Labour Standards and The U.S. Free Trade Agreements (FTAs): Implications for Development Countries

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This part of the research focuses on the Labour Chapter of the 4 US FTAs: US-Australia, US-Chile, CAFTA (Central American Free Trade Agreement), and US-Panama. The objective is to study guidelines of the US in determining labour conditions with its trading partners, and the implication of such Labour Chapters on the ILO Core Labour Standards and to study domestic labour laws in Vietnam, Bangladesh, Cambodia, and Thailand to examine relevance of domestic laws in each country with ILO Core Labour Standards in an attempt to determine whether: • Compliance with core labour standards will lead to growth in trade; or • Labour Standards are trade barriers in a form of conditions for trade protection against developing countries; or • Trade is the factor fostering more compliance with labour standards. Publication date : 2008