Labour rights in Export Processing Zones with a focus on GSP+ beneficiary countries
The European Union’s GSP+ scheme provides trade concessions to beneficiary countries and obliges them to ratify and effectively implement key international conventions on human rights and labour rights. The sectoral gains of GSP+ have thus far been concentrated on exports of apparel, textiles and processed fish. Such sectors are often located in Export Processing Zones (EPZs) where the governance of labour rights may differ from the rest of the country and fall below international legal standards. This study examines the apparel sectors of Pakistan, Mongolia and Sri Lanka and the processed fish sector of the Philippines. The importance of EPZs to exports under the GSP+ varies by country and sector. Only in Pakistan are EPZs legally exempt from rights relating to freedom of association and collective bargaining. But restrictions on these and other rights in practice remain widespread, and are not confined to EPZs. Efforts to promote labour rights through the GSP+ should focus on key export sectors benefitting from the scheme and consider EPZs alongside other sites of the supply chain where exploited workers are based.
Study
External author
Benjamin RICHARDSON, James HARRISON and Liam CAMPLING
About this document
Publication type
Keyword
- AGRICULTURE, FORESTRY AND FISHERIES
- Asia and Oceania
- BUSINESS AND COMPETITION
- business organisation
- clothing industry
- collective bargaining
- common commercial policy
- corporate social responsibility
- economic geography
- EMPLOYMENT AND WORKING CONDITIONS
- European construction
- EUROPEAN UNION
- fisheries
- fishing industry
- gender mainstreaming
- generalised preferences
- GEOGRAPHY
- industrial free zone
- industrial structures and policy
- INDUSTRY
- international labour law
- international law
- international trade
- labour law
- labour law and labour relations
- LAW
- leather and textile industries
- Mongolia
- organisation of work and working conditions
- Pakistan
- Philippines
- rights and freedoms
- social clause
- Sri Lanka
- the EU's international role
- TRADE
- trade policy
- trade union freedom
- working conditions