User:Madison Luzar/Trade justice/Bibliography

In this paper, Ayres analyzes the recent history of the fair trade movement and describes the evolution of and types of framing activists used as they incorporated allies across movements and borders. It especially describes September 11 as a turning point in public perception of the movement and its subsequent strength in the face of a resurgence of the neoliberal agenda as spearheaded by President Bush. In essence, the anti-neoliberalism movement was consistently successful in uniting in understanding the negative effects of neoliberalism but fell short when trying to consolidate the wide-ranging views within the movement of how to construct a solution.

In this paper, Compa explores the positive aspects of NAFTA for unionists– the side agreement North American Agreement on Labor Cooperation (NAALC). He writes that though it was highly limited in its effectiveness (inherent to international arbitration bodies, but especially weak because it lacked “teeth” and had few enforceable, trade-limiting mechanisms for addressing violations), the NAALC was able to be used as a tool which fostered cross-border solidarity, and allowed advocates a mechanism for bringing up human rights and labor violations that they would not normally be able to.

In this paper, Compa explores Trump’s recent actions in regards to trade agreements like NAFTA, TPP (Trans-Pacific Trade Partnership), and USMCA (United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement), especially analyzing how the NAFTA side agreement he dove into in the previous source would transition into the new labor chapter in USMCA. The USMCA chapter includes more ILO standards, namely freedom of association and collective bargaining rights, and an important footnote on the right to strike that has not been included in any prior agreements. It also includes new provisions not seen before on “forced labor, violence against workers, migrant workers, and sex-based discrimination in the workplace”. It additionally requires a five-member dispute settlement panel wherein at least four have expertise in labor law/practice, as opposed to NAFTA’s which had only 3 and no requirement for expertise.

Summers examines the Seattle WTO protests as a turning point, analyzes the different sides of the debate, and outlines their main arguments. He argues that the insistence that free trade stay economic and not political, and not incorporate labor rights rests on the idea that human rights are not economically efficient, and so countries that prioritize them will be less likely to receive investments, thus it is up to the WTO to incorporate these rules into their trade rules if world leaders should ever hope to make real progress. Too much is at stake for developing countries, and having much less power than those they are making deals with, are forced to sign into free trade agreements that can have terrible consequences. He argues that the ILO is nowhere strong enough to make real changes, and so WTO passing off these issues to them is to disregard them.

Rupert dives into the opposing arguments in favor of and opposition to NAFTA. He highlights how pro-NAFTA advocates, often established and powerful businesspeople, economists, politicians, and mainstream media, treated NAFTA as important, intuitive, and inevitable, spread massive advertisements, and labeled anti-NAFTA advocates as ignorant and protectionist. Anti-NAFTA advocates, on the other hand, criticized NAFTA dealings as being too undemocratic and sought to expose the contradictions between democracy and property which pro-NAFTA advocates often brushed over.