Labour Rights versus State Sovereignty

By Kevin J. Middlebrook (Professor of Latin American Politics at the Institute of the Americas, UCL)

International efforts to promote collective-action labour rights in developing countries frequently encounter strong resistance from national political authorities framed in terms of state sovereignty. Actions in most rights-promotion arenas (transnational union-to-union solidarity, corporate social responsibility campaigns, International Labour Organization initiatives) generally pose only oblique challenges to state resistance to rights enforcement. However, US and European Union generalized system of preferences (GSP) schemes directly engage sovereignty by making countries’ enhanced access to these national and regional markets conditional upon compliance with specified labour norms. This paper assesses the efficacy of US GSP petitions against 15 developing countries, focusing on the rights to organize and bargain collectively. It finds that petitioners’ success in mobilizing political support in target countries significantly increases the effectiveness of external pressures, demonstrating how sovereignty can be leveraged to promote reforms and contributing to broader debates regarding international human rights promotion, including through labour-conditionality provisions in free-trade agreements. 

To access the full Working Paper: Labour Rights versus State Sovereignty: Assessing US Generalized System of Preferences Petitions as a Strategy for Advancing Labour Rights Internationally [PDF]