The book examines in depth human rights policies involving conscripted child labor, sustainable development, promotion of health, equality of women, human trafficking, indigenous peoples, poverty, citizenship, and economic sanctions. We hope to aid the reader’s understanding of our message through actual examples from the thirty-five nations of the Western Hemisphere. We close this study by looking to the future. Our focus on the myriad intersections of these fields in the Americas aims to recognize weaknesses and potentials in each so that conversations can be had between the trade and human rights borderlands. Our goal is nothing less than an integrated regional trade order seeking both richer and more citizen-sensitive nations.
The 2005 Human Development Report of the United Nations glumly summarizes the blessings and curses of international trade:
Trade is at the heart of the interdependence that binds countries together. That interdependence has contributed to some highly visible human development advances, enabling millions of people to escape poverty and share in the prosperity generated by globalization. Yet many millions more have been left behind. The costs and benefits of trade have been unevenly distributed across and within countries, perpetuating a pattern of globalization that builds prosperity for some amid mass poverty and deepening inequality for others. The rules of the game are at the heart of the problem. Developed country governments seldom waste an opportunity to emphasize the virtues of open markets, level playing fields and free trade, especially in their prescriptions for poor countries. Yet the same governments maintain a formidable array of protectionist barriers against developing countries. They also spend billions of dollars on agricultural subsidies. Such policies skew the benefits of globalization in favour of rich countries, while denying millions of people in developing countries a chance to share in the benefits of trade. Hypocrisy and double standards are not strong foundations for a rules-based multilateral system geared towards human development.23
Viable alternatives exist to create structures and craft dialogues to bridge a seemingly impassable divide toward an era of splendid integration of human rights and trade. We ask the reader to see with new eyes the many intersections of human rights law and trade law that the chapters that follow will describe in detail. Our hope is that by unearthing purposeful linkages between trade and human rights, this project will cause decision-makers to recognize their indivisible nature and begin to build the bridges and close the chasms that a half century of unconscionable isolation has created.
We will share our personal story to underscore the necessity and desirability of building those bridges across the present trade and human rights divide. It also drives home the seemingly insurmountable challenge that this task presents because of the differences in language, processes, and cultures in the two fields. This volume is, in a way, a narrative of the authors’ personal journey in challenging the splendid isolation of trade and human rights. We first met in the spring of 2000 at the University of Florida Levin College of Law’s First Annual Law and Policy in the Americas Conference, sponsored by the college’s Center for Governmental Responsibility. Berta had just joined the faculty to focus on international law and international human rights; Steve had just left the U.S. Department of Commerce after a distinguished career as the federal government’s principal legal adviser on the unfair trade laws and had been named the director of international trade law programs at the college. After introductions, Berta started chatting with Steve about the exciting international programs at the law school and suggested collaborating in some way to do work on the human rights and trade intersection. Although our paths crossed at faculty events over the coming year, we did not discuss the subject further until Berta, at the Second Annual Conference, again suggested a project on the myriad connections between trade and human rights. Others joined the conversation and the topic moved into the background for another year. At the Third Annual Conference, Berta again talked with Steve about a holistic approach to both of their fields of law. When she took a breath, he stated that “you cannot simply jumble several unrelated topics together and call the result a ‘holistic’ approach; trade law and human rights law are separate fields for good reason.” In addressing the “holistic” nature of law idea, Steve simply said, “Berta, your proposal is enigmatic.” And so began the real conversations that have taken us to the journey on which we have embarked to produce this joint volume, delayed because of the intrinsic reluctance of Steve’s trade law schooling to allow other disciplines to inform its progress.
This time we did talk more, and the following year we taught a trade and human rights seminar together for the first time. We have modified our materials and our format as our perspectives converged. The course, since its second offering, has been cross-listed with the Center for Latin American Studies and the Center for Women’s Studies and Gender Research as well as the business school. The cross-disciplinary enrollment and consequent discussions have enriched the course for students and faculty alike. Imagine the Peace Corps volunteer talking to the aspiring CEO or Wall Street lawyer about issues such as labor rights, environmental degradation, cultural sensitivity, and indigenous rights to medical knowledge. The interplay of disciplines is rich in cross-tested learning.
To be sure, the journey has not been a simple one. We hit many bumps in the road, ranging from materials for the course to what might be realistic solutions to the myriad problems confronted in the advance of trade. These problems included use of and compensation for traditional knowledge to aid humankind, the role of culture, the role of trade in women’s subordination, and so on—the discussions were endless. Sometimes these discussions took place in the classroom, as a result of which, one year, students started calling us Mom and Dad and referring to the conversations as “the folks are having another one of their arguments.”
The discussions and learning are ongoing. More than once Steve expressed consternation at Berta’s generalized solutions of “conversations with all participants around the table.” He would say, “We need concrete ideas, concrete solutions, what can trade do? What does trade offer as a possible solution to the problem?” So just as Steve has become holistic, Berta has become more practical. The end result is an enrichment of both.
The significance in sharing our personal journey is that we both are passionate believers in the connection of our respective fields; we believe that they are mutually enriching—a reality we hope this volume underscores for both human rights and trade advocates. The beautiful irony in this narrative is Steve’s transformation from considering as weird the holistic everything’s-connected approach to a full embrace of that approach in the endeavor to make trade’s promise of prosperity a reality for all. This expansion in the trade horizon suggests that it is not lack of care or disregard for human rights that keep the fields separate, but rather trade officials’ isolation in their view of trade’s reality and human rights advocates’ view of trade as the irredeemable spoiler. We hope that this volume works to bring the advocates of both fields together so that they can utilize the idealism of the human rights model and the pragmatism of the trade model to broaden the reach of the economic well-being that, to date, the systems in their splendid isolation have brought to too few.
In order to attain this admittedly ambitious end, we have structured the book so that advocates, professionals, and academics in all fields, as well as students, may benefit from it. The first three chapters are introductions to the governing law in the fields that we study. The chapter after the present introduction is a basic primer on international law—the umbrella under which both trade law and human rights law fall. The second and third chapters are introductions to trade law and human rights law, respectively. Experts in any of those fields may want to skim or skip them and start with chapter 4, which presents an overview of the intersections of human rights and trade, including principles that provide insight as to the hierarchy in the ordering of their sometimes conflicting norms.
In chapters 5 through 13, we focus on specific intersections of trade and human rights, some more evident in popular discourse than others. For example, chapter 6 on the environment, chapter