Publication: Cláusulas laborales en tratados comerciales internacionales: el caso del CETA
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2017-06-01
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Instituto de Derecho Iberoamericano
Abstract
Algunos acontecimientos recientes parecen mostrar una cierta oposición de la ciudanía de los
países occidentales hacia el libre comercio. De una parte, resultó bastante controvertida la numantina
oposición de la pequeña región belga de Valonia a la firma del Tratado de libre comercio entre la UE y
Canadá (conocido como CETA), que a punto estuvo de hacerlo descarrilar. Por otra parte, la elección de
Donald Trump como presidente de los Estados Unidos parece haber dado al traste con las escasas
esperanzas de alcanzar un acuerdo similar con éste país, máxime si se tiene en cuenta que uno de los
argumentos centrales de su campaña electoral fue su posición a este tipo de tratados por los, a su juicio,
nefastos efectos sobre los trabajadores norteamericanos.
A pesar de que existe un cierto consenso entre los economistas en relación a los efectos beneficiosos del libre
comercio, esto no significa que estos beneficios alcancen de forma automática al conjunto de la sociedad y,
en particular, a los trabajadores; ni que existan ganadores y perdedores en todo proceso de cooperación
económica. Por ello, junto la anunciada asunción de que el comercio produce beneficio neto, debería
completarse con otra en virtud de la cual se garantice que tales beneficios alcancen al conjunto de la
sociedad o, si se prefiere, se compensen las externalidades negativas en el plano social y laboral mediante la
adopción de instrumentos adecuados y eficaces.
Entre éstos destacan la incorporación de cláusulas laborales a los tratados de libre comercio, en cuya virtud
se garantizan unos estándares mínimos (frecuentemente los marcados por los convenios de la OIT) entre
las partes firmantes. El objeto de este trabajo es analizar este tipo de cláusulas, para lo cual se dividirá en
los siguientes apartados. Tras una breve introducción, se analizará la creciente tendencia hacia la
incorporación de cláusulas laborales en los tratados de comercio internacional para, a continuación,
analizar el caso práctico y controvertido del CETA. Finalmente, sobre la base de lo anterior, se
formularán algunas conclusiones.
Some recent events apparently show certain opposition to free trade by western citizenship. On the one hand, it became famous the case of the Balloon parliament, which strongly refused to give its permission to the Belgian federal government to ratified the so-called Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) between Canada and EU without including some changes. On the other hand, the future of the Free Trade Treaty (TIPP) between US and EU is still more uncertain after the election of Donald Trump as US President. His clear opposition to this kind of agreements obtained the enthusiastic support, among others, of most blue-collard workers in states especially affected by the effects of globalization. Despite there is a consensus among economist about the beneficial effects of free trade, this neither means this benefits extend to the whole society automatically, nor winners and losers derive from this kind of economic cooperation tool. Consequently, along with this assumption, another unattainable must be made: it is necessary to compensate the externalities generated by trade agreements on social and working conditions by the adoption of some parallel instruments. The paper focused on one of these tools, the labour provisions included in trade agreements, which aims to guarantee certain minimum labour conditions (frequently set by ILO’s conventions). In order to address this issue, the article is divided as follows. After a brief introduction, it will analyse the increasing trend on the inclusion of labour provision in trade agreements. After that, the practical and controversial case of CETA will be studied. Finally, some conclusions will be given.
Some recent events apparently show certain opposition to free trade by western citizenship. On the one hand, it became famous the case of the Balloon parliament, which strongly refused to give its permission to the Belgian federal government to ratified the so-called Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) between Canada and EU without including some changes. On the other hand, the future of the Free Trade Treaty (TIPP) between US and EU is still more uncertain after the election of Donald Trump as US President. His clear opposition to this kind of agreements obtained the enthusiastic support, among others, of most blue-collard workers in states especially affected by the effects of globalization. Despite there is a consensus among economist about the beneficial effects of free trade, this neither means this benefits extend to the whole society automatically, nor winners and losers derive from this kind of economic cooperation tool. Consequently, along with this assumption, another unattainable must be made: it is necessary to compensate the externalities generated by trade agreements on social and working conditions by the adoption of some parallel instruments. The paper focused on one of these tools, the labour provisions included in trade agreements, which aims to guarantee certain minimum labour conditions (frequently set by ILO’s conventions). In order to address this issue, the article is divided as follows. After a brief introduction, it will analyse the increasing trend on the inclusion of labour provision in trade agreements. After that, the practical and controversial case of CETA will be studied. Finally, some conclusions will be given.
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Keywords
Libre comercio, Tratados comerciales, Clausulas laborales, Oit, Ceta, Trade, Free trade, Labour provisions, Ilo, Ceta
Bibliographic citation
Pérez del Prado, D. (2017). Cláusulas laborales en tratados comerciales internacionales: el caso del CETA. Actualidad Juridica Iberoamericana, 6, pp. 210-227.