ILO participates in French EU presidency conference on responsible and sustainable trade

ILO Deputy Director-General for Policy Martha Newton participated in a roundtable discussion on strengthening the ambition of social provisions in trade agreements at a high-level conference for a more sustainable and responsible trade. The event was organized by the French Ministry of Europe and Foreign Affairs.

The panel discussed the growing importance of including social provisions in trade agreements, convergences and specificities of European and American approaches to social provisions and their enforceability, as well as ways to strengthen the synergies with the ILO, civil society organizations and the social partners.

Since NAFTA (1994), the first trade agreement that included labour provisions, the number of trade agreements with labour provisions has increased to 104 out of a total of 351 trade agreements (as of 2021). More than half of trade agreements with labour provisions have come into force over the last ten years. The EU accounts for the largest number of such trade agreements, followed by Canada and the US.

Labour provisions in trade agreements increasingly refer to ILO instruments, principles, and standards, including the ILO Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work. They are also increasingly focussing on emerging issues of global labour governance and cooperation such as on occupational safety and health and gender.

“Core labour standards are key to levelling the playing field between workers and enterprises in different countries,” said Ms Newton. The ILO’s standard-setting and supervisory mechanisms make the ILO an important partner in ways that are ‘tangible, monitorable and enforceable’. Indeed, Ms Newton highlighted three main advantages of ILO support to stakeholders in strengthening the social provisions in trade agreements. The first advantage is through the legitimacy provided by the ILO’s tripartite standard-setting and supervisory mechanisms, the second through its experience and expertise on dealing with trade-related labour issues and third, its neutrality and role as honest broker between parties.

On the issue of the many synergies between the ILO and trade agreement implementation, Ms Newton said the ILO engaged in a number of activities through technical cooperation projects and technical advice to promote the ratification and implementation of core labour conventions and labour legislation. She said these activities have had ‘meaningful impact’ and highlighted the cases of Canada, Korea, Mexico and Viet Nam which ratified the fundamental Convention on the Right to organize and collective bargaining (n° 98) and legal and institutional reforms to align with international obligations. Furthermore, the ILO’s activities to encourage responsible business practices based on the ILO’s tripartite MNE Declaration provided businesses with the tools to advance decent work through trade. Ms Newton also stressed the essential role of stakeholder engagement and dialogue, which she said should be regular and ongoing, with a special focus on ensuring mechanisms for engagement that increase the efficacy of social partners and civil society to engage more strategically on sustainability issues.

The Deputy Director-General also highlighted the ILO’s new global database on trade agreements which is supported by the European Commission and the Government of Flanders. The Labour Provisions in Trade Agreements Hub (LP Hub) provides a comprehensive, structured compilation of the text of labour provisions in more than 100 regional trade agreements in over 140 economies, and is aimed at policymakers, technical experts, and representatives of workers, employers, and civil society.

“The LP Hub will help to promote more inclusive trade through an understanding of emerging areas of labour provisions such as forced labour, racial and ethnic equality, and gender in the context of trade, as well as labour-related provisions connected to the broad field of the future of trade, covering environment and technology,” concluded Ms Newton.