WTO's restraint- fail to help improve China's human rights status Research Paper

WTO's restraint- fail to help improve China's human rights status through international trade regulation - Research Paper Example Chinese administration pledged to increase transparency, to safeguard the WTO member nation’s intellectual property rights in China and to reorganise their legal setup. Many supporters for China’s WTO membership buttressed that China’s WTO membership would bring freedom and human rights and the rule of law into China but some others vehemently raised serious doubts about China’s WTO membership would bring such outcomes. (Ching 3). Whether China’s accession to WTO has come at a cost to the trustworthiness of WTO itself? Is China is butchering the WTO? Given the China’s poor governance and state capitalism, the effect of China’s failure to adhere with WTO regulations is composited by the WTO’s relative incapability to deal efficiently with a commercialised state focussed economy such as China’s. The WTO regime presumes rule of law and transparency which in China’s case, it is obviously absent. This research essay wil l mainly focus how WTOs restraints have failed to improve China's human rights status through international trade regulation and the various means and ways to make China to respect human rights obligations under International law. China, WTO and Human Rights Obligations Being a communist nation, China is still building a rule-of-law system, and its residents are now having started to repose confidence on its court system and its law enforcement agencies. However, China is still far away from fulfilling the objectives of the International Covenant on Economic, social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR). Nonetheless, much progress has been accomplished in the human rights area in the last three decades in China, and definitely a certain momentum has been kicked off. (Hillebrand 3). Despite of accession to WTO and ratification of ICESCR , some common varieties of abuses are found in China even today like customary hukou resi dential system , labour violations of Chinese migrant construction workers , Women’s rights violations , practices of child labour and discrimination against disabled persons. The UN Committee on CESCR gave a final observation on China in 2005 expressing concerns over human rights infringements in China. It is observed that there exists human rights infringement in the People’s Republic of China (PRC) which remains widespread and systematic. It is alleged that the Chinese government prolongs to restrain dissenting beliefs and upholds political control over the Chinese legal setup. The human rights abuses of the Chinese government officials often go unchecked due to the lack of accountability of the Chinese Communist Party and the Chinese government. (Julie 16). As of date, China has signed about 25 international human rights instruments, which include six core human rights conventions. As of June 2009, China is yet to sign or ratify the International Convention on the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of their families. (Arnold 152). ICESCR was ratified by the China in 2001, and thereby China promised to guarantee the right to work and also make sure there exists good working environment. The UN committee of ICESCR in its concluding remarks mentioned that China must make available resources so that there could be independent and regular examination of health and safety conditions and sanctions against employers who do not adhere to safety norms. (Julie 23). The major portion of international law emanates from multilateral or bilateral treaties entered between states enveloping a vast variety of varied fields. There is an absence of centralised court system implementing international law and to the conflicting each treaty can offer for its own enforcement