Different shades of minimalism: The multilateral construction of labour clauses in the UK-Australia and UK-New Zealand FTAs

Abstract

The recently concluded UK free trade agreements with Australia (UKAFTA) and New Zealand (UKNZFTA) merit close scrutiny. As the first UK FTAs to be negotiated from scratch after Brexit, they provide concrete evidence of the UK’s formative approach towards the trade-labour linkage. They follow the ambitious EU-UK Trade & Co-operation Agreement (TCA), commended for the width and strength of its multilateral labour commitments. However, the exceptional circumstances surrounding its conclusion, namely the need to avert a no-deal Brexit and the fact of the previous deep alignment between the UK and EU legal systems, rendered its treatment as precedent-setting premature without further evidence from subsequent agreements. There exists a vast multi-disciplinary literature on labour clauses in trade agreements. While trade law scholars tend to debate the protectionist effect of these clauses on trade, labour scholars focus on assessing their instrumental effect on protecting labour rights