The relationship between labour and international trade: the ghost of the Havana Charter

The author considers the idea of creating an International Trade Organization (ITO) in 1948 and the charter of this organization (the Havana Charter) based on the fact that ignoring labor aspects in regulating trade relations can lead to negative consequences for society. In this document, we are interested in the role assigned to labour conditions in the regulation of international trade in the post-war vision of this process. The creation of the Tripartite Inter-national Labour Organization (ILO) in 1919 is a vivid example of the desire of key industrial States to ensure fairer competition through the adoption of labor standards common to many competing countries. The ITO Charter was signed by 53 countries, but the organization was never established due to the lack of ratification by the United States. Nevertheless, the study of this charter is of significant interest to determine that labour standards were meant to play a role in regulating trade and in addressing international trade disputes arising from violations of fair labour condition norms (Article 7 of the Havana Charter). This conclusion is important for understanding that the modern system of free trade, which deliberately distances itself from ILO norms, represents a deviation from the intended development path. Moreover, it is argued that the efforts of developed countries to include references to labour conditions in trade regulation, which could not be realized within the GATT and WTO frameworks, have “migrated” into specific norms of free trade agreements and the Generalized system of prefer-ences programs (GSP).