China's Trade Union System under the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights: Is China in Compliance with Article 8
![handle is hein.journals/uhawlr21 and id is 223 raw text is: China's Trade Union System Under the
International Covenant on Economic, Social
and Cultural Rights: Is China in Compliance
with. Article 8?
I. INTRODUCTION
For years China has prohibited workers from establishing trade unions that
function independently from the All-China Federation of Trade Unions
(ACFTU),' China's massive, and often repressive, monolithic trade union.2
In 1997, however, China signed the International Covenant on Economic,
Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR),3 which explicitly provides workers
with the right to establish independent trade unions.' China's signing of the
ICESCR, coupled with President Jiang Zemin's prompt proclamation that the
signing demonstrates ... the government's staunch determination to promote
human rights' conditions in China and the world as a whole,5 appeared to
' See U.S. DEP'T OF STATE, COUNTRY REPORT ON HUMAN RIGHTS PRAcTIcES FOR 1994,
S. Doc. No. 105, at 735 (2d Sess. 1997) [hereinafter 1997 U.S. STATE DEP'T REPORT] (reporting
that the ACFTU is China's only official union and that independent trade unions are illegal);
see also Diane F. Orentlicher & Timothy A. Gelatt, Public Law, Private Actors: The Impact of
Human Rights on Business Investors in China, 14 NW. J. INT'L L. & Bus. 66, 91
(1993)(explaining that independent trade unions are not allowed in China); Hillary K. Josephs,
Labor Law in a Socialist Market Economy: The Case of China, 33 COLuM. J. TRANSNT'LL.
559, 571-72 (1995)(stating that independent trade unions cannot organize).
2 See Laboring in Hong Kong, THE NATION, July 14, 1997, at 3, available in 1998 WL
8866479 (stating that the ACFTU is dedicated to suppressing worker protest); see also Robert
Evans, Commerce Greed Attacking Unions, Labor Bodies Say, COMMERCIAL APPEAL, June 14,
1997, at B7, available in 1997 WL 10383352. Evans explains that the International
Confederation of Free Trade Unions, the world's largest labor organization, stated that China
has one of the worst records of trade union repression, because it keeps its workers on a tight
rein, harassing and persecuting independent trade unionists with the blessing of the (official)
All-China Federation of Trade Unions. Id.
3 See China Signs UN Human Rights Covenant, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE, Oct. 27, 1997,
available in 1997 WL 13422031 (China's ambassador to the United Nations signed the
ICESCR on October 27, 1997.). See generally China Signs part of International Bill of Rights,
CHINA RIGHTS FORUM (1997-1998), at 6 (providing that China was the last permanent member
of the U.N. Security Council to sign the ICESCR).
' International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, pt. III, art. 8(l)(a),
opened for signature Dec. 16, 1966, 993 U.N.T.S. 3, 6 (entered into force Jan. 3, 1976)
[hereinafter ICESCR].
' China: More on Jiang Zemin Interviewed by US Reporters, BEIJING XINHUA (in
English), Oct. 24, 1997, reprinted in Federal Broadcast Information Service-China-97-297
(FBIS-CHI-97-297), Oct. 25, 1997, at 1.](ViewImageLocal?handle=hein.journals/uhawlr21&div=17&collection=&method=preview&ext=.png&size=3)
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