Buchanan, sole voice against free trade?

[Carl Remick]

Re:  "But labor rights advocates in the North should listen all the
more carefully to what Southern colleagues are saying, precisely because
Third World progressives are allies in the fight for social justice in a
global economy based on free trade...[They} sound an alarm against
environmental and labor linkage to trade policies in the WTO that would
allow trade sanctions against Southern countries for failure to meet
Northern-defined  standards.  Their fear, well-founded in experience, is
that Northern countries' dominance of the global trade regime,
particularly
by the United States, Western Europe and Japan, will distort the WTO
decision-making process to the disadvantage of the Third World."

Nathan, these Third World progressives' fear is undoubtedly backed by
experience, but, to me, their response is that of tossing the baby out
with the bath water.  I don't favor discouraging the spread of
enlightened labor laws or tough environmental safeguards for *any*
reason.  The issue of *misusing* such laws and safeguards as a ploy for
taking advantage of Third World nations should be dealt with as such; it
should not be used as an excuse for removing harmonization of labor and
environmental laws from the global progressive agenda.

Carl Remick (over quota but stuck late at the office)