Inclusion of labor provisions in bilateral U.S. trade agreements has evolved. The first two U.S. FTAs with Israel, 1985, and Canada, 1988, did not include labor provisions. Second, it became increasingly accepted that labor issues were related to trade and trade policy. Labor Enforcement in U.S. Free Trade Agreements

Since 1993, the United States has negotiated 13 FTAs that include 19 countries. Labor and enforcement provisions in these various trade agreements can be categorized into four different models. These are (1) a fully enforceable commitment that Parties to free trade agreements would adopt and maintain in their laws and practices the ILO Declaration ; (2) a fully enforceable commitment prohibiting FTA countries from lowering their labor standards; (3) new limitations on "prosecutorial" and "enforcement" discretion (i.e., countries cannot defend failure to enforce laws related to the five basic core labor standards on the basis of resource limitations or decisions to prioritize other enforcement issues); and (4) the same dispute settlement mechanisms or penalties available for other FTA obligations (such as commercial interests). Model 3 has relatively similar procedures for violations under both types of provisions.
Since 1993, the Administration has negotiated and Congress has approved 13 free trade agreements (FTAs) with labor provisions, and is considering additional FTAs. Based on similarity of language, these FTAs can be sorted into four groups, or "models," which have evolved to contain successively greater levels of enforceability. This report first identifies the enforceable labor provisions in each model. Second, it identifies two types of labor enforcement issues: (1) those that relate to the FTA provisions themselves, including their definitions and their enforceability, and (2) those that relate to executive branch responsibilities, such as resource availability and determining dispute settlement case priorities. This report does not address other labor issues in the various free trade agreements, including cooperative consultation and capacity-building provisions.