ABSTRACT
Discussions on trade and labour standards revolve around three questions: (1) How essential is universal respect for minimum international labour standards? (2) Should outside pressure or encouragement be used to help promote respect for these standards? (3) What is the role that international institutions can or should play in this? Conditionality (the use of trade sanctions to enforce labour standards) - and multilateral conditionality in particular - has for a long time dominated the debate. To a large extent it still does. But there is now a broad consensus that minimum labour standards should be respected universally; that outside help can be useful; and that the International Labour Organization (ILO) has a prime role to play in this.
