scholars and labour organisations, this paper argues that this is not a universally applicable strategy and in fact in some contexts application of human rights discourse is counterproductive. The paper, thus, concludes that not only deploying human rights approaches when it comes to countries authoritarian contexts are not effective, but also it is highly likely to be counterproductive, since human rights discourse needs public rights awareness public and authoritarian contexts lack this awareness.

The EU’s international trade priorities are shifting

2021 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Human Rights ◽  
Free Trade ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Labour Standards ◽  
Trade Deals ◽  
Trade Partners ◽  
Global Influence ◽  
The Eu ◽  
Border Adjustment

Significance From the strategy, it appears the EU no longer sees free trade deals as an end in themselves but as another instrument -- alongside tools such as Carbon Border Adjustment Measures (CBAM) and the International Procurement Instrument -- to protect the internal economy and enhance the EU’s global influence on climate change, human rights and labour standards. Impacts The EU’s increasingly protectionist trade agenda risks creating political tensions with trade partners. Closer EU-US cooperation on trade, among other areas, would weaken the prospects for stronger EU relations with China. As old industries die, the population ages and the EU moves towards digitisation, Europe could become more dependent on foreign innovation.

The EU’s engagement with business on human rights

2020 ◽  
pp. 312-342
Author(s):  
Mary E Footer
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Turn Of The Millennium ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Human Rights Protection ◽  
Rights Protection ◽  
Business And Human Rights ◽  
Labour Standards ◽  
European Business ◽  
Corporate Social ◽  
The Impact

Since the turn of the millennium, the European Union (EU) has sought to advance its policies on business and human rights with the aim of achieving specific outcomes on human rights protection, core labour standards, and a better alignment of European and global approaches to Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). At the heart of this endeavour lies the European Commission’s renewed strategy for CSR in its 2011 Communication. This chapter critically analyses the impact of the EU’s re-calibration of its CSR policy to allow for the fuller engagement of European business with human rights on the internal and external plane. The EU has sought to develop a ‘smart mix’ of voluntary policy measures and complementary regulatory initiatives to achieve its aims. Consequently, it has made considerable progress towards embedding business and human rights in European law and policy. However, it continues to face challenges due to its lack of competence along the whole spectrum of business-related human rights, and the transversal character of EU policy, which elicits a multidimensional response to implementation, involving a plethora of actors from government, business, and civil society.

EU-China investment deal is running out of time

2021 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Eastern Europe ◽  
Central And Eastern Europe ◽  
European Council ◽  
Southern Europe ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Labour Standards ◽  
Economic Ties ◽  
The Eu

Significance According to Beijing, Merkel and Macron showed their willingness to ratify quickly the EU-China Comprehensive Agreement on Investment (CAI). However, opposition to the CAI is growing in Europe, with parliamentarians particularly concerned about Chinese sanctions and China’s record on human rights and labour standards. Impacts The recent European Council rejection of Macron and Merkel’s proposal on Russia suggests the two leaders’ influence in the EU is waning. The likely emergence of a right-wing government in Italy in 2022 or 2023 would see Rome hardening its position on China. Deterioration in EU-China economic ties would disproportionately hurt economies in southern Europe and Central and Eastern Europe.

scholarly journals Women workers and labour standards: the problem of ‘human rights’

2007 ◽  
Vol 33 (1) ◽  
pp. 45-57 ◽  
Author(s):  
JUANITA ELIAS
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Women Workers ◽  
Codes Of Conduct ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Economic Rights ◽  
Perspective Drawing ◽  
Global Corporations ◽  
Labour Standards ◽  
Corporate Codes Of Conduct ◽  
Development Paradigm

The International Labour Organisation’s Declaration of Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work of 1998 formalised an approach to global labour issues known as the Core Labour Standards (CLS). The CLS have privileged a specific set of labour standards as possessing the kinds of universalistic qualities associated with ideas of ‘human rights’; the abolition of forced and child labour, equality of opportunity, and trade union rights. But what does this ‘human rights’ approach mean from the point of view of those women workers who dominate employment in some of the most globalised, and insecure, industries in the world? In this article, I make the case for critical feminist engagement with the gender-blind, and neoliberal-compatible, approach to economic rights as set out in the CLS. Not least, this article raises wider concerns about the insufficiency of approaches to economic rights that are designed to work within the (gendered) structures of a neoliberal economic development paradigm. It is suggested that the CLS have endorsed a voluntarist approach to labour standards that views the promotion and regulation of human rights by global corporations as unproblematic. The article challenges this perspective, drawing upon the work of number of feminist scholars working in the area of women’s employment and corporate codes of conduct. These feminist writings have specifically avoided the language of human rights; thus questions need to be asked concerning the possibilities and the limitations that the CLS opens up for women’s human rights activism.

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