ABSTRACT
The relationship between trade and labour rights is highly contentious. Critics of unregulated globalization argue that international competition for investment encourages states to compete by depressing wages and repressing labour rights. Advocates claim that the campaign for labour rights is a moral imperative, involving fundamental human rights; a prohibition on child or forced labour, minimum standards and acceptable conditions should be available in all states. Given the inadequacies of unilateralism, and in the absence of a global consensus, labour advocates have looked to the new regionalism and the emergence of regional trading regimes as the means to advance labour rights. A regional model involves promotion of the trade labour-linkage among states in a regional economic bloc. The European Union and the NAALC provide examples where states recognize the inability of the global system to address many issues, and have moved on to regional arrangements.
