Trade in the Service of Sustainable Development: Linking Trade to Labour Rights and Environmental Standards

In the Bretton Woods era, trade liberalization, the improvement of labour rights and working conditions, and the strengthening of environmental policies, were seen as mutually supportive. But is this always true? Can we continue to pretend to protect the rights of workers and to improve environmental protection, particularly through climate change mitigation strategies, within an agenda focused on trade liberalization? Is it credible to pursue trade policies that aim to expand the volumes of trade, without linking such policies to labour and environmental standards, seen as ‘non-trade’ concerns? This book asks these questions, offering a detailed analysis of whether linkage is desirable and legally acceptable under the disciplines of the World Trade Organization (WTO). It concludes that trade can work for sustainable development, but only if we see it as a means for social and environmental progress, including climate change mitigation, and if we avoid fetichizing it as an end to be pursued for its own sake.

Table of Contents:
Introduction 1. Setting the Stage: The Limits of Fragmentation I. Trade and Labour Rights II. Trade and Environmental Standards III. The Use of Environmental and Labour Conditionalities in Trade Policies 2. Sanctions Against Goods or Services that do not Comply: WTO Disciplines I. The Core Disciplines of the WTO Regime II. The ‘Likeness’ of Goods and Services and the Product/Process Distinction III. The ‘General Exceptions’ Clauses of Article XX GATT and Article XIV GATS IV. Conclusion 3. The Special Regime of Border Tax Adjustments: Levelling the Playing Field I. The Notion of Border Tax Adjustments II. Border Tax Adjustments under WTO Law III. Determining the Level of the Compensatory Tax IV. Conclusion 4. Generalized Systems of Preferences: The ‘ Conditional Preferences ’ Approach I. The Origins of the Generalized System of Preferences II. The Emergence of ‘Special Incentives’ within the EU GSP Scheme III. The Three Layers of the Current EU GSP Scheme 5. Labelling Schemes: Supporting Ethical Consumerism I. The Rise of the Debate on Labelling Schemes II. Compatibility with WTO Law 6. Public Procurement: The Power of the Purse 7. Conclusions I. ‘Sanctions’ for Non-compliance with Labour Rights or Environmental Standards II. ‘Carbon Equalization’ through Border Tax Adjustments: Levelling the Playing Field III. The EU Generalized System of Preferences: Making Preferences Conditional IV. Labelling Schemes: Supporting Ethical Consumerism V. Government Procurement: The Power of the Purse

About the Author :
Olivier De Schutter was the UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food (2008–14) and is now a Member of the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. He teaches at the University of Louvain (UCL) and at SciencesPo (Paris). He has been a visiting Professor at Columbia University and at UC Berkeley.