The Wto, The Concept Of Human Rights

With the tide of anti-globalization and anti-WTO rising at Seattle of the United States of America from November to December of 1999, issues concerning human rights and international trade are brought into the forefront for the world governments, statesmen, trade experts, human fights experts, economists, international jurists and general public as well.Issues such as whether WTO is entitled to address the human fights idea, what basic concepts of human fights are involved in the WTO regime, how the WTO regime is to provide enough protection for human rights by tackling the problems resulting from the conflicts between the international trade regime which is based on the neo-liberal economic theory with market efficiency and profit maximization as core values and international human fights law which has its origins in the natural law and natural fights theories of seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and has its concept of human fights based on the notion of the inherent worth, dignity and equality of each individual human being, grow to be core issues for the future development of the WTO regime and world progress and prosperity, they have also become the critical concern for China and other developing countries to determine their positions in handling the issues concerning human fights and WTO in future.As systematic and in-depth research into the relationship between human rights and WTO is well established and well-established idea concerning WTO and human fights are sparse, the present research into human fights idea and ideology involved in WTO regime is of practical and theoretical significance. By drawing upon the social theory of international politics, employing the methodology of historical studies, ethics, economics, legal philosophy, comparative analysis, normative analysis and positive analysis, the writer of this dissertation is to probe into several fundamental concepts of human fights involved in WTO. In addition to the introductory remarks and the concluding remarks, the writer is to illustrate the ideology of WTO human fights in six chapters.Chapter one deals with the human fights ideology in the framework of multi-trading mechanism, elaborates on the fundamental concept and functions of human fights idea in the WTO regime. The writer puts forth the WTO human fights idea from ontological and methodological perspectives and believes, ontological human fights idea in WTO is that while WTO protects all the human fights and human rights concepts illuminated and enumerated by the international human rights law on the abstract level, it shall mainly protect economic and social right on the concrete level, and methodological human rights ideology can be safely divided into embedded liberalistic human rights idea of the Pre-Uruguay Round, disembedded liberalistic human rights idea of the After-Uruguay Round and constructivism human rights ideology of Doha Round.Chapter two addresses the legitimacy of the WTO human rights ideology. Based upon a historical, ethical, jurisprudential and practical study of the relation between WTO and human rights, the writer analyzes why WTO shall protect human rights. From historical point of view, international human rights and the multi-trading system resulted from the institutional framework for the establishment of the world peace and for maintaining the world progress and pursuit of well-being. From practical perspective, though WTO has undeniably promoted the overall economic development for the world, such problems as the balanced development of the nation-states, poverty, environmental problems, labor problems, public health and safety promoted the world to bring into the question the legitimacy and justifiability of the WTO. From the perspectives of the philosophy of law, protection of human rights shall be the ultimate objective of the WTO regime, but the constitutional characteristics of WTO poses some threats to the various protection adopted by the member states. From ethical perspectives, the ethical values involved in the sustainable development of the world and global ethic has laid solid foundation for the inclusion of human rights in the WTO regime. From the point of view of the normative characters of the WTO agreements, general and security exceptions in the various WTO Covered agreements has immediate connection with the protection of human rights.Chapter three deals with the limits inherent in the WTO human rights idea. By detailed analysis of the role WTO plays in the world organizations system, restrictions of the organizational, financial and human resources, the generality nature of the human rights, the conflicts between developed countries and developing countries in dealing with human rights issues, the writer tends to believe WTO chiefly serves as the ancillary of the human rights protection mechanism, not the dominant institution owing to its position in the world organizations. Due to the generality nature of human rights and scarcity of the resources, under WTO regime, the protection of the human fights can only be directed at the partial protection, not all the human rights generally.Chapter four deals with the externalization of the human rights ideology under WTO regime. In the writer's analysis, WTO shall address the right to development, environmental right, right to health and food, labor fights and any other trade-related human rights. The writer suggests that right to development shall be awarded special attention for it is to safeguard rights for all the members of the international community to participate freely, effectively and fully in the world affairs, promote and enhance the enjoyment of the economic, political and social and even cultural development, and issue of equity and justice are central to the development process. The right to development has exceeded the narrow province of the international human rights law and has grown to be a guiding principle for the international political and economic relations.Chapter five is directed toward providing for the trade-related human rights measures. Kinds of the measures and their impact on the WTO human fights are put forward. The writer penned more of his ink toward the impact the trade sanctions exerted on the protection of the human rights and their legitimacy. The trade-related human rights measures should include encouraging and punitive measures, of which encouraging measures are allowed by WTO. As punitive measure might incur human rights paradoxes, the legitimacy of the unilateral trade sanctions are to be doubted. Multilateral trade sanctions are legitimate since they are launched under the authority of UN Security Council, the legitimacy of unilateral trade sanctions depend on the general and security exceptions. Generally, tailored sanctions with inwardly-directed character are allowed under WTO regimes, but pure outwardly-directed tailored sanctions remain controversial. From the view of evolutionary trend, WTO is to loose the control of pure outwardly-directed tailored sanctions. If pure outwardly-directed tailored sanctions are permitted, from the effectiveness of human rights protection, there seems no reason to reject general sanction, semi-tailored sanction is so too. Trade-related human rights measures need be directed at placing more emphasis on the encouraging measures with the punitive measures being ancillary.Chapter six offers solutions to the WTO human rights problems. The consistency of WTO law and human rights law on the principle level and the practices of DSB and other international organizations lay the theoretical and practical foundations for the resolution of WTO human rights problems. Human rights ideology under WTO shall be directed at the constructivism idea and ideology. Under the guide of the constructivism human rights idea, Human rights concerned shall be incorporated into the WTO agreements by the negative way with the ancillary of positive approach. In doing so, a mechanism of human rights impact assessment of WTO decisions and rules at the negotiating and the implementing stage, cooperation with other international organizations and international non-governmental organizations and human rights interpretation of trade rules to help coordinate the trade rules and human fights obligations is illustrated. Where necessary in future, the Trade-Related Human Rights Agreement shall be adopted by the international communities.