ABSTRACT
Central to this chapter is the debate among feminists on international labor standards. The debate is wide-ranging, addressing trade-labor standards linkages and the institutional arrangements for these linkages, how labor standards could best be improved either as a complement or substitute to these linkages, the particular challenges to improving labor standards in global value chains and the informal economy, and the role of national and international trade unions. The International Labor Organization (ILO) also figures centrally, ineluctably so, given that its defining characteristics are its mandate on international labor standards and its tripartite governance structure, which make it unique among international organizations. Though tripartism makes the ILO’s governance structure more representative than that of other international organizations, in which governments govern exclusively, it is not without its critics.
