The lecture examines the ways in which labour standards are being placed by the EU alongside environmental protection within the ‘sustainable development’ chapters of bilateral trade agreements. The obvious example is that of the Comprehensive Economic Trade Agreement (CEAT) being concluded between the EU and Canada, but also plans have been made for a similar Chapter in the EU-US Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) according to an EU Position Paper (made public on 7 January 2015). We have already seen use of sustainable development terminology in relation to the special incentive arrangement utilised for (inter alia) protection of labour standards in Article 9 of the EU Generalised System of Preferences Regulations 978/2012.
Commentator: professor Ole Kristian Fauchald, University of Oslo