December 3, 1999
Submitted by
Upasana Choudhry
Editor, Child Labor News Service
In Seattle the 3rd World Trade Organization Ministerial Conference (WTO) will intensify the debate on worldwide labor standards, including child labor. Although they have been a hot issue for WTO member governments for several years, labor standards are not yet subject to WTO trade rules.
Some member governments in Europe and North America believe that the issue must be taken up by the WTO for the public to respect the institution and its global trading system.
They argue that, among other rights, elimination of workplace abuses, such as forced labor and child labor, are matters for consideration in the WTO. But their proposal is among the most controversial currently before the WTO.
President Clinton threw down the gauntlet when he signed into effect the new ILO Convention, at the WTO meetings, banning the worst forms of child labor. Unanimously adopted this past summer at the International Labor Conference in Geneva, the Convention will likely be proposed as a core labor standard for international trade.
Clinton signed the Convention on Thursday morning, building up moral pressure on other governments to follow suit. Earlier this year Clinton had also passed an executive order banning the purchase by the US government of any goods made by child labor.
Most developing countries, however, reject core labor standards as an issue for the WTO. These governments see them as a guise for protectionism in developed country markets. Developing country officials have said that efforts to bring labor standards into the WTO represent a smokescreen for undermining the comparative advantage of lower-wage developing countries. If the issue of core labor standards became enforceable under WTO rules, they say that sanctions would only perpetuate poverty in the developing world.
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