International Trade, Fairness, and Labour Migration

Fair Trade Special Issue guest-edited by David Miller. Moral Philosophy and Politics, 1 (2014), p. 289-313.

Posted: 14 Oct 2015

Date Written: December 01, 2014

Abstract

This paper aims to show that fairness in trade calls for relaxing existing WTO rules to include a greater liberalisation of labour migration. After having addressed several objections to global egalitarianism, it will argue, first, that the world’s rich and the world’s poor participate in a same multilateral trading system whose point is primarily to reduce trade barriers and hence to establish global economic competitions, in order to raise their standards of living; second, that these competitions are subject to requirements of formal and substantive fairness; and, third, that the substantive fairness of the competitions that are taking place in the field of trade in goods is likely to require a greater liberalisation of labour migration, especially low-skilled labour from developing countries.

Keywords: WTO, global egalitarianism, labour migration, substantive fairness, associatiative obligations

JEL Classification: F15, F22, I31, K33, J61, J68, J71, O15

Suggested Citation

Herwig, Alexia and Loriaux, Sylvie, International Trade, Fairness, and Labour Migration (December 01, 2014). Fair Trade Special Issue guest-edited by David Miller. Moral Philosophy and Politics, 1 (2014), p. 289-313., Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2673612

Alexia Herwig

University of Antwerp ( email )

Prinsstraat 13
Antwerp, 2000
Belgium

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