have will not talk about it. That experience has made the organization wary of treading onto this terrain unless its mandate is more clearly defined, although the issue of linkage surfaced again during the WTO's second-year review. Organized labor and its friends would do well to make the WTO a priority issue. The labor movement's attention, divided as it is among so many demands, has not focused on Geneva in part for historical reasons. For years, the ILO afforded equal status to trade unions from communist countries. As a result, the AFL-CIO became disenchanted with the ILO and encouraged the United States to withdraw from the organization, which it did between 1977 and 1980. This Cold War legacy continues to cool the AFL-CIO's relationship with the ILO despite the potential linkage of international labor rights to trade policy and the importance of the WTO to this process. In addition, American labor should connect the WTO's interest in linking labor rights to trade with efforts to end child labor, which is certainly an issue destined to receive widespread support if the WTO begins to focus on labor practices. So far, these issues have not been integrated, and so the campaign against child labor remains a moral crusade, rooted in labeling and consumer consciousness and detached from enforceable trade sanctions and penalties. But there are at least several concrete ways in which the WTO could soon be used to link labor rights to trade policy. The first opportunity will arise when China is proposed for admission to the WTO. Previous congressional statutes (specifically the Jackson-Vanik amendment) give Congress the opportunity to vote on China's accession to the WTO although congressional approval is not required for other countries. So if members of Congress choose, China's WTO membership could be conditioned upon the WTO's adoption of labor rights protections. Second, future negotiations about specific productswith textiles being th...
