Reuniting Trade and Human Rights • Oonagh E. Fitzgerald preamble with important progressive elements, including promoting gender equality.29
helped fuel populist rejection of globalized trade in the Brexit referendum vote and the Trump presidential election. While the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank and the WTO reported recently that trade leads to productivity gains and significant benefits for consumers, especially the poor, they also acknowledged that states need to do more to address the negative impacts of trade behind the border.23
While the progress made separately on women’s empowerment and on global economic development since they were first expressed in the UN charter is remarkable, there has been little effort to reconnect the two fields — something that is now recognized as crucial to achieving gender equality by 2030. Arguably, the Joint Declaration on Women’s Economic Empowerment could be an important first step to forging greater coherence between economic and human rights law and policy.
The extent to which trade promotes equality within a country and between countries has become a crucial question regarding the legitimacy of the international economic legal order.
The declaration affirms that women’s economic empowerment is central to the future of trade and sustainable socio-economic development. While not a binding legal instrument, the declaration announces that the WTO membership and the WTO will be key partners for achieving women’s economic empowerment. Thus, the declaration’s aim is not about establishing new international norms, but about nudging existing trade law and human rights law closer together, using gender-based analysis to shape trade and socio-economic policy at the national and international level.
As a nation that benefits from a stable rules-based international order, Canada has responded to these trends by starting to articulate an “inclusive” or “progressive” trade agenda aimed at promoting development and spreading the benefits of trade to “the middle class and those striving to join it.”24 Further, the Canadian trade agenda is meant to support “gender equality, environmental sustainability and…the needs of small and medium-sized enterprises.”25 Currently, Canada is promoting this agenda in multilateral and bilateral fora. A gender chapter providing a framework for cooperation on gender issues first appeared in the Canada-Chile Free Trade Agreement,26 and Canada has proposed a similar inclusion in the renegotiated North American Free Trade Agreement.27 While the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement between the European Union and Canada includes only minor references to gender,28 Canada announced that the renegotiated Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (formerly the Trans-Pacific Partnership), includes a new
Strengthening the relationship between trade and human rights nods to the original common vision of the UN charter and brings women and girls closer to empowerment by 2030.
23 IMF, World Bank & WTO, Making Trade an Engine of Growth for All: The Case for Trade and for Policies to Facilitate Adjustment, online: <www.wto.org/ english/news_e/news17_e/igo_10apr17_e.htm>. 24 Global Affairs Canada, News Release, “International Trade Minister to champion Canada’s progressive trade agenda at 11th WTO Ministerial Conference in Argentina” (8 December 2017), online: <www.canada.ca/en/global-affairs/news/2017/12/international_ tradeministertochampioncanadasprogressivetradeagen.html>. 25 Ibid. 26 Canada-Chile Free Trade Agreement, 5 December 1996, art N bis-01, (entered into force 5 July 1997), online: <http://international.gc.ca/trade-commerce/ trade-agreements-accords-commerciaux/agr-acc/chile-chili/fta-ale/2017_ Amend_Modif-App2-Chap-N.aspx?lang=eng>. 27 “Trudeau, Mexico pushing for ‘gender chapter’ in NAFTA deal”, Global News (13 October 2017), online: <https://globalnews.ca/video/3801768/trudeaupushing-for-gender-chapter-in-nafta-agreement>. 28 Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement, 30 October 2016, (entered into force 21 September 2017), online: <www.international.gc.ca/tradecommerce/trade-agreements-accords-commerciaux/agr-acc/ceta-aecg/chapter_ summary-resume_chapitre.aspx?lang=eng#a8>.
29 Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership, 8 March 2018, (not yet entered into force), online: <http://international.gc.ca/ trade-commerce/trade-agreements-accords-commerciaux/agr-acc/cptpp-ptpgp/ text-texte/cptpp-ptpgp.aspx?lang=eng>.
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