International Economic Law and Policy Blog

Sign in Subscribe

Topic

Trade and Labor

24 posts

In Defense of Child Labor

From economist Steven Landsburg: As any historian could tell you, no society has every pulled itself out of poverty without putting its children to work. Back in the early 19th century, when Americans were as poor as Bangladeshis are now, we were sending out children to work at about the

Labor Rules in Trade Agreements: Child Labor

A reader points me to the following from the Progressive Policy Institute: The ILO's 'core' labor standard on child labor is set out in ILO Convention #138 on Minimum Working Age. Dating to 1973, the Convention reads as follows: "The minimum age ... shall not be

Some Questions about Labor/Environment Provisions in Trade Agreements

This Presidential campaign has made it very clear that there are a number of people (mostly Democrats, I would guess), including the two remaining Democratic Presidential candidates, whose support for trade agreements is conditional on having enforceable labor and environmental rules as part of these agreements. This view raises a

How Important Are Labor/Environmental Standards in Trade Agreements?

As noted many times on this blog, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton have been making a big deal of the absence of enforceable labor/environmental standards in certain trade agreements, such as NAFTA. But how important would these really be? Dan Drezner gives the following answer: Repeat after me: attaching