Trade and Labour Standards - Dissertation Example

As such, in June 1998, the ILO Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work was adopted. This development served to force the member states of the ILO. Another important outcome was that it was emphatically prohibited to employ labor standards for protectionist trade purposes. These principles and rights are first, freedom of association and actual recognition of a right to collective bargaining. Second, prescription of any form of compulsory or forced labor. Third, is the elimination of child labor. Fourth, prohibition of any form of discrimination, with respect to occupation and employment (Policy Brief. International Trade and Core Labour Standards, 2000).

The ILO’s follow–up mechanism, in this context, is a significant development in its ability to address the difficulties arising from economic liberalization at the international level. This system makes it possible to review the relevant progress made by the member states that have not ratified the core labor standards conventions. A major supporter of this mechanism is the US which has made a significant monetary contribution. The US has proposed a system that would assess the influence of international labor standards on international trade and the aims of the GATT (Grace, 2005).

This US stance has resulted in the adoption of the basic labor standards of the ILO as the fundamental norm for worker rights. During the 1996, ministerial conference in Singapore, the US called upon the ILO – WTO cooperation to make themselves reciprocally supportive. In addition, it was also stated that there was an urgent need to promote a trading system that was non – discriminatory and transparent. Thereafter, at the 1999 Seattle ministerial meeting of the WTO, the US recommended certain explicit issues for consideration. Some of these were the relationship between social protection, core labor standards and trade; forced labor and trade; positive trade incentives; and derogation on account of the trade from national labor standards (Grace, 2005).

The extant standards relating to labor are not under the control of the rules and disciplines of the World Trade Organization (WTO). However, some member states of the European Union (EU) and a few nations of North America have expressed the opinion that the WTO should address this issue. It is the firm belief of these countries that such a course of action is indispensable for strengthening public confidence in the international trading system and the WTO (Trade and Labour Standards, 2011).

It is the firm conviction of these nations that the WTO should pursue the denial of rights, such as the freedom to engage in collective bargaining, freedom of association, eradication of discrimination in the workplace, and workplace abuse. It has been suggested by these countries that these issues can be brought into the WTO, by the strategy of constituting a working group to analyze the norms related to trade and labor (Trade and Labour Standards, 2011). This initiative is believed to better the conditions of all the workers of the world.

Views relating to international labor standards admit considerable divergence. Social and labor activists are seized with the inexorable increase of imports from countries that have scant regard for labor standards.