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| Title: | Protecting Human Rights in a Global Economy: Challenges for the World Trade Organization |
| Source: | Stokke H. and Tostensen A., (eds) Human Rights in Development Yearbook 1999/2000: The Millennium Edition, pp. 51. |
| Parties: | |
| Dispute Resolution Organ: | |
| Year: | 2001 |
| Pages: | 0 |
| Author(s): | Mutua, Makau W. and Howse, Robert L. |
| Keywords: | trade, investment, human rights, trade law, development, poverty, exploitation, transparency, WTO, accountability |
| Abstract: | In this piece, the authors address the tensions and potential synergies between the two legal regimes governing trade and investment and human rights. For the authors, trade and investment agreements, as well as the practices of international business, must be held accountable to existing human rights law. Further, the spirit of human rights law must frame the development of trade law if either is to achieve its goals. The authors affirm the challenge before the world is how to influence the process of globalization in such a way that human suffering, poverty, exploitation, exclusion, and discrimination are eliminated. Since trade is the driving engine of globalization, they consider it is imperative that, at the very least, rules governing it do not violate human rights but rather promote and protect them.
In this paper, the authors discuss the difficult nexus between trade and human rights and identify areas of tension and possible reconciliation. They argue that trade and human rights regimes need not be in conflict, so long as the trade regime is applied and evolved in a manner that respects the hierarchy of norms in international law. Human rights, to the extent they are obligations erga omnes, or have the status of custom, or of general principles will normally prevail over specific, conflicting provisions or treaties such as trade agreements. The WTO laws and processes must be interpreted in a way that advances human rights, transparency, accountability and representivity (sic). They conclude human rights and trade are fundamentally linked and must be seen as complementary, not oppositional. That free trade and the trade system are an instrument of basic human values. They highlight the need for an institutional evolution and for new laws and policies that would overcome the isolation of these two regimes. |
| Download Article: | Available here |
