Constituent Interests and U.S. Trade Policies

12. Trade and Human Rights

CHAPTER 12 Trade and Human Rights T. N. Srinivasan I. Introduction The use, or threat of use, of trade policy instruments to ensure that human rights are respected by governments of partner countries is not new. The most notable instance, of course, of multilateral trade sanctions to punish and eliminate the violation of human rights was against the South African government's apartheid policies. Clearly the collapse of the apartheid regime has been attributed by many to the opprobrium, if not the economic cost to South Africa, of the sanction. Again, human rights advocates in the United States have lobbied, without success so far, against the renewal of Most Favored Nation (MFN) status to China. Ever since President Clinton issued an executive order in 1993 requiring that the Secretary of State shall not recommend renewal of MFN status unless certain human rights conditions are met, an annual battle between human rights groups and those, prominently business groups with significant stakes in trade with and investment in China, has raged over the renewal. The inefficacy of the ambiguous signals that a divided U.S. political scene sends to China is seen from the fact that, despite immense pressures not to do so, China recently charged and sentenced Wang Dan, a prominent student leader of the pro-democracy demonstrations in Tiananmen Square in Beijing in 1989, with the capital crime of conspiracy to overthrow the government, after holding him in prison for over six years. In his report on this event, Patrick Tyler of the New York Times writes: For the Clinton Administration, the prospect that the youthful Mr. Wang could receive a new and lengthy prison term presents a difficult foreign policy challenge. Earlier this year, Mr. Clinton privately signaled Beijing that if reelected , he would like to bring a permanent end to the campaign of sanctions and trade pressure that Washington has used to win improvements in human rights conditions here. To go forward with this plan, Mr. Clinton urged Beijing to show compassion to those who had been harassed or 226 Constituent Interests and U.S. Trade Policies locked up for expressing political views. Now, in the midst of a Presidential campaign in which his foreign policy is under assault, Mr. Clinton will be under greater pressure to explain how his position toward Beijing has garnered any results and how the United States can influence the deteriorating conditions under which many intellectuals and political dissidents live in China. Most of the political prisoners on whose behalf Mr. Clinton has interceded with Chinese leaders are now back in prison or in permanent exile. (New York Times, October 13, 1996,p.l) But South Africa and China have not been the only cases that have drawn the attention of human rights groups. There is significant support in the United States for trade sanctions against Myanmar to punish human rights violations of the military dictatorship there. Interestingly, while the U.S. administration has suggested that by "constructively engaging" China economically through the grant of MFN status the cause of human rights there would be better served, not only has it opposed the same argument advanced by ASEAN countries against trade sanctions against Myanmar but in fact has "approved a ban on new American investment in Myanmar because of human-rights abuses by the Burmese Government" (New York Times, April 22, 1997, p. AI)! The facts that political and trade relations with China are far more consequential to U.S. foreign policy and business interests than those with Myanmar certainly played a role in the differing U.S. stance in the two cases.l Republicans and human rights groups in the United States have accused President Clinton of overlooking human rights violations in East Timor and poor labour standards in Indonesia in return for campaign contributions for the Democratic Party by a businessman of Indonesian origin (Wall Street Journal, October 16, 1996, p. AlO). The latest, and internationally controversial, issue relating to trade and human rights is that of labor standards.2 It has surfaced in international fora including the World Trade Organization (WTO). I will focus exclusively on this issue in the rest of this paper since an analysis of it illustrates almost all of the difficult economic, moral, philosophical and political problems associated with using trade policy as an instrument for enforcing human rights. Indeed, the Council of Economic Advisers (CEA) to the President of the United States view "core" labor standards as representing "fundamental human and democratic rights in the...