GATT and the Fair Wage: A Historical Perspective on the Labor-Trade Link
![handle is hein.journals/clr101 and id is 1454 raw text is: NOTES
GATT AND THE FAIR WAGE: A HISTORICAL
PERSPECTIVE ON THE LABOR-TRADE LINK
Elissa Alben
This Note analyzes from a historical perspective the debates on linking
labor standards to the trade rules of the World Trade Organization (WTO)
and its predecessor, the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT).
Labor standards advocates have increasingly embraced a human rights
based definition of labor standards. However, a review of the negotiating
history from the GATT's early years and labor discussions during Japan's
accession to the GATT in 1953 reveals that a quite different, wage based,
view of labor standards was adopted by participants in the early GATT nego-
tiations. This Note argues that such differences in the definitional under-
standing of labor standards may limit the value of the current WTO text as
a tool to promote labor standards as human rights.
INTRODUCTION
As delegations prepare for the November 2001 meeting of the World
Trade Organization (WTO), they once again face an issue that has be-
come a mainstay of popular debate during any major trade negotiation:
the relationship between labor rights and trade agreements.' Many hope
that history-such as the massive protests at the WTO meeting in Seattle
almost two years ago-will not repeat itself in November. However, as a
few scholars have already noted, the debates in Seattle were themselves a
repetition of the past-a past that reaches to the founding of the GATT.2
1. The General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) established in 1947 a basic
framework of rules for trade liberalization. General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, Oct.
30, 1947, 61 Stat. A-11, T.I.A.S. 1700, 55 U.N.T.S. 194 [hereinafter GATT 1947]. The
GATT was superseded in 1995 by the Marrakesh Agreement Establishing the World Trade
Organization, concluded pursuant to the Uruguay Round negotiations, which
incorporated GATT 1947 into a broader legal framework governing international trade.
General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade 1994, Apr. 15, 1994, Marrakesh Agreement
Establishing the World Trade Organization [hereinafter WTO Agreement], Annex IA,
Legal Instruments-Results of the Uruguay Round vol. 1 (1994), 33 I.L.M. 1125 (1994)
[hereinafter GATT 1994]. Because the basic principles of the WTO Agreement at issue in
this Note were in large part adopted from the GATT, the abbreviation GATT/WTO will
be used to refer to the WTO Agreement and its predecessor. Any distinctions between the
GATT principles being discussed and those of the WTO Agreement will be noted.
References to the GATT alone are used in historical descriptions of the agreement's
conclusion and early years of operation.
2. A 1987 study by Steve Charnovitz provides a useful general overview of the history
of labor issues in trade policy. See generally Steve Charnovitz, The Influence of
International Labour Standards on the World Trading Regime: A Historical Overview, 126
Int'l. Lab. Rev. 565 passim (1987) [hereinafter Charnovitz, International Labour
1410](ViewImageLocal?handle=hein.journals/clr101&div=56&collection=&method=preview&ext=.png&size=3)
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GATT and the Fair Wage: A Historical Perspective on the Labor-Trade Link
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