Integrating non-binding labour standards in binding trade agreements: The ILO’s feedback loop

Much attention has been placed on how trade agreements integrate and benefit from a non-binding International Labour Organization (ILO) declaration. That declaration lists the fundamental labour principles to which all the ILO’s members, and thus the trade parties, have already consented. However, until now, it has been unclear whether and to what extent that integration, in turn, benefits the ILO’s regime. Comparing standard-setting negotiations at the ILO in 1998 and 2022, this article argues that the hardening of non-binding labour rights in binding trade agreements stagnates and complicates new labour standards. The ILO’s members now demand a saving clause expressly decoupling their new non-binding standard from their binding trade commitments. The implications of those negotiations for the future standard setting are wide-ranging and significant. As states become more aware of the potential binding nature of their non-binding standards, they are decoupling the ILO’s regime from their trade regime and shrinking the reach of the ILO’s fundamental principles in the process. This article draws from labour-adjacent standards integrated into trade agreements to show how states may mitigate that feedback loop.