3. Local impact dimension of TSD chapters

withdrawn in cases of serious and systematic violation of these instruments (Regulation (EU) No 978/2012). Paragraph 24 of the Preamble also states that:

The reasons for temporary withdrawal of the arrangements under the scheme should include serious and systematic violations of the principles laid down in certain international conventions concerning core human rights and labour rights, so as to promote the objectives of those conventions. Tariff preferences under the special incentive arrangement for sustainable development and good governance should be temporarily withdrawn if the beneficiary country does not respect its binding undertaking to maintain the ratification and effective implementation of those conventions or to comply with the reporting requirements imposed by the respective conventions, or if the beneficiary country does not cooperate with the Union’s monitoring procedures as set out in this Regulation. (Regulation (EU) No 978/2012)

The threat of this withdrawal can be considered as a “stick,” which forces the trade partners to comply with their commitments.

Accordingly, GSP provisions are designed to be more stringent than TSD chapters, for their stick-carrot system is stronger: trade partners are encouraged to respect or improve respect for human rights by the threat of withdrawal from the arrangements on the one hand (the “stick”) and by the incentive of ratifying and respecting ILO conventions (the “carrot”) on the other.

3. Local impact dimension of TSD chapters

The effects of TSD chapters are considered difficult to assess, on account of the promotional nature of their provisions (ILO & International Institute for Labour Studies [IILS], 2013, p. 21). This may explain why no consensus has been reached so far on their role in improving labour and human rights protection.

In response to the Non-paper of the European Commission Services (2017), which sought feedback on its approach to TSD chapters, some scholars underlined that a number of studies on this question “failed to find positive impacts of labour provisions for the situation of workers in the EU or its trade partners. In two studies it was found that governments had actually sought to weaken labour standards protection (Peru successfully and South Korea unsuccessfully) since the trade agreements with the EU came into force” (Barbu et al., 2017, p. 2).

They ascribe this lack of effectiveness to the shortcomings of TSD chapters, amongst which the limited role of the EU actors involved in the implementation of the chapters; a lack of systematic implementation of cooperative activities; the limited participation of civil society and insufficient follow-up procedures and dispute resolution process. According to them, academic studies concluding that FTAs have positive effects on workers’ rights tend to be based on Brussels-based interviews and fail to identify TSD shortcomings.

This view is partly shared by Damian Raess (2018, pp. 9–10), who investigated the degree of labour-related implementation after the signing of an FTA (ex-post effects). Unlike Postnikov