The Social Clause of the U.S.-Jordan Free Trade Agreement: One Step Forward, Two Steps Back?

Abstract

Section II gives background to the inclusion of environment and labor in the US-JO FTA, and briefly describes the divergent views for including or not including these issues in trade agreements. Section III analyzes the environment provisions of the US-JO FTA. It points out the inadequacies in the environment provisions. This section further points out the differences between the environment provisions of the US-JO FTA and the North American Agreement on Environmental Cooperation. Section IV reviews the labor provisions of the US-JO FTA. In addition, section IV explains the North American Agreement on Labor Cooperation. Section V discusses recent FTAs concluded between the U.S. and Arab countries such as Bahrain and Oman. Section VI presents some methods which have the potential of finding a common ground between free trade, environment and labor rights for future trade agreements between the U.S. and Arab countries. Concluding observations are in section VII.