Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: As consensus on the importance of labor rights and standards begins to emerge in the international arena, the situation for workers in many developing countries continues to deteriorate. This raises a question that has often been overlooked in current debates on international labor standards in the global economy: How can international labor rights and standards be effectively promoted in countries that lack strong domestic labor rights advocates? Most discussion of international labor rights focuses on the construction of legal norms and instruments to promote labor rights but ignores the importance of domestic agents for implementing and defending these rights on the ground. It is often assumed that the existence of a core set of international labor rights can be leveraged by domestic agents to improve or protect national standards, without considering whether domestic advocates, principally trade unions, possess the capacity or will to do so.

This paper looks at the role of international pressure and union strength in assessing the extent to which labor movements have promoted or effectively defended labor rights during periods of widespread labor law reform in Latin America in the 1990s. The paper concludes with the implications of these Latin American developments for the contemporary debate on effective promotion of international labor standards.