International Center for Cultural Studies

Report | on the Lecture “Trade Policy and Labor Rights: Competition and Convergence” Seeing the Emerging Relationship between Trade Policy and Labor Rights Protection through Forced-Labor Governance

2026-06-29

Report | on the Lecture “Trade Policy and Labor Rights: Competition and Convergence”

Seeing the Emerging Relationship between Trade Policy and Labor Rights Protection through Forced-Labor Governance

Organizers:

School of Law, NYCU

International Center for Cultural Studies, NYCU (ICCS-NYCU) Subproject 3: Migration, Unequal Citizens, and Critical Legal Studies

Moderator:

Prof. Yu-Fan Chiu｜School of Law, NYCU

Keynote Speaker:

Associate Prof. Ying-Jun Lin｜School of Law, Fu Jen Catholic University

Discussants:

Attorney Yen-Po Chen｜InfoShare Tech Law Office
Dr. Bonny Ling｜Executive Director, Work Better Innovations

Authors:

Yao-Chi Chan, Yi-Lin Pan｜School of Law, NYCU
Pei-Yun Chiang｜Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, NYCU

On June 2, 2026, the International Center for Cultural Studies (ICCS) Subproject 3, “Migration, Unequal Citizens, and Critical Legal Studies,” and the School of Law at NYCU, jointly hosted the lecture “Trade Policy and Labor Rights: Competition and Convergence.” The event was moderated by Prof. Yu-Fan Chiu, Principal Investigator of Subproject 3, and featured Associate Prof. Ying-Jun Lin of the School of Law at Fu Jen Catholic University as the keynote speaker. Dr. Bonny Ling, Executive Director of Work Better Innovations, and Attorney Yen-Po Chen of InfoShare Tech Law Office joined the event as discussants.

Continuing Subproject 3’s long-standing concern with the conditions of migrant workers, labor rights, and global supply chain governance, the lecture examined, from the perspective of international trade law, how labor rights have gradually been incorporated into trade agreements and supply chain governance. It also explored the institutional challenges that forced-labor governance poses for Taiwan’s export industries.

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🌏 Associate Prof. Ying-Jun Lin: As Labor Rights Become a Condition of Market Access, Trade Rules Are Reshaping Supply Chains

💫 Labor Rights Move from the Periphery to the Core of the International Trading System

International trade rules can broadly be divided into the multilateral trading system centered on the World Trade Organization and the networks of rules established through bilateral and regional trade agreements. In the early multilateral trading system, labor issues were not a central component of trade regulation. The General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), for example, primarily aimed to promote the liberalization of trade in goods and did not expressly incorporate the protection of labor rights into its rules. Although labor-related concerns could sometimes be addressed indirectly through provisions such as the public morals exception, they were generally treated as exceptions rather than as obligations that member states were required to fulfill.

💫 How the United States and the European Union Have Turned Labor Rights into Binding Obligations

Because it has been difficult to establish comprehensive labor clauses within the multilateral trading system, the United States and the European Union have increasingly addressed labor issues through bilateral and regional trade agreements. The United States is particularly concerned with whether differences in the level of labor protection among countries may result in unfair competition. It therefore requires trading partners to effectively enforce their domestic labor laws, preventing enterprises from gaining a price advantage by lowering wages, extending working hours, or disregarding workers’ rights in order to reduce production costs. By comparison, the European Union places greater emphasis on alignment with international labor standards. Through Trade and Sustainable Development chapters, the EU requires its trading partners to respect or promote relevant conventions of the International Labour Organization. This demonstrates that the incorporation of labor rights into international trade law concerns not only market competition, but also the broader development of human rights and labor protection.

💫 Corporate Responsibility under Trade Sanctions and Supply Chain Governance

In the past, labor provisions in trade agreements primarily required states to enact and effectively enforce domestic labor laws. In recent years, however, measures introduced by the United States and the European Union have increasingly required enterprises themselves to disclose the origins of their supply chains, explain how their products are manufactured, and demonstrate whether forced labor is involved in the production process. In the United States, Section 307 of the Tariff Act of 1930 and the more recent Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) illustrate the country’s long-standing use of trade restrictions to prevent the importation of goods produced through forced labor. Newer regulatory frameworks have gone further by shifting the burden of proof and requiring importers to affirmatively demonstrate that their supply chains are free from forced labor.

💫 Forced-Labor Governance and the Restructuring of Global Supply Chains

As labor-rights protection becomes connected with trade sanctions, enterprises selecting suppliers are increasingly concerned with whether their business partners treat workers fairly, manage migrant workers responsibly, and adequately address the risks of forced labor. An enterprise placed on a high-risk list, or whose products are detained by customs authorities because of suspected forced labor, may lose its eligibility to participate in multinational supply chains. These measures therefore do more than require enterprises to improve working conditions. They may also compel enterprises to reconsider their business partners, thereby reshaping global production networks. In other words, respect for labor rights is increasingly becoming an enforceable condition of market access.

💫 Labor-Rights Challenges for Taiwan’s Export Industries after the Giant Manufacturing Case

Under these emerging trade rules, Taiwanese enterprises can no longer focus solely on whether their products can be successfully exported. They must also examine how migrant workers are recruited, how they enter the workplace, and whether risks of forced labor exist within their factories and supply chains. Enterprises that are unable to provide clear information on these matters may face not only the detention of their goods by customs authorities, but also restrictions on their ability to access international markets. The Giant Manufacturing case was not the first time Taiwan had faced pressure relating to forced labor and trade restrictions. Similar cases had already emerged in Taiwan’s distant-water fishing industry, which had previously attracted the attention of U.S. customs authorities. These issues should therefore not be regarded merely as crises affecting individual enterprises. Instead, they must be understood within the broader context of Taiwan’s supply chain governance and international trade negotiations. Against the backdrop of Taiwan–U.S. trade negotiations and reciprocal trade arrangements, import restrictions on goods produced through forced labor, supply chain transparency, and the protection of migrant workers may all become policy issues that Taiwan must directly address. For Taiwanese enterprises, labor-rights governance is therefore no longer merely a passive response to external pressure. It has become a fundamental issue that Taiwan’s export industries must actively reconsider in order to maintain access to international markets.

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🌏 Dr. Bonny Ling: Taiwan Must Proactively Build Credible Supply Chain Governance Capacity

Discussant Dr. Bonny Ling, Executive Director of Work Better Innovations, noted that contemporary global supply chain governance has brought trade, human rights, and labor rights into closer interaction. Labor rights are increasingly being incorporated into international trade rules and conditions of competition, making them an important component of trade negotiations. Drawing on the WRO issued against Giant Manufacturing, Dr. Ling explained that forced-labor risks in Taiwan’s supply chains did not arise suddenly, nor are they confined to a single industry. She emphasized that the three forced labor indicators, out of the five indicators, identified by U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) in the case—debt bondage, withholding of wages, and excessive overtime—often occur together. Among them, the charging of recruitment fees to migrant workers is a particularly significant cause of forced-labor risks.

In response to these developments, Dr. Ling proposed three shifts in thinking through which Taiwan could proactively address the challenges ahead. First, Taiwan should regard trade as a choice of values and take the initiative to improve its supply chains. Human rights due diligence and labor-rights protection should become an “all-passage passport” (meaning that it can get into various markets the way that an all-passage passport can be used to enter different countries without restriction). for products entering international markets. By establishing credible supply chain governance mechanisms, Taiwan can reduce the risk that its products will face import restrictions or exclusion from supply chains when entering major markets such as the United States and the European Union. Second, We should all recognize that forced labor is a shared global problem rather than an issue found only in Asian manufacturing industries. Such recognition could encourage countries to learn from one another through their trade relationships and jointly raise labor standards. Finally, Taiwan must confront the realities of population decline and labor shortages and incorporate the protection of migrant workers’ rights into its broader understanding of industrial competitiveness.

Dr. Ling emphasized that the principal gap in Taiwan’s current system is not the absence of soft-law guidance, but the lack of a legal framework for mandatory human rights due diligence. Because Taiwan cannot fully absorb international standards through conventional channels of participation in international organizations, it must take a more proactive approach to learning how international human rights and labor standards can be translated into domestic legal frameworks and corporate practices. The protection of labor rights is therefore not merely a human rights requirement. It is also an essential condition for Taiwan to maintain its industrial competitiveness and the trust of international markets.

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🌏 Attorney Yen-Po Chen: Corporate Responsibility and Supply Chain Traceability Challenges under CBP Enforcement

Attorney Yen-Po Chen from InfoShare Tech Law Office (IS-Law) highlighted how labor rights have shifted from abstract human rights concepts into binding legal obligations that multinational corporations must strictly internalize. Driven by a powerful, cross-departmental regulatory network led by U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), enforcement now adopts "reverse onus." CBP can issue Withhold Release Orders (WRO) to seize goods based on mere reasonable suspicion, forcing importers to prove their supply chains are entirely free from forced labor.

The intense market pressure demands that global corporate governance evolve from a reactive stance to proactive, board-level preventative management. Companies must establish deep traceability for every raw material and component, while using strict contract terms to pass compliance requirements down to suppliers. In particular, managing migrant worker conditions—such as preventing intermediary-induced debt bondage and guaranteeing fair wages, housing, and freedom of movement—has become critical. As export controls, ESG standards, and human rights regulations increasingly intersect, the ability of Taiwanese manufacturers and the government to meet these stringent international compliance standards will ultimately determine Taiwan's viability in the global market.