Consensus on core standards,
work deferred to the ILO back to top
There is a clear consensus: all
WTO member governments are committed to a narrower set of
internationally recognized “core” standards — freedom of association, no
forced labour, no child labour, and no discrimination at work (including
At the 1996 Singapore Ministerial
Conference, members defined the WTO’s role on this issue, identifying the
International Labour Organization (ILO)
as the competent body to negotiate labour standards. There is no work on this
subject in the WTO’s Councils and Committees. However the secretariats of the
two organizations work together on technical issues under the banner of
“coherence” in global economic policy-making.
However, beyond that it is not easy for
them to agree, and the question of international enforcement is a minefield.
Why was this brought to the WTO? What is the
debate about? back to top
Four broad questions have been raised
inside and outside the WTO.
analytical question: if a country has lower standards for labour rights, do
its exports gain an unfair advantage? Would this force all countries to lower
their standards (the “race to the bottom”)?
response question: if there is a “race to the bottom”, should countries only
trade with those that have similar labour standards?
The question of rules: Should WTO rules explicitly allow governments to take
trade action as a means of putting pressure on other countries to comply?
The institutional question: is the WTO the proper place to discuss and set
rules on labour — or to enforce them, including those of the ILO?
In addition, all these points have an
underlying question: whether trade actions could be used to impose labour
standards, or whether this would simply be an excuse for protectionism. Similar
questions are asked about standards, i.e. sanitary and phytosanitary measures,
and technical barriers to trade.
The WTO agreements do not deal with
labour standards as such.
On the one hand, some countries would
like to change this. WTO rules and disciplines, they argue, would provide a
powerful incentive for member nations to improve workplace conditions and
“international coherence” (the phrase used to describe efforts to ensure
policies move in the same direction).
On the other hand, many developing
countries believe the issue has no place in the WTO framework. They argue that
the campaign to bring labour issues into the WTO is actually a bid by industrial
nations to undermine the comparative advantage of lower wage trading partners,
and could undermine their ability to raise standards through economic
development, particularly if it hampers their ability to trade. They also argue
that proposed standards can be too high for them to meet at their level of
development. These nations argue that efforts to bring labour standards into the
arena of multilateral trade negotiations are little more than a smokescreen for
At a more complex legal level is the
question of the relationship between the International Labour Organization’s
standards and the WTO agreements — for example whether or how the ILO’s
standards can be applied in a way that is consistent with WTO rules.
What has happened in the WTO? back to top
In the WTO, the debate has been
hard-fought, particularly in 1996 and 1999. It was at the 1996 Singapore
conference that members agreed they were committed to recognized core labour
standards, but these should not be used for protectionism. The economic
advantage of low-wage countries should not be questioned, but the WTO and ILO
secretariats would continue their existing collaboration, the declaration said.
The concluding remarks of the chairman, Singapore’s trade and industry minister,
Mr Yeo Cheow Tong, added that the declaration does not put labour on the WTO’s
agenda. The countries concerned might continue their pressure for more work to
be done in the WTO, but for the time being there are no committees or working
parties dealing with the issue.
The issue was also raised at the Seattle
Ministerial Conference in 1999, but with no agreement reached. The 2001 Doha
Ministerial Conference reaffirmed the Singapore declaration on labour without
any specific discussion.
This issue was also indirectly mentioned
Appellate Body Report (see para. 182) on the dispute initiated by India against the European
Communities concerning the conditions for granting of tariff preferences to