As cláusulas de proteção social no Acordos de Comércio preferencial

Abstract

The effects of economic globalization continue to be studied every day, with various authors pointing out positive and negative effects. The unfettered increase of competitiveness caused by the opening upo f markets is not only seen but also felt by all. At times, the means used to face this increase aren’t themost lawful ones, especially from the social point of view. The USA and some European countries have been trying for a long time to tackle the current imbalance between their own labour laws and the ones from developing countries. The former blame the latter of taking advantage of the weaknesses in their labour legislation, and, consequently, benefitting from extremely cheap workforces, as a way of increasing their external competitiveness. Thus, developed countries have been trying for decades to establish labour standards that protect the equality of labour rights in trade relations. However, developing countries see this as a protectionist measure created by developed countries as a way to protect their markets. The debate around so called “social protection clause” emerged in the early 1990’s and has been through a long and contentious path. Today, it’s part of several preferential trade agreeements and it is important to understand how it is applied and how eficiente it is. Ultimately, understand if it is, in fact, a defence mechanism for worker’s rights, or if works more in theory than in practice.

Date of Award	21 Feb 2020
Original language	Portuguese
Awarding Institution	Universidade Católica Portuguesa
Supervisor	Manuel Fontaine Campos (Supervisor)