Haciendo que los acuerdos comerciales trabajen para el empoderamiento de las mujeres
| Autor | Amrita Bahri |
| Cargo | ITAM |
| Páginas | 6-24 |
Latin American Journal of Trade Policy 11 (2021) – ISSN 079-9668 – Universidad de Chile
6
Making Trade Agreements Work for Women Empowerment: How Does It
Help, What Has Been Done, and What Remains Undone?
Amrita Bahri*
Abstract
In the recent years, there has been an upsurge in the number of FTAs that are mainstreaming gender equality
concerns in their trade agreements. But is gender mainstreaming enough, and does it mean that countries that
‘mainstream’ gender equality concerns in their trade agreements also ‘adopt’ actions to address these concerns?
What is gender mainstreaming in trade policy context? How can trade agreements help in fostering women
empowerment? What kinds of relevant provisions have already been included in existing trade agreements, and
what remains undone? This article seeks to respond to these questions.
Keywords: gender mainstreaming, trade agreements, women empowerment, shortcomings.
Resumen
En los últimos años, ha habido un aumento en el número de acuerdos de libre comercio que están incorporando
elementos sobre la igualdad de género en sus acuerdos comerciales. Pero, ¿es suficiente la transversalización de
género y significa que los países que ‘integran’ preocupaciones sobre la igualdad de género en sus acuerdos
comerciales también ‘adoptan’ acciones para abordarlas? ¿Qué es la transversalización de género en el contexto
de la política comercial? ¿Cómo pueden ayudar los acuerdos comerciales a fomentar el empoderamiento de las
mujeres? ¿Qué tipo de disposiciones pertinentes ya se han incluido en los acuerdos comerciales vigentes y qué
queda pendiente? Este artículo busca dar respuesta a estas preguntas.
Palabras clave: transversalización de género, acuerdos comerciales, empoderamiento de la mujer, carencias.
* Associate Professor of Law, ITAM; Co-Chair for Mexico, WTO Chair Program. Thanks to my research assistants, Manuel Rodriguez
and Harish Kesav P, for their help with research. Also thanks to the WTO Chairs Program for supporting this output. All errors or
omissions a re author’s own. Email: amrita.bahri@gmail.com. Received: December 06th, 2021; modificatons: December 16 th 2021;
accepted: December 21st 2021.
Amrita Bahri
Making Trade Agreements Work for Women Empowerment: How Does It Help, What Has Been Done, and
What Remains Undone?
7
Introduction
The World Trade Organization (WTO) has recently issued the text of Draft Ministerial Declaration on
the Advancement of Gender Equality and Women’s Economic Empowerment in Trade.1 This is
proposed to be adopted at the upcoming 12th Ministerial Conference. Once adopted, the Declaration will
confirm the WTO’s mandate for work on trade and women’s economic empowerment. It will represent
an important step towards women empowerment considerations being considered in the context of trade
policies. The Declaration will oblige members to mainstream gender equality perspective in Aid for Trade
programs and collect gender-disaggregated data. It also provides to the WTO Secretariat a role in
coordinating research work on trade and gender.
Other strides have also been made in this respect. There are several programs established by global
economic institutions like the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the
International Trade Centre (ITC) and the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development
(UNCTAD) that also seek to use trade policy instruments to promote women empowerment (ITC, 2020,
2021; Korinek, Moïsé, & Tange, 2021; OECD, 2021; UNCTAD, 2021a, 2021b). Moreover, recent trends
have shown a promise in terms of the role that Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) can play in this respect.
In the recent years, there has been an upsurge of FTAs that are mainstreaming gender equality concerns
in their trade agreements, albeit in different ways, formats and drafting styles. However, there is a
difference in ‘mainstreaming concerns’ and ‘adopting actions’.
Gender mainstreaming entails the inclusion of gender equality concerns in the drafting of FTAs. Yet,
gender mainstreaming is a process that does not in itself suggests or even guarantees that countries that
employ this process have also adopted actions to address these concerns. Adoption of an action would
require countries to take an affirmative action to strengthen women empowerment or reduce gender
inequality. In most of the trade agreements in force today that have incorporated gender equality related
provisions, countries have merely mainstreamed these concerns in the drafting of these agreements but
have stayed away from committing themselves to an affirmative action in this respect.
Against this backdrop, it becomes pertinent to study the inter-linkages between trade agreements and
gender equality concerns, and this paper attempts to further this understanding by contributing to the
discussion on gender mainstreaming in trade agreements. In particular, the questions this paper seeks to
address are the following: what is gender mainstreaming in trade policy context? and how can it help
strengthen women empowerment? how have countries included gender-related concerns in their trade
agreements so far? and what remains undone in this respect? This paper seeks to address these questions
with the help of textual analysis, as the author has engaged in in-depth text analysis of all existing trade
agreements currently in force and notified to the WTO.2 All trade agreements were assessed to identify
those agreements that contain gender-explicit provisions. Those provisions which use terms directly
related to ‘gender’, ‘women’, ‘female’, ‘maternity’ or a similar expression in an explicit manner are
1 The Declaration’s draft can be accessed here:
DP.aspx?language=E&CatalogueIdList=278631,278632,278621&Curr entCatalogueIdIndex=1&FullTextHash=3
71857150&HasEnglishRecord=True&HasFrenchRecord=True& HasSpanishRecord=False> accessed 12
November 2021
2 As on 1 June 2021. WTO Regional Trade Database, https://rtais.wto.org/U I/PublicMaintainRTAHome.aspx
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