Friday, February 2, 2018

New article assesses FTA labor provisions from gender perspective

My forthcoming article in the Comparative Labor Law & Policy Journal assesses labor provisions in US and Canadian free trade agreements both generally and from a gender perspective. See SSRN for a link to the article:  https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3056990. See this IntLawGrrls piece for a sketch of the main arguments and points made in the article.

Policy makers and advocates in both countries have made great strides in the past quarter century since NAFTA was negotiated, but much work remains to be done.  The key to progress has been creative advocacy efforts by trade unions and workers' human rights advocates on the one hand and intelligent, creative, and responsive problem solving methods by policy makers.

The article shows how both advocates and policy makers have overcome definitional and procedural shortcomings in FTA labor provisions to make them useful tools for worker rights advocacy.  It also highlights weaknesses and shortcomings in the texts of FTA labor provisions that must be addressed to make them truly transformational.