Biography :
Scott B. Martin lectures in international affairs at The New School and Columbia University, and works as an international consultant on labor, development, and business issues in the developing world. He is a regular contributor to Economist Intelligence Unit publications on diverse topics. He has co-edited two scholarly volumes on development and democratization in Latin America, and authored numerous articles on labor issues in the global automobile, autoparts, chemical, and garment sectors, mostly recently exploring links to monitoring of corporate social responsibility commitments and programs. Much of his research focuses comparatively on Brazil and Mexico.
Title and summary of the communication :
The place of trade linkages to labor standards needs to be explored within the wider context of the relationship of trade agreements to “voluntary, privatized” efforts to promote labor rights (e.g., the fair trade movement, monitoring and certification of practices in TNCs and global supply chains) and efforts to promote traditional, nation-state regulation through enhanced enforcement. Rather than seeing them as alternatives as many debates explicitly or implicitly do, ways to explore complementaries and synergies urgently need to be explored. Common problems across these three arenas of labor standards promotion are how to set and raise standards and how to conduct monitoring and enforcement in a vigorous, independent, and publicly transparent fashion, in both cases in ways that empower and engage local on the ground actors rather than marginalizing them.
Expertise :
– Labor
– Development
– Globalization
References :
– Martin, Scott B., co-author of Business and Industry (Marshall Cavendish, 2003)
– Martin, Scott B., Competitiveness and Development : Local Actors and Institutions (São Paulo, SENAC, 2001)
– Martin, Scott B., co-editor of The New Politics of Inequality in Latin America : Rethinking Participation and Representation (Oxford press, 1997)
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