The Bush administration renamed fast-track “trade promotion authority” (TPA) – another
nomenclature change, this time to avoid the implications of “pulling a fast one” that
critics had used to derail fast track for Clinton. In the 2002 TPA, Congress included a
labor clause making enforcement of labor standards a required objective in any trade
deal. The United States also has labor rights clauses in statutes governing preferential
trade arrangements with developing countries, such as the Generalized System of
Preferences (GSP), about which more below.
Bilaterally, the United States has negotiated several trade agreements, notably with
Jordan, Chile, Singapore and Australia, opening selected product and service markets and
reducing tariffs and non-tariff barriers. These agreements also contain labor rights clauses
requiring parties to effectively enforce their labor laws. Many labor advocates view the
Jordan agreement in particular as a strong template for trade-labor linkage. It sets out ILO
core labor standards as relevant norms and incorporates labor standards into the text of
the agreement, rather than standing as a separate “side agreement,” and it subjects labor
violations to the same dispute settlement regime as commercial violations. One problem,
however, is that the U.S.-Jordan agreement only contemplates “complaints” by one of the
governments against the other, not a complaint system open to submissions by unions,
human rights groups or other civil society forces. They would have to lobby their
government to launch a complaint, making government willingness, not citizen initiative,
the trigger for investigating workers’ rights violations.
One innovative bilateral trade-labor arrangement should be noted here. The U.S.-
Cambodia textile trade agreement provides positive incentives for garment manufacturing
firms in Cambodia to comply with international labor standards. Under the agreement,
compliance – certified by an equally innovative monitoring system run by the ILO –
brings increased quota opportunities to export products to the United States. In fact, firms
and workers in Cambodia made substantial gains under this accord. The quota system
providing the incentive ended with the demise of the Multi-Fibre Arrangement as of
January 1, 2005; nonetheless, Cambodia hopes to retain its export industry based on its
reputation for fair treatment of workers built up under the agreement.
我已经请人翻译完了了，2000字的，还是免费的。好人还是多呀。谢谢