Where Symbolism Prospers: An Analysis of the Impact on Enabling Rights of Labour Standards Provisions in Trade Agreements with South Korea

Abstract

Can trade agreements be used as a tool for improving the conditions under which people work? The evidence from this study suggests this is not the case, even if the country in question-in this instance South Korea-is a well-developed and democratic country. While over the past six years South Korea has taken part in a number of Free Trade Agreements containing labour provisions, the impact of these on enabling rights has been rather low. This would suggest that without the willingness to enforce these parts of the agreements, or without the willingness to implement them on the Korean side, the inclusion of such provisions remains a fairly symbolic undertaking.

Developing a novel index to evaluate labour chapters in trade agreements: Canada’s ambition–enforceability compromise

“…While most CPTPP and USMCA provisions committed to ILO-defined standards, they lack specifics particularly for parties who have committed to standards or practices that currently do not exist domestically. For example, although South Korea was willing to incorporate labour provisions in its agreement with Canada, it did not agree to commit to the ILO’s definitions because South Korea had not yet ratified several of the conventions (Roozendaal, 2017). For the CPTPP, this is the case for adopting an acceptable minimum wage, implementing minimum health and safety standards and the prohibition on importing goods produced by from sources of forced labour.…”

Labour Standards and Trade: In Search of Impact and Alternative Instruments

“…Such studies provide a more detailed insight into the nature of the impact and the reasons for (a lack of) direct impact. The country studies in this volume on South Korea (Van Roozendaal, 2017), Peru (Orbie, van den Putte, & Martens, 2017), and also to a certain extent Brazil (Riethof, 2017), are illustrations of this approach. Also Oehri (2017) departs from a local perspective, examining civil society complaints in the Dominican Republic and Mexico.…”

“…The case study by Van Roozendaal (2017) on South Korea shows no ultimate impact, even though South Korea is confronted with numerous FTAs with labour standard provisions. This suggests that until now, these provisions have not been taken seriously, either by South Korea or by any of the signatory countries.…”

“…The empowering effects of FTAs are related to the position of civil society and are often the effect of institution building. The articles by Orbie et al (2017) and Van Roozendaal (2017) in this issue show that there is very limited impact. Riethof (2017) is more positive in terms of how Mercosur has created space for civil society.…”

The Impact of Labour Rights Commitments in EU Trade Agreements: The Case of Peru

“…Here, a distinction is often made between a 'soft' EU approach and a 'hard' US approach (Brown, 2015;Ebert & Posthuma, 2011;Horn, Mavroidis, & Sapir 2010). While the limited number of impact analyses focus on large-N quantitative data (Gansemans, Martens, D'Haese, & Orbie, 2017, in this issue; Postnikov & Bastiaens, 2014) or third country level analysis (Oehri, 2015a(Oehri, , 2015bVan Roozendaal, 2017;Vogt, 2017), we aim to delve deeper into the case of labour rights in the agricultural sector in Peru, considering specific sub-cases such as labour inspection, health and safety at work regulations, and export regimes. Moreover, we analyse the provisions on civil society involvement, as these foresee trade union participation and are seen by the EU as a key mechanism to promote labour rights.…”