The Conference on Public Service and the Law

at the University of Virginia School of Law

Enforceable international labor standards

Since 1998 with the International Labor Organization's Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work, countries and labor rights advocates across the globe have paid increasing attention to problems such as workplace discrimination, forced labor, child labor, and denial of the right to organize unions. Some argue that the ILO's focus on aspirational standards and technical cooperation represents the best way to raise working conditions in developing nations. Others argue that labor standards must be enforceable, either by trade sanctions under the World Trade Organization or by other mechanisms. How are working conditions around the world bestimproved? What are the merits and problems with these approaches? Should there be enforceable international labor standards?

J.H. â"Ripâ" Verkerke, Moderator
Professor of Law, University of Virginia
Professor J.H. Verkerke is the Director of Employment and Labor Law Studies at the University of Virginia School of Law. Verkerke joined the faculty in 1991 and teaches employment law, employment discrimination law, contracts, and several advanced courses and seminars in employment and labor law, including International Aspects of Employment and Labor Law. He is founding editor of Employment and Labor Law Abstracts, a new online journal of abstracts for working papers and accepted articles in the field of employment and labor law. Professor Verkerke received a Master of Philosophy in Economics and a J.D. from Yale University.

Elizabeth Drake
International Policy Analyst, AFL-CIO
Elizabeth Drake is an International Policy Analyst in the Public Policy Department of the AFL-CIO. She received her J.D. from Harvard Law School, where she studied international trade and investment law and international human rights. She earned her B.A. in Anthropology from the University of California at Berkeley. She researches the legal and economic aspects of trade and investment agreements, analyzes their impact on AFL-CIO members and workers around the world, and develops policy and advocacy approaches on global issues. She also works on the sensible regulation of international investment and capital flows and reforming international financial institutions such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund.

Jorge Perez-Lopez
In his personal capacity
Jorge F. Perez-Lopez, a career civil servant, currently serves as Associate Deputy Under Secretary for International Labor Affairs. He is also Director, Office of International Economic Affairs, Bureau of International Labor Affairs, U.S. Department of Labor. He has held the latter position since 1987. Mr. Perez-Lopez served as U.S. negotiator of the chapter on emergency action (safeguards) of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and coordinated the Department of Labor's overall involvement in the negotiations. He also participated in the U.S. team that negotiated the North American Agreement on Labor Cooperation (NAALC) and more recently the labor chapters of the U.S. free trade agreements with Chile, Singapore, and Central America. Before joining the federal government, he was a Lecturer on Economic Policy at the School of Business, State University of New York at Albany. He received his undergraduate degree in economics from the State University of New York at Buffalo and the Master and Ph.D. degrees also in economics from the State University of New York at Albany.

Dr. José Manuel Salazar-Xirinachs
Director, Trade Unit, Organization of American States
Dr. José Manuel Salazar-Xirinachs is Director of the Trade Unit at the Organization of American States in Washington, D.C. He formerly served as Minister of Foreign Trade of Costa Rica, and has taught at the University of Costa Rica, University of Cambridge, and Georgetown University. He is the author of many articles on the subject of international trade, including ÒThe Trade-Labor Nexus: Developing CountriesÕ Perspectives,Ó in Journal of International Economic Law, vol. 3, issue 2 (2000), and ÒTrade, Labor, and Global Governance: A Perspective from the Americas,Ó produced for the Conference on the Regulatory Framework of Globalization, University of Barcelona, October 2001. Mr. Salazar-Xirinachs is an economist, with a Master of Philosophy in Development Economics and a Doctorate in Economics from the University of Cambridge, England.

Dr. V.S. Seshadri
Minister of Commerce, Embassy of India
Dr. V.S. Seshadri serves as IndiaÕs Minister of Commerce to the United States. As a member of the Indian Foreign Service, he has held appointments in New Delhi, Nairobi, Brussels, Tehran, Bangkok, and Washington, D.C., in such areas as trade policy, commerce, and investment promotion. His most recent prior appointment was as IndiaÕs Joint Secretary to the World Trade Organization (WTO). Dr. Seshadri received a Ph.D. in Applied Mathematics from the Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore, India.