Abstract: Whether the adjustment object of WTO system can be extended to "trade and labor" is still controversial. In order to maintain their market share, developed countries actively advocate corporate social responsibility, cooperate with the labor organization to implement labor standards, and raise trade and labor issues within the WTO system. From the multilateral trading system itself, WTO has left institutional space for solving trade and labor problems. From the development trend, the cooperation between WTO and other international organizations and the vigorous development of regional economic integration will have a great impact on WTO negotiations on trade and labor issues.

The World Trade Organization (WTO) and its substantive norms have shown more and more extensive regulations on international economic relations, touching some fields other than traditional trade, and international welfare standards, namely labor issues, are also one of the adjustment objects that will affect the current WTO legal system. The core of the WTO debate on trade and labor is the issue of labor standards. Labor standard is the category of domestic labor law norms, and it is the minimum guarantee standard for a country to protect the rights and interests of workers. 19 19 The International Labour Organization (ILO) is the most authoritative organization to formulate international labor standards so far.

The dispute between WTO trade and international labor standards

(A) the connotation of international labor standards

In the multilateral trading system, international labor standards are linked to trade, because low labor standards in a country will reduce the production cost of products of producers in a country. If the product is exported, it will have an absolute advantage in price, thus affecting the sales of similar products abroad. Therefore, in this sense, the connotation of international labor standards should refer to the narrow standards of working conditions related to trade interests, including wages, working hours, working conditions, working environment, welfare benefits and so on. In a broad sense, it also includes abolishing forced labor, freedom of association, the right to organize and collective bargaining, eliminating the exploitation of children and eliminating employment discrimination. International labor standards belong to the category of international law and often appear in the form of agreements, declarations, charters and conventions. Judging from the current situation, the conventions and recommendations of the International Labour Organization are the main sources of international labor standards. Of course, the relevant provisions in international conventions adopted by the United Nations and other organizations, the constitution, declarations and decisions of the International Labour Organization are also the contents of international labor standards.

Some scholars have suggested that with the development of international trade and the improvement of trade liberalization, tariffs have been greatly reduced, and some traditional non-tariff barriers are gradually being eliminated. At the same time, some developed countries are taking advantage of their differences with developing countries in economic level, education, culture and moral level to build a new and more subtle international trade barrier, which is called "blue trade barrier", also known as "labor barrier" or "social barrier". This new type of barrier is based on workers' treatment, labor rights and labor standards. Therefore, in the negotiation of multilateral trading system, international labor standards have become a trade-related issue and have always been a hot issue among members.

(B) The history and present situation of the dispute between WTO trade and international labor standards

The development history of trade and labor relations is linked with the process of economic globalization. Internationally, the United States first linked labor issues with trade, and has been committed to establishing the status of labor standards in multilateral trade negotiations. 1947 Under the impetus of the United States, article 7 of the Havana Charter introduced the labor standard clause, but because the United States did not ratify the Havana Charter, the imported labor standard clause was useless. In addition, the international labor standards raised by the United States in the "Kennedy Round" and "Tokyo Round" have not been realized because of the resistance of developing countries.

1993 at the Marrakesh meeting of the Uruguay Round, the United States and other developed countries proposed to add "social clauses" to multilateral trade rules, demanding that labor standards be included in the Marrakesh Ministerial Declaration, trying to link these social issues with international trade, but without results. However, although the Marrakesh Ministerial Conference did not address the issue of labor standards in its declaration, it agreed to refer this issue to the future WTO for discussion.

1996 at the first ministerial meeting after the establishment of the WTO- Singapore conference, the United States once again took the labor standards with labor conditions and labor rights as the core content as the meeting topic, and finally listed "labor standards" as one of the contents in the Singapore Ministerial Conference Declaration, which showed that developing countries recognized that "labor standards" were a problem in international trade and promised to solve it. In addition, the inclusion of "labor standards" in the declaration also means that the WTO recognizes labor standards, which laid the groundwork for the later debate between developed and developing countries on labor issues.

1999 the third ministerial conference was held in Seattle, USA. Due to the pressure of labor organization demonstrations outside the meeting, the US government took a tough stance at the meeting and insisted on bringing labor issues into the jurisdiction of the WTO. Due to the serious differences between the positions of developed and developing countries, the negotiations failed.

At the 10 conference of UNCTAD in 2000, the contradiction between developed and developing countries on labor issues became more acute. Developing countries reached a consensus on labor standards, unanimously refused to incorporate labor standards into the multilateral trading system, and emphasized unity and cooperation. Developed countries, represented by the United States, also stressed the unity of positions and further put pressure on developing countries.

A new round of Doha Round negotiations started on 200 1. Due to the resolute resistance of developing countries, in order to avoid undermining multilateral negotiations, the Doha Ministerial Declaration did not mention the issue of labor standards. At this point, the WTO debate on labor standards has come to an end.

An analysis of the causes of the dispute between WTO trade and labor standards

(A) the world market share dispute

The introduction of international labor standards is closely related to the reduction of tariff barriers formed by WTO negotiations. With the development of international trade and the improvement of trade liberalization, the biggest achievement of WTO through negotiations is the continuous reduction of tariffs among its members. The biggest change in the world trade pattern brought about by it is that although developed countries still occupy a high proportion in the total international trade, the proportion of developing countries, especially newly industrialized countries, in the total international trade has also increased greatly. This change shows that the competitiveness of developing countries' products in the international market is constantly improving, and their share in the international market is gradually increasing. But there is also an objective reality that developing countries mainly export labor-intensive products with low added value. In fact, the export of labor-intensive products in exchange for the import of capital and technology-intensive products has not given developing countries an absolute advantage in international trade, but has made developed countries feel uneasy and anxious. They blame the domestic economic depression, factory bankruptcy and rising unemployment rate on the import of labor-intensive products from developing countries, and believe that labor-intensive products have impacted their markets.

Therefore, in the WTO negotiations, developed countries try their best to set obstacles to the export of labor-intensive products in developing countries through the multilateral trading system, and non-tariff barriers are frequently used. Among them, labor standards are tried by developed countries as one of the tools of non-tariff barriers, with the aim of giving trade protection to their domestic markets, hoping to solve the domestic economic and unemployment problems and ensure their strong market monopoly position through this means of protection.

(b) The influence of the International Labour Organization on the formulation of trade rules

The International Labour Organization was established at the same time as the League of Nations in accordance with the Treaty of Versailles of 19 19. It was once an autonomous part of the League of Nations. After World War II, the ILO reached an agreement with the United Nations in May 1946 to accept its leadership. The International Labour Organization (ILO) revised its constitution at the 26th International Labour Conference held in September of the same year, and officially became a specialized agency responsible for labor affairs under the United Nations. As of 200 1, the ILO has 175 member countries, and * * * has formulated 184 conventions and 192 recommendations. The International Labour Organization (ILO) claims that the goal and purpose stipulated in its constitution is to achieve lasting peace on the basis of social justice, so that "all mankind, regardless of race, creed or sex, has the right to seek material welfare and spiritual development under the conditions of freedom and dignity, economic security and equal opportunities". To this end, it advocates taking various measures to achieve full employment, improve labor and living standards, and enable workers to enjoy legitimate rights and interests.

In order to achieve its goals and objectives, the main activity of the ILO is to engage in international labor legislation, including three labor conventions: core labor standards and eight conventions, including 1930 Forced Labor Convention and 195 1 Equal Pay for Men and Women Workers. Labor professional conventions, including employment promotion, social policy, labor administration, labor relations, social security, etc. ; Targeted conventions, including conventions on women, child labor, underage workers, elderly workers, disabled people, migrant workers, seafarers, fishermen, dockers, domestic workers and other specific groups.

Although the legislation of the International Labour Organization has a positive effect on international labor protection, the formulation of international labor conventions, especially international labor standards, is based on the development level and needs of developed countries, so the labor standards are too high to meet the actual social and economic needs of developing countries, and it is very difficult to implement them in developing countries. Therefore, the implementation of the convention in developing countries has become the focus of supervision and review by the International Labour Organization. Even so, developed countries still believe that the labor standards of the International Labour Organization are not strong enough for developing countries. Because the relevant labor standards mainly implement labor conventions and recommendations through suggestions, and can only be guaranteed through cooperation rather than coercion, the International Labor Organization checks the implementation of the rules through supervision, such as regularly issuing reports to evaluate the labor situation of member countries, investigating labor violations, and issuing reports. However, the ILO cannot sanction its member countries for violating the rules. Therefore, developed countries advocate bringing labor issues into the WTO, so as to change the "soft law" characteristics of ILO labor conventions by using the WTO dispute settlement mechanism.

Judging from the current situation, although there are great differences between developed and developing countries on labor issues, and labor standards have not been formally included in the agenda of the WTO so far, after all, developed and developing countries have reached a * * * understanding on the correlation between labor and international trade, but the way and time of contact between them are very different. Because labor standards involve a wide range of social interests and are restricted by many political and economic factors, WTO, as a multilateral trade organization, cannot absorb all the labor conventions of the International Labor Organization into its provisions. However, it is foreseeable that in the future WTO negotiations on trade and labor issues, as far as labor standards are concerned, multi-level labor standards suitable for countries with different levels of economic development must be established on the basis of conventions formulated by the International Labor Organization and taking into account various social, economic, legal and historical factors of various countries.

In addition, from the perspective of the relationship between international organizations, the International Labour Organization is a specialized agency of the United Nations, while the WTO is a special organization outside the United Nations. However, in the negotiation of rules, the cooperation between WTO and other international organizations, including conventions already formed by other international organizations, has a great influence on the formulation of WTO rules. This can be seen from the norms of the WTO in the field of intellectual property rights. Before the WTO extended the adjustment scope of the international trading system to the field of intellectual property rights, the World Intellectual Property Organization had been performing its duties exclusively. However, when the scope of work of the WTO expanded, the WTO incorporated the objects originally handled by other international organizations and institutions into its own system. Accordingly, it can be predicted that the cooperation between WTO and ILO in the formulation of labor standards will also exist. One way of cooperation can be like the cooperation between WTO and IMF, World Bank and OECD. The International Labour Organization (ILO) enjoys observer status in WTO institutions, which has great influence on the formulation of WTO trade and labor-related rules.