Does Trade Trump Law in the Protection of Human Rights? International Trade, Law, and Human Rights in South Africa and South Korea

Authors

Cristina Campo

Abstract

International relations have become categorically dependent on the sophisticated trading systems that interconnect and empower sovereign states. Thus, a state’s focus on protecting the rights of its individuals comprising and affected by that system would appear to come secondary to the economic decisions involved in conducting trade agreements. This article asks whether the international trade regime can be used to further the protection of human rights or whether such protection should be better left in the hands of legal entities in international bodies and sovereign states. I analyze South Korea and South Africa’s legal and trade regimes—two of the world’s largest and most integrated economies and two countries with remarkably different development histories—to underscore the responsibility of governments in their international transactions and domestic relations and to outline the future role and mandate of the world’s most significant international institutions.

Recommended Citation

Cristina Campo, Does Trade Trump Law in the Protection of Human Rights? International Trade, Law, and Human Rights in South Africa and South Korea, 25 U. MIA Int’l & Comp. L. Rev. 299 (2018)
Available at: https://repository.law.miami.edu/umiclr/vol25/iss2/5