Globalization

B

Labor Rights

To stimulate economic development many developing countries have established free-trade zones where investors are given special benefits, such as low or no taxes, and labor unions are discouraged or not allowed. These benefits have led to violations of human rights. For example, the Workers Rights Consortium, supported by many colleges and universities in the United States, has sent inspection teams to developing countries to investigate the conditions under which caps and sweatshirts are made for university sports teams. The consortium found violations of child labor laws, intimidation of workers seeking to have their grievances addressed, and sexual harassment. Because only 1 percent of the projected growth in the world’s labor force is expected to be in the high-income countries in coming decades, what happens to the world’s lower-income workers in the developing countries takes on added importance. It may well determine whether there will be an overall rise in living standards as productivity gains are widely shared or an overall decline if developing countries compete for jobs by holding down wages and allowing harsher working conditions to attract investment and job creation.

The UN’s International Labor Organization (ILO) has tried to level the playing field by endorsing five widely accepted core labor standards. These are elaborated in the ILO’s 1998 Declaration of Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work. The first promises freedom of association and states that workers should be able to join together and form organizations of their own choosing. The second is the right of workers’ organizations, including trade unions, to bargain collectively with employers and governments. Third is the elimination of all forms of coerced or compulsory labor. Fourth is the effective abolition of child labor. The ILO’s Minimum Age Convention sets a basic minimum age of 15, but if a country is less developed or if only light work is involved the minimum age can be lower. If hazardous work is involved, the minimum age is 18. The fifth provision is the elimination of discrimination in employment based on race, sex, religion, political opinion, or national or social origin.

Because the ILO has no enforcement powers, it has proven difficult to achieve these goals. In some countries governments pledge to observe the ILO’s standards but then ignore them. Where child labor laws are enforced, government factory inspectors often simply demand that child workers be fired. Many observers believe that to successfully attack the evils of child labor, child workers should not merely be fired but should be placed in schools and families should be compensated for the loss of income that occurs when children are removed from factories.

C

Health Issues

Life-threatening diseases represent another facet of globalization. Improvements in transportation that helped usher in globalization also made it possible for infectious diseases to spread rapidly around the globe. In 2003, for example, a deadly form of pneumonia known as severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) originated in China and quickly posed a worldwide health threat as airline passengers infected with the virus spread the illness.

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The best way to address these health issues often conflicts with the WTO’s stand on intellectual property rights, in particular the patent laws that protect medicines made by pharmaceutical companies. This issue is particularly prominent in relation to acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS). Of the 20 million people who have died of AIDS most lived in poorer countries. In some developing countries the infection rate is above 30 or even 40 percent of the adult population. Today the worst affected countries are in Africa. The disease is also spreading rapidly in countries such as India, China, and Indonesia.

There are other killer diseases found mostly in poorer countries. Although tuberculosis (TB) affects a small percentage of the population in rich countries, more than one-third of the world’s population was infected with tuberculosis in 2000. There are 8 million new cases of TB and 2 million deaths a year from this disease, and these numbers are climbing. More than 1.5 million people die each year from malaria, another disease that mainly impacts developing countries. Diseases spread by unclean drinking water and tainted food kill nearly 2 million people a year, mostly infants and small children and mostly among the 1.5 billion people in the world who do not have access to clean water.

In the case of diseases that primarily affect poor people, little or no research is being done to provide new medicines because the people affected are too poor to buy them. A major struggle has emerged regarding AIDS treatment over whether patent laws will continue to require that people pay high prices for life-saving drugs or whether lower-cost generic medicines can be provided. This issue has been intensively discussed as part of the debate over the WTO’s Agreement on Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPs). Western pharmaceutical companies that do the research and development wish to protect their investments and argue that without such protection less will be spent to develop new life-saving drugs. The developing countries argue that scientific breakthroughs should be shared as widely and as inexpensively as possible. They have resisted the extension of property rights.

D

Environmental Issues

At least since the discovery of the ozone hole above Antarctica in the early 1980s, there has been growing awareness that air pollutants can cross borders and affect everyone living on the planet. The UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, made up of the world’s leading climate scientists, for example, predicts that by the year 2100 the temperature of the planet could rise by as much as 1.4 to 5.8 Celsius degrees (2.5 to 10.4 Fahrenheit degrees). This global warming is due to the burning of fossil fuels, which occurs mainly in the developed, industrialized world, and the destruction of rain forests, which occurs mainly in the developing world. Already Greenland’s ice sheet has thinned and Argentina’s South Patagonia ice fields have retreated substantially. Glaciers are melting, and weather patterns may already be changing.

If global warming continues, experts expect deserts to advance, particularly across West Africa, and sea level to rise, flooding coastal areas and submerging a number of Pacific Ocean island states. One-third of the world’s most populous countries would be flooded by even a small rise in sea level. While developed countries such as The Netherlands can cope, developing countries such as Bangladesh cannot afford to pay for the kind of dike system that currently protects The Netherlands. Because of such dire forecasts, 160 nations in 1997 agreed to the first-ever binding pact to limit the emissions of carbon dioxide and other so-called greenhouse gases that contribute to global warming. Known as the Kyōto Protocol, the pact represented a modest step in limiting and rolling back harmful greenhouse gas emissions.

Environmentalists argue broadly in favor of sustainable development. By this they mean a pattern of living that favors the preservation of habitat, the conservation of nonrenewable resources, and the increased use of renewable energy sources so that Earth’s ecosystems are not harmed beyond repair. Environmentalists favor the principle that polluters should pay for the right to pollute. Concerning genetic engineering, most environmentalists argue for a precautionary principle that emphasizes careful study before new genetically engineered plants or animals are introduced into ecosystems. Genetically modified plants, according to this principle, should not be introduced unless it is clear that no damage will be done. Some politicians and agribusiness corporations believe such a conservative approach would slow growth unnecessarily, lower living standards, and result in greater costs for businesses and consumers. They favor rules based on proven danger and far quicker introduction of genetically engineered products and processes.

E

Culture

There is widespread disagreement over what, if any, regulation is appropriate in the realm of culture. Some people fear a loss of cultural diversity as U.S. media companies become dominant. Such companies tend to “bundle” their products so that a blockbuster movie is promoted by selling soundtracks, books, video games, and other products. These cultural wares are distributed worldwide, and along with reruns of U.S. television shows, tend to replace local alternatives. The question is whether responses by other nations, such as prohibitions against the English language and government subsidies of national cultural productions, are legitimate restraints of trade or represent an unfair trade practice.

F

National Sovereignty

In a world that seems to grow increasingly smaller many issues must be considered at a global level and not only at a local or national level. However, at what point does this threaten national sovereignty—that is, the ability of a country to be self-governing? Some environmentalists, for example, have argued that environmental laws in the United States can be undermined if the laws are found to violate NAFTA. In effect, they say, the United States has lost the right to make and enforce its own environmental policies.

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