Law or aspiration? The European Union proposal for a labour standards clause in the transatlantic trade and investment partnership

On the 6th of November 2015 the European Commission unveiled a proposal for the inclusion in the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) of a clause dedicated to sustainable development which also refers to several international labour law instruments. The European Commission defined the proposal as 'the most ambitious provisions ever put forward on these issues to any trading partner'. The claimed main purpose of the operation is to ensure that high standards for labour are upheld both in the European Union (EU) and the United States. This short contribution challenges this institutional understanding of the clause highlighting several substantive weaknesses of the proposal. The article shows that the TTIP proposal contains considerably fewer labour standards than what EU Member States have to respect under public international law. In addition, the clause presents some legal weaknesses which limit its capacity to uphold labour standards among the parties to the agreement.