Labor Rights in the Peru Agreement: Can Vague Principles Yield Concrete Change?

This Note explores problems with the U.S.-Peru Free Trade Agreement’s labor chapter. These problems result from the ambiguity in its novel and celebrated provision obligating both countries to uphold the principles in the International Labor Organization’s Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work. While the Bush Administration and pro-labor members of Congress hailed the provision as a substantial improvement on labor protections in previous trade agreements, the potential effectiveness of the new obligation is limited by the inherent vagueness of the ILO Declaration’s principles. The Peru Agreement exacerbates this vagueness by explicitly detaching the principles from the ILO jurisprudence that informs them. Beyond the potential threat to the labor chapter’s effectiveness, this vagueness can encourage flexible and divergent interpretations of the ILO’s principles and further obscure their content. This Note proposes two possible solutions to overcome this limitation: (1) interpret the obligation with reference to the relevant ILO jurisprudence, and/or (2) establish a cooperative program with the ILO in which it would monitor compliance. The labor chapter in the U.S.-Peru Agreement could set the template for future free trade agreements, and it is thus important that its new obligation function effectively. As the United States continues to link free trade agreements with labor standards, it is increasingly important that these standards result in more than just lip service to international labor norms.