Labor Provisions in US Free Trade Agreements : Determinants and Adequacy

The inclusion of labor-related provisions in US Free Trade Agreements has been a contentious issue. They have been attacked both for allegedly weakening the comparative advantage of developing and emerging countries; and for being too weak and inconsistent with the recommendations of the International Labour Organization (ILO). This paper proposes a method of assessing the reality of labor rights protection in U.S. FTAs Partner countries and gives a more precise picture of the adequacy of Labor-related provisions in those FTAs given the situation of labor rights protection in U.S FTAs Partner-countries. In doing so, it provides also a careful and original methodology to evaluate the respect of ILO Conventions and build an Index of Labour Bargaining Power, both of these constructions can be reproduced in further research and used to monitor the evolution of Labour Rights in any given country