This article discusses the relationship between the global phenomenon of child labor and the World Trade Organization. The author acknowledges that the WTO has no institutional capacity to respond to concerns about even the worst forms of child labor, but argues that it should serve as a model of a global regulatory structure that can address both economic and non-economic, humanistic concerns. Current efforts to use trade sanctions and import restrictions to solve non-economic problems has not addressed child labor concerns in any meaningful way and has only resulted in a backlash on the part of developing countries in the WTO. The solution, according to the author, is to require global economic institutions such as the WTO to set specific empirically-based goals derived from the principals contained in international conventions and to act in a concerted manner to eliminate particular abuses. This goal would necessitate a re-orientation of the agendas of the IMF and World Bank.
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