Course Description
The debate surrounding workers’ rights in the global economy is increasingly heated and dogmatic, politicized, and divisive. Indeed, the recent election debates and executive orders to withdraw from trade commitments have highlighted divisions with respect to the manner and extent to which workers’ rights should be regulated in trade.
Additional Requirements for Graduate Students:
Graduate law students will not be doing any extra work beyond that required of the Juris Doctor students. J.D. students are post-baccalaureate students and the workload expected of them is the same workload expected of post-baccalaureate graduate students. Law students are professional students, not undergraduate students. Graduate law students are primarily international lawyers seeking expertise in the American legal system. This expertise is gained through exposure to Juris Doctor courses.
Athena Title
Intl Trade and Worker Rights
Semester Course Offered
Offered every year.
Grading System
A - F (Traditional)
Student learning Outcomes
- Students will be able to demonstrate the ability to think about complex standards, legal systems, and trade and investment agreements.
- Students will be able to consider alternative approaches or fact patterns, using logical reasoning, to solve various international regulatory challenges.
- Students will be able to demonstrate a basic understanding of international labor standards, as well as various national approaches to incorporate those standards. They will also learn international economic legal agreements, and international doctrine applying trade principles to labor rights.
Topical Outline
- What are international workers’ rights, how are they established, and what do they mean in theory and in practice?
- What tools are available to protect and promote them and how have these those tools been applied?
- When governments adopt policies that restrict trade to protect their workers, do they violate the principles of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) and World Trade Organization (WTO) jurisprudence?
- An overview of the intersection of WTO and International Labor Organization (ILO) principles
- Examine the evolution and implementation of labor provisions in U.S. trade agreements, from NAFTA through the present, and the labor eligibility criteria in U.S. trade preference programs and their enforcement.
- The course will conclude with a critical examination of the various mechanisms to promote workers’ rights and the compatibility of that system with international economic law.
