TTIP : Time or a New approach to Labor Rights and Standars

Abstract

The Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership represents an opportunity to assert U.S. and EU leadership in defining uniform and unambiguous international labor standards in trade and investment agreements by adopting ILO Conventions. Under the current U.S. trade model, labor chapters are limited to the principles referenced in the ILO’s 1998 Declaration of Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work. Limiting labor chapters to the Declaration permits the U.S. to preserve its statutory and regulatory inconsistencies with ILO Conventions, which express actual rights. Since many European countries are consistent with these rights, limiting the TTIP to the Declaration could give the U.S. unfair advantage with respect to labor markets, providing of course, that European countries do not lower their labor standards to those of the U.S.