International Labor Standards: Evolution And Controversy

The thesis intends for an in-depth and profound analysis of an important issue, international labor standards (ILS), which has been called into question in recent years. It develops the analysis based on several concepts of international political economy, by using different approaches of game theory, level of analysis, structural-functional analysis, and case studies. This thesis aims at exploring how ILS are being enforced and developed in the regional and bilateral free trade agreements among advanced developed countries (ADCs) and less developed countries (LDCs) in the context of intensive globalization since 1990s. The actorness of the research target is sovereign states, enterprises and multinational corporations (MNCs) .Generally speaking, a widely accepted notion of the international labor standards refers to the principles in labor issues—the international labor conventions and recommendations by the International Labor Organization (ILO). Although the international labor standards are the system of regulating global labor issues, there is no ready framework of international obligations of enforcing labor standards in the international community. More specifically, there are no authoritative and powerful international rules concerning labor standards. The significance of ILS is increasingly obviouse under the background of ecoomic globalization. The issue has drawn wide attention from the governments as well as from academic circle of many countries. At the same time it is becoming a controversial issue that seems inreconcialable between the developed and developing countries during a new round of trade liberalisation negotiation concerning the implementation and enforcement of global labor standards agreements as part of the framework of the World Trade Organization (WTO). There still exists an international debate on whether and how to enforce the core labor standards which are covered by international labor standards and other relevant standards between ADCs and LDCs. Most of the less developed countries are strongly against the practice that links labor standards with trade.It has been proved that international labor standards cannot be effectively enforced only by means of voluntary ratification of conventions by ILO members.However, up till now, the studies in this area have not given enough attention to the issue, particularly in China. Those are the problems my research is concerned with.The thesis begins with an analysis of what forms international labor standards should take, followed by the focused deliberation on the following forms of instruments for promoting international labor standards: ratification of ILO conventions by the membership in the organization, "soft law", trade agreements, GSP—Generalized System of Preferences, codes of conduct, i.e. Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) . But the roles they play are not identical.The analysis presented in my thesis is based upon the fundamental theory of international political economy in terms of the enforcement of international labor standards. It is found that the international labor standards are of the features of public goods. It is in conformity with a theory that the main providing regime of global public goods is negotiation. In recent years, the demand for public goods has grown in the context of intensified efforts in the process of regional integration worldwide. A major portion of the thesis focuses on the recent pattern of bilateral and regional negotiations that try to incorporate enforceable labor standards into trade agreements. So far, the negotiations have produced quite different results. Some progress has been made in some negotiations with significant agreements reached while other negotiations have run into the status of so-called "prisoner's dilemma" as it is stated in game theory.How this situation has occurred is very complex.Firstly, to negotiate for labor standards has a lot more to do with the progress in trade negotiations. Theoretically, it is an empirical research of the negotiation patterns about the implement...