Globalization Workshop

presents

Sanjay Reddy
Barnard College, Columbia University

Law as constraint, law as creative power:
The debate on labour standards and the international trading system

Thursday, October 11, 2007
4:10 - 6:00
Flavelle Dining Room
78 Queen's Park

Should some rights to engage in international trade be made conditional on the promotion of labor standards? The critics of such conditionality, known as linkage, are right to be concerned about its possible adverse effects. However, linkage can be desirable. A set of rules for international trade that incorporates linkage can serve the interests of developing countries, and in particular of less advantaged individuals within them - if it is unimposed, transparent and rule-based, applied in a manner reflecting a country's level of development, demands adequate international burden-sharing, and incorporates measures that ensure that appropriate account is taken of different viewpoints within each country. Such a linkage system could substantially reduce the costs that are incurred by exporting countries when they attempt to promote the interests of workers. By enabling and encouraging countries to promote labor standards, an appropriate form of linkage can serve as a cornerstone of a worker-oriented world trading system.

Sanjay G. Reddy is an Assistant Professor of Economics at Barnard College at Columbia University and also teaches in the School of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University. His areas of work include development economics, international economics and economics and philosophy.  He possesses a Ph.D. in Economics from Harvard University, an M.Phil. in Social Anthropology from the University of Cambridge, and an A.B. in Applied Mathematics with Physics from Harvard University. He has held fellowships from the Center for Ethics and the Professions and the Center for Population and Development Studies at Harvard University and the Center for Human Values at Princeton University.  He has conducted extensive research for development agencies and international institutions, including the G-24 (group of developing countries), ILO, Oxfam, UNDESA (Department of Economic and Social Affairs, UN Secretariat), UNICEF, UNDP, UNU-WIDER (World Institute for Development Economics Research), UNRISD (UN Research Institute for Social Development), and the World Bank and his research has been supported by the Ford Foundation and the Open Society Institute. He has been a member of the advisory panel of the UNDP's Human Development Report, and is presently a member of the UN Statistics Division's Steering Committee on Poverty Statistics. He has conducted fieldwork, published and presented widely, and is or has been a member of the editorial advisory boards of Development, Ethics and International Affairs, the European Journal of Development Research and the Review of Income and Wealth.

Refreshments will be served.