ird World by relieving those countries of a competitive race to the bottom in which they are pressed to guarantee a union-free and regulation-free labor market to a Nike or Wal-Mart supplier. If labor rights become part of the regulatory regime governing international trade, countries that deny basic labor rights to their workers will no longer enjoy an artificial competitive advantage, and workers will be less threatened by their corporate employers with flight to low-wage sanctuaries that offer an unfree labor market through government policies that produce low wages. The only international institution that monitors labor rights today is the International Labor Organization. Since 1919, the ILO has sought to eliminate labor practices that stifle human progress. Its constitution states that the "failure of any nation to adopt humane conditions of labor is an obstacle in the way of other nations which desire to improve the conditions in their own countries." Over the years the ILO has produced conventions that it then asks its member countries to adopt. Central to this process is a set of five categories of conventions that form what are called core labor standards, which address practices concerning prison labor, bonded labor, child labor, discrimination, and rights of labor to organize and bargain collectively. The ILO has historically played a much less significant role in global trade than GATT because it could only resort to moral suasion. While the ILO has achieved some limited success by investigating and publicizing gross violations, and by exerting pressure on countries through human rights campaign techniques, it cannot issue sanctions or other penalties. Without the economic power to pressure nations that fail to adhere to its core labor standards, the ILO lacks any real leverage. But if the WTO were to take up labor standards, the ILO vision would receive a huge boost. HOW THE WTO WORKS Bureaucratically, the WTO is an organi...
