Research On The TPP Labor Rules

With the deepening of the international economic intercourse and the growth of people's awareness about international human rights,the labor issue has been the more and more important topic during the international trade negotiation.Since last century,the most active countries in the world begin to emphasize the linkage between labor issue and the international trade,and try to put the rules of labor rights protection into the bilateral and regional free trade frameworks.However,due to the heterogeneity among the countries all over the world,on the issue of whether to put it or not is still in strong debate.Multilateral framework failed in bringing in the Labor rules,which leads to the efforts to pursue labor right protection rules into the bilateral and regional trade agreements.The rules concerning labor issue in TPP Agreement is not only the most widely and newly accepted rules,but also shows the highest level of the labor protection in current international trade agreement practice.There is an individual chapter about labor issue in TPP Agreement,and it provides much more detailed rules rather than other free trade agreements.Firstly,with regard to the substantive law of labor protection,TPP labor chapter requires that every party shall adopt and maintain statutes and regulations,and practices thereunder,governing acceptable conditions of work with respect to minimum wages,hours of work,and occupational safety and health,in spite of the four basic labor rights set up by International Labor Organization.With regard to the procedural law,TPP parties shall establish a variety of proposed tribunal system for relief,and further puts forward lots of rules to make the relief process good,reasonable and legitimate.Secondly,in terms of the basic requirements of labor protection,the TPP has set up “Non Derogation” and “Non Trade Protectionism” as the basic protection requirements,and further launches the obligation of limiting forced labor products.On the implementation of the labor rights protection mechanism,the TPP Agreement first emphasizes labor laws shall be effectively implemented and enforced,and gives out the explicitly prohibited way of non-implement,while still ensures the parties perform the labor sovereignty and discretion.Second,the TPP builds up the Labor Council and Contact Point as the institutional basis to accept the public submission in domestic level and to have cooperative dialogue in international level,which definitely make the labor chapter much more practical.About the dispute settlement mechanism,TPP Agreement establishes a set of systematic labor consultation mechanism,and also makes sure the same applicability with the trade issue to the DSM Chapter.Compared with the previous bilateral and regional trade agreements,TPP labor section follows more on US FTA model,and also takes some from EU FTA model,but in more ways,it shows its own innovative and progressive points.In the face of the high standards of labor protection principle established by the TPP labor rules,the situation of China's domestic legislation and the foreign FTA practice has shown some gap.The existence of the gap and the “outsider” status of China will no doubt produce the transfer effect of trade and investment;China will also be stuck into the passive situation during foreign FTA negotiations,and further influence our country's international strategic position.How to face the passive TPP effects,and how to better adapt to the closer linkage between labor standards and international trade,China should take all the elements from inside and outside TPP as well as China into consideration,to get our own progress and development in inward labor protection and outward labor issue negotiation in the future.