2. Support through dialogue and cooperation platforms

2. Support through dialogue and cooperation platforms

The role of dialogue and cooperation platforms pertaining to trade and sustainable development has been growing over the past ten years, both in and out of the framework of trade agreements and schemes. In the context of trade agreements, most dialogue and cooperation platforms are established as civil society mechanisms, implemented in the trade and sustainability chapters and also, in the case of some association agreements, for the whole agreement (see in this regard the 2016 EU-Ukraine Association Agreement, Article 470). It should be noted that this extension of the scope of civil society stakeholder advice is likely to be generalised in future agreements, as the European Commission has recognised the need for stakeholders to propose their recommendations on the sustainability implications of other parts of agreements apart from TSD chapters (European Commission Services, 2018, p. 6).

Although civil society mechanisms appear to be based on the same model in the TSD chapters, they remain tailored to their trade agreements and therefore vary greatly from one agreement to another, both in terms of their provisions and their implementation. In the words of Orbie, Martens and Van Den Putte (2016, pp. 14–15), whose study well explained these variations, civil society mechanisms can be broken down into at least five categories (see Figure 26):

1. A Domestic Advisory Group (DAG) in which civil society organisations of one [trade]

Party meet; 2. A joint meeting of the domestic advisory groups (DAG-to-DAG meeting) of the

Parties: 3. In this constellation, the DAG-to-DAG meeting comes together with the intergovernmental body; 4. An open civil society meeting where civil society organisations of the Parties meet without the presence of the intergovernmental body; 5. Civil society from different countries meets with the intergovernmental body.

As domestic mechanisms, DAGs ideally comprise labour, environmental and business representative organisations for each party (the EU and its trading partner(s)) and ensure a balanced representation of economic, social and environmental stakeholders, including employers and workers organisations, business groups and environmental organisations. As transnational mechanisms, joint meetings of DAGs tend to meet once a year to discuss the implementation of the TSD chapter and may also include, depending on the agreement, other relevant stakeholders than those already represented by DAGs. These meetings thus ensure that both parties are committed to cooperating together, although the modalities of cooperation also tend to vary (Orbie, Martens, Oehri, et al., 2016, p. 528).

Despite the opportunities they offer in terms of dialogue and cooperation, civil society mechanisms have been subject to many criticisms, which the European Commission is reportedly working to address. Most of them concern their institutional shortcomings, which make these dialogue and cooperation platforms of trade agreements less effective in supporting the EU's trading partners. Indeed, the role of civil society is not as well developed in the EU as in the U.S., as EU trade agreements do not establish a public submission procedure for civil society bodies to file complaints (International Labour Office,

2017b, p. 47). Moreover, it is argued that their functioning is deficient, as their composition and meetings need to be improved. The annual meetings are considered insufficient to detect early problems and allow stakeholders to voice their demands. In this regard, Van den Putte et al. (2015, p. 3) suggest multiplying the number of meetings, for example by supplementing the annual meetings with four-monthly videoconferences. Further, the lack of continuity and organisation between civil society groups was also denounced, particularly due to the absence of a coordination mechanism (Orbie, Martens, Oehri, et al., 2016, p. 528). Whilst EU DAGs and DAG-to-DAG meetings are chaired by the European Economic and Social Committee (hereinafter EESC), there is indeed no such body for EU trade partners (Orbie, Martens, & Van Den Putte, 2016, p. 20). Finally, lack of funding is seen as an obstacle to effective dialogue between trading partners. This issue has been partially handled by the European Commission, which has raised a EUR 3 million project aiming at “encourag[ing] the exchange of best practices between DAGs in different FTA partner countries’ and ‘improv[ing] interaction between TSD committees (i.e. governmental bodies) and civil society bodies” (European Commission Services, 2018, p. 5). In 2021, the European Commission also announced the implementation of the Single Entry Point, a new complaints system enabling all EU stakeholders, including civil society, to play a direct role in the implementation of TSD Chapters (European Commission, 2021b, p. 1).

Figure 26: Five Categories of Civil Society Mechanisms for TSD Chapters

Source: Civil society meetings in European Union trade agreements: features, purposes, and evaluation, (Orbie, Martens, & Van Den Putte, 2016), URL

Beyond the sole framework of trade agreements, other initiatives have been developed so as to promote dialogue and cooperation between the relevant stakeholders. These initiatives, which tend to be more local and aim at ensuring an adequate representation of workers, represent an interesting alternative to the civil society mechanisms of trade agreements. Accordingly, there may be some value in connecting them to DAGs and joint

meetings or in implementing them as good practices in the functioning of civil society mechanisms, so that their outcome better supports EU trade partners.

Some of these initiatives pertain to programmes valuing the dialogue of corporations and governments with workers and trade unions. The importance attached to the opinion of workers is essential to ensure that their rights would be adequately protected, both in the framework of trade agreements and in company policies ensuring respect for human and labour rights. These policies are often designed without taking into account the views of workers, precisely when they are well positioned to identify the risks of violations and propose mitigation measures and grievance mechanisms (ILO et al., 2019, p. 64). As for EU trade agreements, it is argued that civil society bodies, which comprise trade unions and workers, are not given a meaningful role in the implementation of the agreements (Barbu et al., 2017, p. 1). This leaves very little space for workers to express their claims, all the more so as the fear of reprisals often stands in the way of their requests (Weil, 2018, p. 444). Programmes integrating the opinion of workers are therefore particularly valuable.

In this regard, it is worth mentioning the Worker-driven Social Responsibility (WSR) approach, which deals with labour abuses affecting farmworkers. WSR programmes establish a code of conduct in a variety of locations and sectors, which can be described as being “based on binding and enforceable agreements between companies and workers' organisations mandating companies to cover the costs of higher labour standards and include workers in their design and implementation” (ILO et al., 2019, p. 65). These agreements rely on six principles (Worker-Driven Social Responsibility Network, n.d.):

1. Labour rights initiatives must be worker driven; 2. Obligations for global corporations must be binding and enforceable; 3. Buyers must afford suppliers the financial incentive and capacity to comply; 4. Consequences for non-compliant suppliers must be mandatory; 5. Gains for workers must be measurable and timely; 6. Verification of workplace compliance must be rigorous and independent.

Given the success of some of these programmes, such as the Fair Food programme involving corporate buyers of tomatoes, WSR is considered more efficient than the CSR approach with regard to its impact on forced labour and improvement of working conditions (ILO et al., 2019, p. 65).

Other initiatives have also sought to engage workers’ organisations in collaboration with labour inspectorates in the enforcement of labour standards. These collaborations have been considered as being quite fruitful in countries such as Australia, China and Sweden. They are all the more relevant as the role of labour inspectorates has also been praised as contributing together with child protection monitoring systems to combating child labour in countries such as Brazil, Cambodia and Uganda (ILO et al., 2019, p. 34).

Another notable platform launched by an intergovernmental organisation is ILO-UN Global Compact Child Labour Platform (CLP). The CLP “aims to identify the obstacles to the implementation of the ILO Conventions in supply chains and surrounding communities, identify practical ways of overcoming these obstacles, and catalyse collective action” (ILO, n.d.-a). Described as cross-sectoral, the CLP promotes dialogue between business,