The place of socio economic rights in international trade law

Abstract

This thesis seeks to contribute to the body of scholarly literature on the impact of international trade law on human rights. However, beyond looking into areas of conflict between the human rights law regime and the international trade law regime, it goes into examining the legal basis on which human rights could influence international trade law and policy by considering the hierarchical relationship between the two regimes. It considers how superiority claims based on article 103 of the Charter of the United Nations and integrative interpretation as recognized in the law of treaties, could provide a basis for the need for congruence between the two regimes. It illustrates that the fragmentation of authority amongst different regimes in international law, can create missed opportunities in which one regime could serve to benefit the objectives of a related regime. The thesis also examines issues of conflict, in the underlying jurisprudence as expressed within the two regimes. It explains that neoliberalism has received expression in WTO law and that the nature of welfare within WTO law differs from what welfare is in the socioeconomic rights framework. It examines how welfare as freedom to choose what one decides is good for oneself and welfare as a predetermined set of things or concepts that are deemed to promote the well-being of a person, has influenced conflict between the two regimes.