Human Rights Clauses In International Trade Agreements: Historical Evolution, Contemporary Practices, And Future Prospects
- IJLLR Journal
- May 22
- 1 min read
Neha Shree Bhatnagar, UGC NET qualified independent researcher
ABSTRACT
At first glance, Human Rights and International Investment Law would appear to be two separate and different fields of international law. For the most part, majority of international investment treaties didn’t include anything on human rights and major multilateral investment treaties, such as, the North American Fair-Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and the Energy Charter Treaty (ECT) don’t have any mention of human rights. The paper discusses human rights protection and interpretation in the current WTO regime and how WTO can play a more prominent role in enforcing human rights in international trade politics. The paper explores how Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) are a better and more efficient way of advancing human rights protection. It explores the emergence of human rights clauses in bilateral and regional trade agreements and investment treaties. Further, the power relations between trading partners, the criticism of inclusion of Human Rights Clauses (HRC) in such agreements and the effectiveness of these provisions is discussed. Finally, the paper makes an argument of how the benefits of inclusion of HRC in trade agreements outweighs the harm caused by them. An attempt is made to address the criticism surrounding the inclusion and suggestions are made how the lacunas in the system can be addressed.
Keywords: Human Rights Clauses; International Trade Law; Free Trade Agreements
