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Beyond Labor Rights: Which Core Human Rights Must Regional Trade Agreements Protect?, Stephen Joseph Powell, Trisha Low Dec 2011

Beyond Labor Rights: Which Core Human Rights Must Regional Trade Agreements Protect?, Stephen Joseph Powell, Trisha Low

Stephen Joseph Powell

As WTO Members relentlessly pursue new regional trade agreements to achieve even faster economic growth than the extraordinary numbers posted by global trade rules, the smaller number of parties and their greater cultural affinity have led negotiators to address the intersection of trade with human rights to an extent unparalleled in the culturally disparate and near-unmanageable 150-plus member WTO itself. These new provisions have used trade’s huge power to improve worker rights, secure environmental protections, and make initial inroads toward defending indigenous populations from trade’s adverse effects. Employing the perspectives both of trade negotiators and students of this halting progress …


Global Laws, Local Lives: Impact Of The New Regionalism On Human Rights Compliance, Stephen Powell, Patricia Pérez Dec 2010

Global Laws, Local Lives: Impact Of The New Regionalism On Human Rights Compliance, Stephen Powell, Patricia Pérez

Stephen Joseph Powell

Continuation of the brisk pace of international economic growth with its necessarily increased use of natural resources—often at unsustainable levels—and its higher levels of pollution—often at the cost of citizen health—combine with the rules of the global trading system to threaten human rights to health, to freedom from forced or child labor, to non-discrimination, to a fair wage, to a healthy environment, even to democratic governance and participation in the political process. As a result, in recent years a growing number of economists begrudgingly acknowledge the incontrovertible—although presently dysfunctional—linkage between trade and human rights and the need to integrate these …


Toward A Vibrant Peruvian Middle Class: Effects Of The Peru-United States Free Trade Agreement On Labor Rights, Biodiversity, And Indigenous Populations, Stephen J. Powell, Paola A. Chavarro Jan 2008

Toward A Vibrant Peruvian Middle Class: Effects Of The Peru-United States Free Trade Agreement On Labor Rights, Biodiversity, And Indigenous Populations, Stephen J. Powell, Paola A. Chavarro

Stephen Joseph Powell

Past research confirms that trade and human rights are inextricably linked by trade's effects on poverty, labor, women, indigenous populations, health, and the environment. We identified surprisingly direct linkages between these two vital policies in WTO agreements as well as that regional trade agreements add positive indirect contributions by to rules-based governance through their emphasis on transparency, accountability, and due process by governments, as well as timeliness, inclusive record keeping, and impartiality in the administrative decisional process. The present research examines a particular country and a single trade agreement, Peru and the trade agreement between Peru and the United States. …