Colombia Internacional

Colomb. int. | eISSN 1900-6004 | ISSN 0121-5612

Rights, Free Trade, and Politics: The Strategic Use of a Rights Discourse in the Negotiation of Free Trade Agreements (FTAs)

No. 81 (2014-05-01)
  • Angelika Rettberg
    1Universidad de los Andes (Colombia)
  • Philippe De Lombaerde
    2UNI-CRIS (Belgium)
  • Liliana Lizarazo-Rodríguez
    3Independet Consultan (Belgium)
  • Juan Felipe Ortiz-Riomalo
    4Universidad de los Andes (Colombia)
https://doi.org/10.7440/colombiaint81.2014.05

Abstract

This article seeks to describe the strategic use of a rights discourse by domestic and international actors involved in the negotiation and ratification processes of free trade agreements between Colombia, the United States, and the European Union. We suggest that some of the differences between both FTAs and the processes leading up to their approval and ratification can be attributed to the ability of relevant actors to build and disseminate rights-based arguments in order to develop like-minded political coalitions, and other institutional and contextual characteristics.

Keywords: policy process, human rights, Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ESCR), free trade agreements, European Union, United States, Colombia

License

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.