[Review of the Book 'Trade Conditions and Labor Rights: U.S. Initiatives, Dominican and Central American Responses']

Abstract

[Excerpt] With Trade Conditions and Labor Rights, Henry J. Frundt makes a signal contribution to the debate on workers’ rights in a rapidly globalizing economy. Can economic pressure by the United States compel poor countries to enhance workers' rights and improve institutions to enforce those rights? Does labor rights "conditionally"—more bluntly, the threat of diminished access to the U.S. market for countries and companies that violate workers’ rights—promote labor rights and labor standards? Or does conditionality hurt the very workers it is supposed to help by keeping products out of the U.S. market and slowing economic growth and investment in developing countries?