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A commentary on the Doha Development Round by a representative of the AFL-CIO.

Thea Lee is Policy Director at the AFL-CIO in Washington, D.C., where she oversees research and strategies on domestic and international economic policy. Previously, she worked as an international trade economist at the Economic Policy Institute in Washington, D.C. and as an editor at Dollars & Sense magazine in Boston. Lee is co-author of A Field Guide to the Global Economy, published by the New Press. Her research projects include reports on the North American Free Trade Agreement, the impact of international trade on U.S. wage inequality, and the domestic steel and textile industries. She has testified before several committees of the U.S. House of Representatives and the Senate on various trade topics. She serves on several advisory committees, including the State Department Advisory Committee on International Economic Policy and the Export-Import Bank Advisory Committee. She is also on the Board of Directors of the Worker Rights Consortium and the National Bureau of Economic Research. She received a Bachelor’s degree from Smith College and a Master’s degree in economics from the University of Michigan.

This study examines labor and capital service inputs as well as multi-factor productivity growth in Japan and compares results to eight other industrial nations using OECD's productivity data from 1985 to 2007. The study reveals that since 1991 Japan's economic growth has been negatively measured by all three discriminant functions identified.

This article focuses on the potential trade spillovers of Chinese policies to maintain employment and discusses how nations might work collaboratively at the WTO to address this problem. Chinese leaders are determined to maintain employment and have long ignored Chinese employment laws (as well as international law) that could empower workers. Chinese leaders have not made sufficient effort to either educate workers and managers about their rights and responsibilities under the law (demand side of the law) or to educate policymakers throughout China as to their enforcement obligations under the law (supply side). The failure to enforce these laws has distorted trade.

Norms regarding the rule of law underpin the GATT/WTO but they are implicit. China became the first (but not only) nation to have explicit rule of law obligations. China was “required to enforce the rule of law throughout all of its territories.” I suggest a way in which WTO members can address this problem and at the same time provide incentives to China to improve its rule of law.