Sozialkapitel in Handelsabkommen

The European Union’s turn to bilateral Free Trade Agreements with countries where core labor rights are violated regularly has led to the request for social chapters in trade agreements. However, a systematic determination of the content of such social chapters has been lacking so far. This interdisciplinary anthology fills the gap. First it asks to what extent can it be economically justified to make a trade agreement conditional on labor rights. Second it discusses which kind of sanctions would fulfill political criteria of legitimacy. Third it explores the compatibility of social chapters with GATT rules. The sum of the findings informs sample texts for social chapters in EU trade agreements differentiated according to the level of industrialization of the partner countries.