Professor Yin Jun, a researcher at the Social Security Research Center of Wuhan University, and his collaborators published a paper titled "The Practice of Labor Rights Protection in US Free Trade Agreements and Its Implications for China" in the 6th issue of CSSCI journal International Trade in 2021.

【author】Yu Xiang，Yin Jun

【Published Journal】《国际贸易》

【Journal level】CSSCI

【Publication Time】2021（6）

【Abstract】The United States advocates linking trade rules with labor standards, and the 13 free trade agreements (FTAs) it leads have labor standards clauses. However, a qualitative comparative analysis of the 19 signatory countries in the above-mentioned FTAs, excluding the United States, shows that the impact of the relevant labor standard clauses on the protection of labor rights in the signatory countries is limited, unless other conditions are met. This shows that the U.S. push for trade agreements to be linked to labor standards is not to improve the level of labor rights protection in signatory countries, but to dominate the political consideration of global trade rulemaking. In the process of building a high-level global network of free trade zones, China should adopt a more proactive attitude and strategy to properly deal with labor issues in FTA negotiations.

【Keywords】United States; Free trade area; labour standards; Labor rights protection