Pearls and Irritations

The Labor government has a policy which requires enforceable commitments to internationally recognised labour rights and environmental standards in trade agreements, and to safeguard the rights of First Nations peoples and women. The announcement of negotiations with the United Arab Emirates (UAE) last year surprised many because the UAE has not ratified some basic labour rights and human rights international agreements and has the worst record on these issues of any Australian trading partner.

The Australian Fair Trade and Investment Network, the ACTU, the Australian Conservation Foundation, Amnesty, the Uniting Church, the Catholic Office for Justice Ecology and Peace, ActionAid and the Family Planning Alliance wrote a letter to the government providing evidence that the UAE is not a signatory to key UN and ILO Conventions protecting civil rights, freedom of association, the right to organise and the right to collective bargaining. Temporary migrant workers form more than 90% of the private sector workforce. Most non-professional migrant workers are employed under the kafala system, which ties them to individual employers who act as their visa sponsors, with the threat of deportation. This has been classified as a system of modern slavery.

Despite a new UAE Labour Law in 2022, there is no national minimum wage, and the law does not include the right to organise or bargain collectively or the right to form or join unions. The new law does not apply to domestic workers, who comprise 42% of the female workforce, so they have even less protections than other workers. There is persistent legal discrimination against women and criminalisation of homosexuality and gender expression. The UAE is a major fossil fuel exporter and has been criticised for not meeting its carbon emission reduction targets.

The letter asked the government not to proceed with negotiations until there was evidence of change to safeguard human rights, including workers’ rights, women’s rights and environmental standards.

The government announced that negotiations were concluded in September 2024, emphasising the benefits of increased agricultural exports and UAE investment in Australia. However, the text remained secret until it was quietly signed and released on the afternoon of November 6, when the US election result swamped most other news coverage. The government’s media release emphasised trade gains, mentioned cooperation on environmental issues and said that it was the first Australian agreement to include a chapter on First Nations trade.

But the devil is in the detail. The text does contain short chapters on labour, women, First Nations peoples, and the environment. These refer to those international agreements both governments have ratified, which is welcome.

However, there are no firm commitments to implement these agreements. Instead, the text uses weaker language like ‘recognise’, ‘promote’, ‘encourage’, and ‘endeavour to’, and establishes contact points for future dialogue and cooperation. There is no means of enforcing these intentions, as the state-to-state dispute process, which enforces other chapters of the agreement, does not apply to these chapters.

The only definite commitment in the Labour chapter is that each government shall not “fail to enforce its labour laws through a sustained or recurring course of action or inaction”, but the parties also have discretion about resources allocated to achieve this (Article 20.7). Each party will provide a means for individual worker complaints (Article 20.11.2). In the UAE, individuals can make complaints, but independent reports note that the threat of deportation means that few migrant workers complain.

In short, if the UAE fails to implement its commitments on tariffs, Australia can take action, but the lack of an enforcement mechanism means there is no equivalent enforcement for the labour, women’s, First Nations and environment chapters. This contrasts with fully enforceable rights in these areas still being negotiated in the Australia-EU Free Trade Agreement.

The UAE agreement text will be referred to the Joint Standing Committee on Treaties for review with a report early next year, but the committee cannot change the text. This will be the only opportunity for public discussion of the lack of enforceable rights in these chapters in the agreement. Close monitoring will be required after ratification to evaluate whether they are implemented.

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