Economic Globalisation and States’ Regulatory Space: The Protection of Labour Rights in EU Free Trade Agreements

Abstract

Free trade agreements (FTAs) have been accused to be socially harmful and to force countries to undercut their levels labour protection. To address this complaint, the European Union (the EU) has developed a regime of labour rights protection in its trade agreements. In recent years, there has been increasing research on labour provisions in EU FTAs. However, scholars have not engaged with the study of labour provisions’ implications for states’ regulatory space for labour law. Therefore, this dissertation aims to address the following question: how do labour provisions in EU FTAs reshape the Parties’ regulatory space for labour law? To answer this question, this dissertation analyses the labour commitments and the cooperation mechanisms included in the Trade and Sustainable Development chapter (TSD chapter) of ten trade agreements concluded by the EU since 2010. The research shows that labour commitments marginally increase states’ regulatory space for labour law. It also highlights that cooperation mechanisms provided in EU trade agreements have the potential to increase states’ regulatory space. These findings allow us to conclude that the EU response to a key aspect of the criticism against its trade agreements shows positive developments. These developments appear marginal however. Therefore, this dissertation argues in favour of revamping cooperation activities under the EU FTAs and makes five policy recommendations: (i) to redesign cooperation provisions so as to be more specific; (ii) to improve the coordination between the different actors promoting labour rights; (iii) to set intermediary targets through the generalisation of work plans; (iv) to strengthen communication on the achievements of TSD chapters and to further involve civil society organisations; and (v) to enable regulatory cooperation in matters of labour rights. These policy recommendations aim to further enhance labour provisions’ capacity to address the concern of states’ regulatory space loss.