NAFTA's Labor Side Accord: A Three-Year Accounting

Abstract

[Excerpt] Any number of idealized "social charters" with universal standards and swift, powerful enforcement powers could be drafted by critics of the labor side agreement. But the NAALC was negotiated by sovereign governments with clashing business, labor, and political concerns. The result is a hybrid agreement, one that preserves sovereignty but creates mutual obligations and combines broad cooperation and consultation programs alongside contentious review, evaluation, and dispute resolution mechanisms. Most of all, the NAALC promotes engagement on labor rights and labor standards in an experiment not tested in any other international forum.