1. A Social Clause through the Back
Door?
Labor Provisions in Preferential
Trade Agreements
Research Question
and Objectives
International developments in the social dimension of glo-
balization have long gone unnoticed because progress
towards the social regulation of global capitalism has been
either insignificant or slow. In the past ten years, however,
there has been a spectacular growth of preferential trade
agreements (PTAs) with references to labor provisions,
a remarkable development given the failed attempt to
include a social clause to trade at the multilateral level in
the 1990s.
This project investigates the causes and consequences of
labor provisions in PTAs.
• What are the domestic determinants of variation in the
design of PTAs with respect to labor provisions? To what
extent do interest groups and government partisanship
affect the presence and stringency of labor provisions in
PTAs?
• What is the social and economic impact of labor provi-
sions in PTAs? How do labor-related cooperation provi-
sions influence compliance with collective labor rights?
Are PTAs with labor provisions more or less trade-creat-
ing (and employment enhancing) than PTAs without?
Methodology
First and foremost, the project employs quantitative research methods to systematically examine the origins and
effects of labor provisions in trade agreements with a particular focus on collective labor rights. It uses the DESTA
database (www.designoftradeagreements.org), the most comprehensive in terms of the number of trade agreements
covered, focusing on the period 1990-2012. And it draws on the brand new TUR indicators (i.e., trade union rights;
http://tur.la.psu.edu) to assess effectiveness. A small number of case studies are also proposed to complement the
quantitative analysis.
Damian Raess
Project Coordinator
University of Reading and University of Geneva
d.raess@reading.ac.uk / damian.raess@unige.ch
Dora Sari
University of Geneva
dora.sari@unige.ch
David Kucera
International Labour Organization
kucera@ilo.org
Andreas Dür
University of Salzburg
andreas.duer@sbg.ac.at
Research Keywords
and Disciplines Involved
Labor Rights International Law
Interest Groups
Political Science
Globalization Economics
International Relations
Human Rights Employment
Current State of Work
The initial phases of the project focused on developing
a comprehensive coding scheme of labor provisions in
PTAs and manually coding the agreements. The team
ended up coding about 500 trade agreements against
a total of 154 items structured around four overarching
categories (substance; obligation; enforceability;
cooperation). This allows for a critical mapping of the
evolution of the design of labor provisions in trade
agreements since 1990. A preliminary analysis of the
impact of labor-related cooperation provisions on
compliance with collective labor rights around the
world was undertaken.
The quantitative data analysis is in full swing and it will
help us identify interesting cases for a more detailed,
qualitative analysis to be carried out in the coming
months. An interdisciplinary symposium with a wide
range of stakeholders will be held in the Fall of 2016 in
Geneva to discuss the research findings which will feed
into the work of the ILO and the international/European
trade union movement as well as other relevant nation-
al and international organizations. In terms of output,
the project will seek to publish three scientific articles
and an edited volume as well as a policy brief to help
disseminate the research findings and policy implica-
tions among decision makers.
Dignity factory workers producing shirts for overseas clients, in Accra, Ghana on October 13, 2015.
Photo Credit: Dominic Chavez/World Bank
Worker of PT Jaya Asiatic Shipyard
Photo Credit: Mirza A, @ILO