Acta Oeconomica Pragensia 2008, 16(2):48-57 | DOI: 10.18267/j.aop.56

WTO and the Social Clause, or else: the Multilateral Approaches to the International Labor Standards

Jakub Krč, Eva Cihelková, Josef Bič
Prof. Ing. Eva Cihelková, CSc. - Professor, Head of the Department of World Economy, Faculty of International Relations, University of Economics, Prague, nám. W. Churchilla 4, 130 67 Praha 3, Czech Republic; cihelka@vse.cz
Mgr. Ing. Jakub Krč - Ph.D. student, Department of World Economy, Faculty of International Relations, University of Economics, Prague, nám. W. Churchilla 4, 130 67 Praha 3, Czech Republic; jakub.krc@vse.cz
Ing. Josef Bič - Ph.D. student, Department of World Economy, Faculty of International Relations, University of Economics, Prague, nám. W. Churchilla 4, 130 67 Praha 3, Czech Republic; bic@vse.cz

One of the very important features of the dispute settlement mechanism under the WTO is the principle of the cross retaliation. The dispute settlement mechanism is going to be used for any of the areas within the agenda of WTO. Therefore, there is a crucial question of the issues included in the scope of subjects administrated under the World Trade Organization. Several development countries tried to pressure the member states, basically the developing countries to link labor standards with trade and include them under the jurisdiction competences of the WTO. The main aim of this paper is to outline the development of the linkage of the labor standards to the trade and its consequences for the World Trade Organization. We would like to describe the principle of the so called social clause and therefore stress some of the critical issues related to the idea of binding multilateral social standards.

Keywords: social clause, standards, labor standards, ILO, WTO
JEL classification: F13, J80

Published: April 1, 2008  Show citation

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Krč, J., Cihelková, E., & Bič, J. (2008). WTO and the Social Clause, or else: the Multilateral Approaches to the International Labor Standards. Acta Oeconomica Pragensia, 16(2), 48-57. doi: 10.18267/j.aop.56
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