Forced to Be Good: Why Trade Agreements Boost Human Rights

Emilie M. Hafner-Burton

Published by Cornell University Press 2013

Forced to Be Good

Why Trade Agreements Boost Human Rights

Emilie M. Hafner-Burton

https://doi.org/10.7591/9780801458705

Overview
Contents

About this book

Preferential trade agreements have become common ways to protect or restrict access to national markets in products and services. Hafner-Burton explores how governments pursue trade policies that advance their political interests, including human rights.

Author / Editor information

Emilie M. Hafner-Burton is Professor at the School of International Relations and Pacific Studies and the Department of Political Science and director of the Laboratory on International Law and Regulation at the University of California, San Diego.

Reviews

Daniel Drezner, Tufts University:

Why have human rights provisions increasingly been attached to preferential trade agreements in recent years? Forced to Be Good is the best single treatment of the issue I have read. Emilie Hafner-Burton argues, counterintuitively, that it's not because human rights NGOs have affected norms. She shows that a shift in institutional politics within the United States and the European Union made it impossible for political executives to negotiate trade deals as they had in the past. She demonstrates a positive correlation between legislative constraints on the executive and the extent to which human rights provisions were inserted into trade agreements.

Kimberly Ann Elliott, Center for Global Development:

In this book, Emilie Hafner-Burton shows convincingly that old-fashioned, interest-based political bargaining, not a moral impulse to improve the world, led to human rights being included in recent U.S. and European trade agreements. Despite mixed (at best) motivations, some of these agreements nevertheless made a positive contribution to improving human rights. Anyone interested in recent trade policymaking generally, or in using trade to influence human rights specifically, should read this book to find out how the process really works.

Walter Mattli, University of Oxford:

A wonderfully provocative book! Emilie Hafner-Burton argues that the surge in trade agreements containing human rights clauses can be explained with reference not to powerful new norms of justice or vigorous lobbying by labor unions and NGOs but to their usefulness as tools with which policymakers in the West tackle parochial issues unrelated to the protection of human rights and compete for influence over trade policy. The message may not please; the empirical analysis, however, is systematic and compelling.

Edward D. Mansfield, Hum Rosen Professor of Political Science, University of Pennsylvania:

Forced to Be Good is fascinating and important. Emilie M. Hafner-Burton provides a compelling account of how the United States and Europe have used preferential trade arrangements to protect human rights in foreign countries. Her book poses a key challenge to the conventional wisdom on how norms of justice spread, and it will be of substantial interest to scholars and policymakers alike.

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	vii
Acknowledgments Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	ix
Abbreviations Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	xi
Introduction Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
Chapter 1. Forced to Be Good Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	4
Chapter 2. A Path to Answers Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	23
Chapter 3. Preferences Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	48
Chapter 4. Institutions Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	84
Chapter 5. Power Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	115
Chapter 6. Effects Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	142
Chapter 7. The Future Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	165
Appendix Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	175
References Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	181
Index Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	211

(Deutsch)

Language: English
Publisher: Cornell University Press
Audience: General/trade;
Pages
- Main content: 240
Illustrations
- Illustrations: 4
- Tables: 4
- Other: 4 tables, 2 maps, 2 line drawings
Keywords: trade regulations; trade policy; economic globalization; marketing; civil rights; international trade

eBook

Published: December 15, 2010
ISBN: 9780801458705