Introduction

The Uruguay Round agreements extended multilateral rules and disciplines to trade in services, trade-related aspects of intellectual property rights, and investment measures. They also brought trade in agriculture and textiles back into the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT). Developing countries, though never a monolithic bloc, have shared certain ambivalence toward the GATT from its inception. Repeated attempts have been made to link market access and the observance of labor standards in the GATT. Private arrangements among firms that actually or potentially restrict competition in a market have always been the domain of antimonopoly or antitrust policies within countries. Since the Treaty of Versailles of 1919, which led to the establishment of the International Labor Organization, and even earlier, differences in labor standards among countries have been viewed as creating unfair competitive advantages. Repeated attempts have been made to link market access and the observance of labor standards in the GATT.