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Henner Gött Editor

Labour
Standards in
International
Economic Law
Labour Standards in International Economic Law
Henner G€ott
Editor

Labour Standards in
International Economic Law
Editor
Henner G€ott
Georg-August-University G€ottingen
Institute of International and European Law
G€ottingen, Germany

ISBN 978-3-319-69446-7 ISBN 978-3-319-69447-4 (eBook)

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-69447-4

Library of Congress Control Number: 2018930022

© Springer International Publishing AG 2018

This work is subject to copyright. All rights are reserved by the Publisher, whether the whole or part
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Preface

Ensuring a decent level of worker protection in the globalized economy remains

one of the central challenges of economic globalization. This profoundly intricate
issue will likely remain unresolved until all its aspects are properly understood. The
present volume assembles timely analyses, written by expert scholars and experi-
enced practitioners, of the most pressing legal questions arising in the field. It
bridges existing gaps between the different sub-fields of law and surpasses the
boundaries of professional and epistemic communities, to foster a more compre-
hensive understanding of labour standards in international economic law.
Most contributions to this volume were inspired by presentations given at the
G€ottingen Conference on Labour Standards in International Economic Law, con-
vened on 1–2 October 2015 by the Institute of International and European Law’s
Department of International Economic and Environmental Law in G€ottingen.
Additional chapters on further important issues were included to round off the
compilation.
It is a keen pleasure to acknowledge all those who have made this volume
possible. First and foremost, I wish to express my sincere gratitude to Peter-Tobias
Stoll, whose expertise and unfailing and dedicated support have made both the
conference and this volume possible. Special thanks are due to all the authors for
their invaluable contributions to this book and to the conference. Furthermore, I
wish to thank Mary Footer, Pablo Lazo Grandi, Inmaculada Martı´nez-Zarzoso,
Frank Schorkopf, Friedl Weiss and Ruben Zandvliet for enriching the conference as
speakers and chairs. Last but not least, I am grateful to Anna Kozyakova, Mauricio
Pacheco, Doris Ruhr, Laura Wanner, Oskar de Wyl and Jia Xu, who served as
members of the conference organization team, and to Jasmin Evers, Laura Wanner
and Oskar de Wyl for assisting me with the edition of the manuscript.

G€ottingen, Germany Henner G€ott

August 2017

v
Contents

Labour Standards in International Economic Law: An Introduction . . . 1

Henner G€
ott

Part I Setting the Scene

International Economic and Social Dimensions: Divided or Connected? . . . 11
Peter-Tobias Stoll
The ILO’s Mandate and Capacity: Creating, Proliferating
and Supervising Labour Standards for a Globalized Economy . . . . . . . 37
Claire La Hovary
Why the Shift from International to Transnational Law Is Important
for Labour Standards . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
Anne Trebilcock

Part II Labour Regulation of Trade, Investment and Finance

The Implications of EC – Seal Products for the Protection
of Core Labour Standards in WTO Law . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
Thomas Cottier
The WTO and Child Labour: Implications for the Debate
on International Constitutionalism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93
Franziska Humbert
Labour Standards and Trade: Need We Choose Between ‘Human Rights’
and ‘Sustainable Development’? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113
Tonia Novitz
Civil Society Meetings in EU Free Trade Agreements: The Purposes
Unravelled . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135
Jan Orbie, Lore Van den Putte, and Deborah Martens

vii
viii Contents

Comparative Conclusions on Arbitral Dispute Settlement in Trade-

Labour Matters Under US FTAs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153
Patrick Abel
An Individual Labour Complaint Procedure for Workers, Trade
Unions, Employers and NGOs in Future Free Trade Agreements . . . . . 185
Henner G€ott
Implications of CETA and TTIP on Social Standards . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 211
Reingard Zimmer
Mainstreaming Investment-Labour Linkage Through ‘Mega-Regional’
Trade Agreements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 233
Henner G€
ott and Till Patrik Holterhus
Labour Standards and the World Bank. Analysing the Potential of
Safeguard Policies for Protecting Workers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 273
Franz Christian Ebert

Part III Business Conduct and Labour Standards

Soft Standards and Hard Consequences: Why Transnational Companies
Commit to Respect International Labour and Social Standards,
and How This Relates to Business and Regulation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 307
Katja Gehne
The Promotion of Labour Standards Through International Framework
Agreements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 319
Rüdiger Krause
Transnational Labour Litigation: The Ups and Downs Under the Alien
Tort Statute . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 341
Anja Seibert-Fohr
Promoting Labour Standards in Global Supply Chains Through
Consumers’ Choice: Is Social Labelling Effective? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 355
Nazli Aghazadeh

Part IV Labour Standards in International Economic Law: A Proposal

for Practice
A Model Labour Chapter for Future EU Trade Agreements . . . . . . . . . 381
Peter-Tobias Stoll, Henner G€ott, and Patrick Abel
Contributors

Patrick Abel Georg-August-University Göttingen, Institute of International and

European Law, Göttingen, Germany
Nazli Aghazadeh Georg-August-University Göttingen, Institute of International
and European Law, Göttingen, Germany
Thomas Cottier University of Berne, World Trade Institute, Berne, Switzerland
Franz Christian Ebert Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and
International Law, Heidelberg, Germany
Katja Gehne BASF, Ludwigshafen, Germany
Henner G€ott Georg-August-University Göttingen, Institute of International and
European Law, Göttingen, Germany
Till Patrik Holterhus Georg-August-University Göttingen, Institute of Interna-
tional and European Law, Göttingen, Germany
Claire La Hovary University of Glasgow, School of Law, Glasgow, Scotland
Franziska Humbert University of Berne, Berne, Switzerland
Oxfam Germany, Berlin, Germany
udiger Krause Georg-August-University Göttingen, Institute of Labour Law,
R€
Göttingen, Germany
Deborah Martens Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium
Tonia Novitz University of Bristol Law School, Bristol, UK
Jan Orbie Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium
Lore Van den Putte Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium
Anja Seibert-Fohr Ruprecht-Karls-University, Heidelberg, Germany

ix
x Contributors

Peter-Tobias Stoll Georg-August-University G€ottingen, Institute of International

and European Law, G€ottingen, Germany
Anne Trebilcock Georg-August-University G€ottingen, Institute of Labour Law,
G€
ottingen, Germany
Former Legal Adviser and Director of Legal Services, International Labour Orga-
nization, Geneva, Switzerland
Reingard Zimmer Berlin School of Economics and Law, Berlin, Germany
Labour Standards in International
Economic Law: An Introduction

Henner G€
ott

Content
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

The ever-progressing globalization of the economy and the growing economic

interdependence of states has a profound and lasting impact on the world of labour.
As the International Labour Organization (ILO) has pointed out in its 2008 Decla-
ration on Social Justice for a Fair Globalization, this impact is ambivalent:
[O]n the one hand, the process of economic cooperation and integration has helped a
number of countries to benefit from high rates of economic growth and employment
creation, to absorb many of the rural poor into the modern urban economy, to advance
their developmental goals, and to foster innovation in product development and the
circulation of ideas[.]
[O]n the other hand, global economic integration has caused many countries and sectors
to face major challenges of income inequality, continuing high levels of unemployment and
poverty, vulnerability of economies to external shocks, and the growth of both unprotected
work and the informal economy, which impact on the employment relationship and the
protections it can offer.1

Against this backdrop, securing and improving adequate levels of worker pro-
tection while preserving the benefits of globalization has become an issue of utmost
importance.2 What is at stake is not only to ensure effective compliance and
implementation as a factual matter. Rather, there is also the normative question
which level of protection is adequate, or, in other words, how labour standards
should be protected and promoted in the light of the challenges posed by a

1
ILO Declaration on Social Justice for a Fair Globalization, adopted on 10 June 2008.
2
The ILO has conceptualized this question in its Decent Work Agenda, as laid down in its 2008
Declaration on Social Justice for a Fair Globalization. See International Labour Office (1999) and
Vosko (2002).

H. G€ott (*)
Georg-August-University G€
ottingen, Institute of International and European Law, G€
ottingen,
Germany
e-mail: hgoett@gwdg.de

© Springer International Publishing AG 2018 1

H. Gött (ed.), Labour Standards in International Economic Law,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-69447-4_1
2 H. G€
ott

globalized economy.3 Given the complexity of both the factual and the normative
dimension, it can hardly be surprising that no coherent, sustainable and satisfying
solution has been identified so far.
The status quo is that the protection and promotion of labour standards within the
context of economic globalization is dealt with in numerous contexts, which have
spawned a variety of different and disparate approaches both within and beyond the
confines of international law.4
Within the realm of international law, the two areas of prime relevance are
international labour law on the one hand and international economic law on the
other.
International labour law is concerned with the formulation and implementation
of internationally recognized labour standards, rights and policies. With its origins
dating back to the so-called ‘first globalization’ at the end of the nineteenth century,
it has demonstrated remarkable long-term viability.5 The ILO, the central interna-
tional organization in the field, has developed a comprehensive body of treaties,
recommendations, declarations and other instruments and a rich organizational
practice on the creation and implementation of labour standards. As to the current
economic globalization, the ILO has engaged in various initiatives to secure
adherence and to further promote labour standards.6 For one part, it has engaged
in both revisions and a prioritization of its numerous instruments. This resulted,
most prominently, in the identification of fundamental labour standards in the 1998
Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Righta at Work, which has become a
point of reference both for a realignment of resources and activities inside the ILO
and for numerous instruments and initiatives developed elsewhere. Moreover, the
ILO has defined and committed to pursue strategic objectives (job creation, fun-
damental principles and rights at work, social protection and social dialogue, as
well as gender equality as a crosscutting objective) in its Decent Work Agenda,
manifested in its 2008 Declaration on Social Justice for a Fair Globalization. At the
same time, the ILO has continued to experience major challenges to its work, both
internally and externally, some of which have the potential to substantially com-
promise its impact and, ultimately, even its relevance.
The second central body of law, international economic law, including interna-
tional trade law as well as international investment law and the law of international
financial institutions, frames and accompanies economic globalization through a

3
This normative dimension is relevant both for those concerned with positive international law and
those concerned with developing and changing this law as a matter of politics.
4
To promote coherence between these contexts has time and again amounted to a challenge in
itself. A prominent example is the—eventually unsuccessful—attempt to introduce labour stan-
dards into the law and practice of the WTO, on this see e.g. Leary (1997) and Weiss (2005).
Another example is the lengthy struggle to achieve at least some coherence between the so-called
EWI indicators used in the World Bank’s Doing Business Reports and the implementation and
further promotion of ILO conventions, Bakvis (2009).
5
On the origins and development see Servais (2014), p. 19 et seqq.
6
Maupain (2013), p. 51 et seqq.
Labour Standards in International Economic Law: An Introduction 3

rapidly developing body of norms. These norms are mostly laid down in multilat-
eral, regional and bilateral treaties and are significantly developed further by the
practice of powerful international organizations, such as the World Trade Organi-
zation (WTO), the Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development
(OECD) or the Bretton Woods Institutions. These treaties and organizational
practices have had a profound impact on the current state of economic globaliza-
tion. In this context, they have also contributed to (re-)configuring the parameters
within which contemporary industrial relations take place. That being said, labour
standards have never been a central concern in international economic law—
indeed, they have at times been facing outright opposition.7 Yet, their role appears
to be slowly increasing at least in certain areas, for example in the context of
regional trade agreements.8
While international economic law and international labour law are two central
fields of concern, it would be negligent not to look beyond these two bodies of law.
With the international legal order being more developed and multifaceted than ever
before in history, it is only natural that the issue of protecting and promoting labour
standards in the globalized economy also touches on other areas of international
law, such as international institutional law or international human rights law.9
Certain human rights guarantees in regional and universal human rights instruments
have become central points of reference, like Art. 11 ECHR and the corresponding
jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights, to name one prominent
example. In a similar vein, there are important links to the level of domestic law.10
What is more, labour standards play an increasing role in transnational economic
and social self-regulation by non-state actors. Non-state actors, such as enterprises,
trade unions and NGOs, have always played an important part in the formulation
and implementation of labour standards, both on the domestic and the international
level.11 As economic globalization coincides with diminishing regulatory capaci-
ties of states, self-regulation by non-state actors becomes more relevant also for
other parts of the international economic order.12 Many non-state actors have
developed own approaches to the protection and promotion of labour standards,

7
See e.g. the WTO’s refusal to include labour standards in its work, as prominently spelled out in
Singapore Ministerial Declaration, 18 Dec 1996, WT/MIN(96)/DEC, para. 4.
8
Including in recent major trade agreements, see e.g. Chapter 23 CETA. According to a 2016 ILO
study, ‘nearly half of trade agreements with labour provisions came into existence since 2008 and
over 80 per cent of agreements entering into force since 2013 included them’, ILO (2016), p. 22.
9
See e.g. Kolben (2010) and Swepston (2013).
10
As a general matter, international labour law heavily relies and depends on its implementation
through national legislators and authorities, see e.g. the obligations in Art. 19 (5) ILO Constitution.
Moreover, the issue of protecting labour standards in a globalized economy can become relevant in
civil litigation before domestic courts, see e.g. the pending case of Regional Court (Landgericht)
Dortmund, Mohammad Jabir et al. v. KiK Textilien und Non-Food GmbH, Case-No.7 O 95/15.
11
The most prominent example is the ILO’s tripartite structure, Art. 3 (1) and Art. 7 (1) ILO
Constitution. On further examples see Hepple (2005), p. 69 et seqq.
12
For a more general account see Peters et al. (2009).
4 H. G€
ott

some of which are transcending (or even clearly lying beyond) the realm of
international law in the traditional sense. Intricate examples for unilateral or
contractual cross-border self-regulation by enterprises, trade unions and NGOs
can be found in corporate codes of conduct, international framework agreements
or social labelling schemes.13 While evidently introducing normative propositions
on labour standards in globalization, the legal quality and relevance of these private
initiatives remain—at least from an international lawyer’s point of view—highly
uncertain.
The approaches to the protection and promotion of labour standards that can be
found in each of the aforementioned areas differ significantly as to their respective
rationale, scope, means and efficacy. Each of them has its own objectives, charac-
teristics, potentials and pitfalls. These divergencies in substance go along with a
considerable separation, and at times isolation, of professional and epistemic
communities of those who are concerned with international economic law and
those concerned with the protection and promotion of labour standards, both in
academia and in practice. This multidimensional fragmentation has repeatedly
resulted in remarkable misunderstandings, such as an unbalanced perception of
labour standards as mere obstacles to doing business, or unfortunate limitations of
political debates, e.g. when the question of how to improve labour chapters in trade
agreements is reduced to the issue whether these chapters should be enforceable by
temporary suspensions of trade benefits (so-called ‘trade sanctions’) or not. Perhaps
more than ever before, there is a need for increased coherence between approaches,
as there is a need for enhanced mutual understanding between communities.
This volume addresses some of the most pressing issues arising at the tangent of
international economic law and international labour standards. It deliberately
adopts a comprehensive perspective, covering the manifold approaches and the
different professional backgrounds mentioned above. Its aim is to provide analysis
and assessment of the law and practice, to broaden the perspective beyond
sub-fields and communities and to combine the threads in a single volume in
order to provide guidance to academics and practitioners who are facing the
challenge of securing adequate levels of worker protection in the globalized
economy.
The first part of the volume prepares the ground for the discussions in the
subsequent parts by elucidating the historical, organizational and conceptual back-
ground which informs labour standards and their role in international economic law
today.
The protection and promotion of labour standards in the international economic
order is by no means a new issue. As Peter-Tobias Stoll points out in his contribu-
tion, it has been a recurring issue ever since the end of the nineteenth century. In
order to shed light on the multiple connections and divisions between the economic
and social dimensions of international law and relations, he embarks on a historical
and analytical tour d’horizon. Claire La Hovary picks up in the present, assessing

13
See e.g. Davarnejad (2011), Burkett (2011) and Seidman (2009).
Labour Standards in International Economic Law: An Introduction 5

the ILO’s mandate and capacity to create, proliferate and supervise labour standards
in the globalized economy. Tripartism, the ILO’s most important foundational
feature, and its operationalization have come under severe pressure in the course
of the ILO’s post-2012 constitutional crisis. Yet, despite current difficulties,
La Hovary argues that ‘the current crisis affecting the ILO also suggests that the
organization does matter, as does its supervisory system’. While the ILO will
remain an institution of paramount importance in the field, it must not be
overlooked that contemporary labour law has transcended the traditional structures
of domestic and international law. It operates, in the words of Anne Trebilcock,
‘within, between and beyond States to form a type of (imperfect and incomplete)
multi-layered global governance’. In her contribution, Trebilcock points out why
this shift from international to transnational labour law matters for labour standards.
She concludes that transnational labour law’s ‘broader vision of reuniting the social
and the economic [. . .] seems at least theoretically better placed to test different
solutions until the most promising can emerge within a particular context’.
After the scene is set, the contributions in the volume’s second part explore the
role of labour standards in the most prominent fields of international economic law,
which are trade, investment and finance.
Given that initiatives to include provisions on labour into the multilateral trade
regime failed both in the case of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade
(GATT) and again when establishing the WTO, Thomas Cottier explores whether
the recent WTO EC - Seals case will be of help in this regard. He concludes that the
WTO’s case law is worth studying and that such studies will likely reveal some
policy space ‘to support and pursue labour standards and human rights abroad,
using the means and instruments of trade policy in a well-calibrated manner’.
Franziska Humbert, in focusing on child labour, advocates in favour of an
ILO-WTO implementation mechanism. This institutional solution, she argues,
can be seen in line with a ‘constitutionalist approach’.
Many of the preferential trade agreements that have recently been concluded or
are currently being negotiated to try to rectify the WTO’s refusal to address labour
standards. As Tonia Novitz explains, in EU trade agreements, there is ‘an apparent
shift away from a human rights [. . .] perspective to one more focused on sustainable
development’, which in her view warrants caution. The same holds true in view of the
involvement of the civil society in this context, as Jan Orbie, Lore Van den Putte and
Deborah Martens conclude after a look to the actual practice of such civil society
mechanisms in the light of their objectives. Their analysis reveals that civil society
involvement in free trade agreements lacks a clear definition of purpose. As they put
it: ‘It appears unclear what exactly civil society should be doing in this regard.’
The relevance of labour provisions in trade agreements largely depends on their
implementation and enforcement mechanisms. The North American Free Trade
Area (NAFTA) side agreement on labour employed a specific arbitration model,
which the US has used, with certain modifications, in its subsequent trade agree-
ments. As Patrick Abel points out in his comparative analysis, however, these
mechanisms suffer from ‘an unsuitable procedural and institutional design’,
which may explain that the mechanisms have only poorly been used and have not
6 H. G€
ott

lived up to expectations. Drawing from these findings, Henner G€ ott explores the
potential of ‘an Individual Labour Complaint Procedure for Workers, Trade
Unions, Employers and NGOs in Future Free Trade Agreements’. This proposal
is aiming at endowing those actors which have a genuine interest in the implemen-
tation of labour chapters in trade agreements with the procedural means to do so,
thus enhancing the chapter’s overall performance. The debate on labour chapters in
trade agreements has an immediate and continuing practical relevance. The
EU-Canada Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA), which was
signed in October 2016 and is being provisionally applied at the time of this writing,
has received widespread public attention and criticism in Europe. The same is true
for the envisaged EU-US Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP),
which, despite its fate being uncertain after the last presidential election in the USA,
is likely to remain a point of reference in future trade negotiations. Reingard
Zimmer analyses these agreements with a special focus on social standards. She is
particularly concerned about the far-reaching mechanisms for regulatory coopera-
tion and investment protection.
Next to trade provisions, investment liberalization and protection is an integral
part of recent trade agreements. Henner G€ ott and Till Patrik Holterhus discuss
whether the combination of investment and labour chapters in recent free trade
agreements may enhance the role of labour standards in international investment
law. They conclude that there are indeed ‘opportunities to promote an adequate
balance of investor and labour concerns’, but the provisions in contemporary
agreements and drafts ‘do not in themselves sufficiently steer towards this goal’.
Besides trade and investment, the law of international financial institutions is the
third important pillar of international economic law. In historical perspective, the
World Bank Group member organizations’ approaches to labour standards have
repeatedly led to conflicts and critique. Franz Christian Ebert explains that, in
2016, the World Bank has ‘for the first time [set out] detailed labour standards
requirements for both the Bank’s staff and its borrowers’, which, however, have
their shortcomings.
The volume’s third part addresses the numerous and diverse non-state actor
approaches to enhance the protection and promotion of labour standards in the
globalized economy.
The inclusion of labour standards in self-imposed corporate codes of conduct has
received wide resonance in academia and practice, including both appraisal and
critique. Katja Gehne approaches this phenomenon from a practitioner’s point of
view. Finding that ‘soft standards at the international level have emerged as a
standard of responsible business management’, she argues that they ‘could be part
of a (para-)legal answer to deficiencies of national states’ human rights protection
systems’. To step in governance gaps is also the purpose of joint endeavors of trade
union federations and multinational groups to strengthen labour standards in cor-
porate governance by way of international framework agreements. In his contribu-
tion, R€
udiger Krause highlights that the success of such agreements largely depends
on them being implemented in strong and resilient industrial relations, which in turn
they are able to reinforce. Therefore, he calls for the conclusion of more robust
Labour Standards in International Economic Law: An Introduction 7

international framework agreements in the future. Exploring unilateral enforcement

of international labour standards through adjudicatory means, Anja Seibert-Fohr
discusses the domestic enforcement of international labour standards under the US
Alien Tort Claims Act. While recent decisions have put up considerable substantive
and procedural hurdles, she concludes that ‘the door is not closed and federal courts
are still in the process of delimiting the exact scope of ATS litigation’. She argues
that jurisdiction could and should be assumed in cases of violations of sufficiently
established international labour standards with a territorial link to the USA. Turning
to more indirect and promotional approaches, Nazli Aghazadeh examines the
effectiveness of social labelling to implement labour standards along global supply
chains. Using the example of three social labelling schemes, she finds that all three
of these schemes by and large fail to minimize the ‘information asymmetry’
between consumers and producers, mainly because of NGOs’ lack of capacity to
monitor producers’ adherence to the schemes. She proposes that this issue be
addressed by regulation and cooperation with the ILO.
Instead of a summing up, the volume’s fourth part offers a conclusion of a
different kind. Peter-Tobias Stoll, Henner G€ ott and Patrick Abel present a textual
proposal for a labour chapter to be included in future EU trade agreements. This
model labour chapter has been published and publicly debated in the context of
pending EU trade negotiations and revisions of major trade agreements. It has been
informed by—and is in many ways the result of—the extensive research, analyses
and discussions conducted on the protection and promotion of labour standards in
international economic law in politics, society and academia. The model labour
chapter aims at making a practical and constructive contribution to the ongoing
debate on the protection and promotion of labour standards in the globalized
economy.

References

Bakvis P (2009) The World Bank’s doing business report: a last fling for the Washington
consensus? Transfer: Eur Rev Labour Res 15(3–4):419–438
Burkett BW (2011) International framework agreements: an emerging international regulatory
approach or a passing European phenomenon. Can Labour Employ Law J 16(1):81–114
Davarnejad L (2011) In the shadow of soft law: the handling of corporate social responsibility
disputes under the OECD guidelines for multinational enterprises. J Dispute Resolut 2011
(2):351–385
Hepple B (2005) Labour laws and global trade. Hart Publishing, Oxford
ILO (1999) Decent work: Report of the Director-General to the International Labour Conference,
87th Session 1999. ILO, Geneva
ILO (2016) Assessment of labour provisions in trade and investment agreements. Studies on
growth with equity. ILO, Geneva
Kolben K (2010) Labor rights as human rights? Virginia Journal of International Law 50:449–484
Leary VA (1997) The WTO and the social clause: post-Singapore. Eur J Int Law (1):118–122
Maupain F (2013) The future of the International Labour Organization in the global economy.
Hart, Oxford
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Peters A, Koechlin L, F€
orster T, Zinkernagel F (eds) (2009) Non-state actors as standard setters.
Cambridge University Press, Cambridge
Seidman G (2009) Social labeling in export supply chains: can voluntary certification programs
end child labor? India in transition. University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia
Servais J-M (2014) International labour law, 4th edn. Kluwer Law International, Alphen an den
Rhijn
Swepston L (2013) The International Labour Organization and international human rights system.
In: Sheeran S, Sir Rodley N (eds) Routledge handbook of international human rights law.
Routledge, London, pp 339–352
Vosko LF (2002) ‘Decent work’: the shifting role of the ILO and the struggle for global social
justice. Glob Soc Policy 2(1):19–46
Weiss F (2005) Trade and labor I. In: Macrory PFJ, Appleton AE, Plummer MG (eds) The World
Trade Organization: legal, economic and political analysis, vol II. Springer, New York, pp
571–596
 Part I
Setting the Scene
International Economic and Social
Dimensions: Divided or Connected?

Peter-Tobias Stoll

Contents
1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
2 The Interwar Period: The International Labour Organization and Stubborn Nationalism
in Economic Affairs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
3 Uniting Economic and Social Dimensions? Early Institution Building After World
War II . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
3.1 The ILO and the 1944 Philadelphia Declaration as an Early Starter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
3.2 The World Bank Group and Keynesian Thought . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
3.3 The United Nations: World Economic and Social Governance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
3.4 The Universal Declaration of Human Rights: Social Rights and Human Rights . . . . 17
3.5 The 1948 Havana Charter: A World Economic and Social Order Under the Auspices
of the UN . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
3.6 An Early Divide: The GATT Agreement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
3.7 In Sum: Important Achievements and Pragmatic Promotion of Economic
Cooperation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
4 Development as a ‘Social’ Concern and the New International Economic Order . . . . . . . . . 20
4.1 International Investments in Focus: CSR and International Investment Law . . . . . . . . 22
4.1.1 From the United Nations Code of Conduct on Transnational Corporations
to Corporate Social Responsibility . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
4.1.2 The Emergence of International Investment Law . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
4.2 The Development of the Global Human Rights System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
4.3 In Sum: Ideologic Battles and Some Progress . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
5 The ‘Era of Globalization’ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
5.1 Sustainable Development: The 1992 Rio Conference . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
5.2 The Establishment of the World Trade Organization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
5.3 Social Development and Decent Work: UN and ILO Activities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
5.4 Labour Clauses in GSPs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29

P.-T. Stoll (*)

Georg-August-University G€
ottingen, Institute of International and European Law, G€
ottingen,
Germany
e-mail: pstoll@gwdg.de

© Springer International Publishing AG 2018 11

H. Gött (ed.), Labour Standards in International Economic Law,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-69447-4_2
12 P.-T. Stoll

5.5 Labour Clauses in Free Trade Agreements and Bilateral Investment Agreements . . 29
5.6 Corporate Social Responsibility . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
5.7 Summary: Diversity of Approaches and Bilateralism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
6 Analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33

1 Introduction

The recent discussions on trade and labour standards as reflected in this book mirror
the widespread concern that today’s international legal framework for globalization
does not sufficiently address labour conditions and, more generally, social justice.1
As is often observed, it appears that globalization moves on with the help of
creating and further developing international ‘economic’ institutions and rules,
while the ‘social’ aspects are left behind and marginalized. Often, this goes along
with statements indicating that economic and social concerns have been more
closely linked in the past and that they should come this close again. A historical
and analytical tour d’horizon might help to give context to the recent discussion by
offering a short overview over a bit more than a century of international relations
and some reflections on what has been understood to be ‘economic’ and ‘social’ and
how the two are or should be interrelated.

2 The Interwar Period: The International Labour

Organization and Stubborn Nationalism in Economic
Affairs

A look to the past may start with the establishment of the International Labour
Organization in the aftermath of World War I in 1919. Indeed, the establishment of
this organization as a part of the Versailles peace treaty has made labour conditions
and social justice a permanent international concern, closely linked to peace.2 In its
preamble, the ILO constitution explicitly states that a ‘universal and lasting peace
can be established only if it is based upon social justice’3 and furthermore acknowl-
edges that ‘conditions of labour exist involving such injustice, hardship and priva-
tion to large numbers of people as to produce unrest so great that the peace and

1
See for instance, the labour chapters in prominent free trade agreements: Chapter 23 Trade and
Labour of the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) and Chapter 19 Labor of
the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), consolidated text available at https://ustr.gov/trade-agree
ments/free-trade-agreements/trans-pacific-partnership/tpp-full-text. Accessed 22 Dec 2016.
2
Treaty of Peace between the Allied and Associated Powers and Germany, signed at Versailles,
28 June 1919, 225 CTS 188, Part XIII Labour; see also Schorkopf (2010).
3
Preamble (1) ILO Constitution, signed 28 June 1919, 15 UNTS 30, 15 UNTS 40.
International Economic and Social Dimensions: Divided or Connected? 13

harmony of the world are imperilled’.4 Drawing from earlier international devel-
opments, including international conferences convened and some international
agreements concluded to improve the situation of workers before World War I,5
the ILO was tasked with the creation of international labour standards. ILO
activities in this regard were quite successful.6 However, these improvements of
labour conditions hardly came to bearing, as the working class, just as the societies
at large, greatly suffered from the world economic crisis.7
This economic crisis has been importantly aggravated by the lack of willingness
of States to cooperate. Instead, a beggar-thy-neighbour policy8 prevailed, with
governments resorting to national approaches at the expense of other states. The
League of Nations was poorly equipped to address the issue as it was neither
mandated to do so nor had institutional structures at hand. Both the 1922 Genoa9
and the 1933 London10 conference failed to achieve a consensus of States to jointly
address the challenges of the world economic crisis.11
When looking at this period, it appears fair to conclude that it has seen impres-
sive international progress in labour rights, while turning the working classes into
mass unemployment and misery as a result of the inability of governments to
cooperate to cope with the great depression and the world economic crisis and a
general destabilization of Europe in the wake of World War II.12

3 Uniting Economic and Social Dimensions? Early

Institution Building After World War II

This important failure has been quite influential in the process of institution building
after World War II. As early as 1941, the leaders of the United Kingdom and the
United States, Churchill and Roosevelt, laid down their visions for the future world
order in the Atlantic Charter.13 The document can be understood as an embryonic
master plan for the establishment of the later United Nations and the post-war world
order, prominently featuring its economic and social dimensions. The Atlantic
Charter addresses economic issues like liberalization and non-discrimination in

4
Preamble (2) ILO Constitution, signed 28 June 1919, 15 UNTS 30, 15 UNTS 40.
5
Such as the Convention respecting the Prohibition of Night Work for Women in Industrial
Employment, signed 26 September 1906, 203 CTS 4; see Sauer (2014).
6
Troclet (1952), p. 421 and Haas (1964), pp. 148 et seqq.
7
Adamthwaite (2016), pp. 216 et seqq. and Overy (2016), pp. 99 et seqq.
8
Bowles (2009), p. 127 et seqq. and Overy (2010), pp. 53 et seqq.
9
Conference of Genoa, 10 April–19 May, 1922; Overy (2010), pp. 53 et seqq.
10
The London Economic Conference, 12–27 July 1933; see Clarke (1973), pp. 19 et seqq.
11
See Clarke (1973), p. 2.
12
Haas (1964), pp. 154–155; Troclet (1952), pp. 422 and 710 and Rodgers et al. (2009), pp. 97 et seq.
13
United States, Office of War Information, Division of Public Inquiries (1941) The Atlantic
Charter. http://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc581/. Accessed 22 Dec 2016.
14 P.-T. Stoll

trade, access to raw materials and economic prosperity,14 economic advancement

and a cooperation of States in economic matters, and at the same time alludes to the
social dimension in mentioning labour standards and social security.15 ‘Economic
advancement’ in this context can be considered to address both social and economic
issues.16 To the more, in alluding to a freedom from fear and want,17 a wording that
Roosevelt had introduced some months earlier in his State of the Union Address, the
Charter introduces a key term for the later development of human rights.18 In
Roosevelt’s words: ‘freedom from want (. . .), translated into world terms, means
economic understandings which will secure to every nation a healthy peacetime life
for its inhabitants—everywhere in the world.’19

3.1 The ILO and the 1944 Philadelphia Declaration as an

Early Starter

In the early institutional building after World War II, there was a short moment
when the International Labour Organization was considered to play a major role
also in cooperation for economic policy-making. The so-called Philadelphia Dec-
laration, adopted in 1944 at the 26th International Labour Conference in Philadel-
phia, envisaged that the ILO should play a central role in economic policy-making
by endowing it with a competence to scrutinize the work of other international
economic organizations as to social aspects.20 The declaration reiterates the rele-
vance of social justice for a lasting peace and goes on in stating that
all human beings, irrespective of race, creed or sex, have the right to pursue both their
material well-being and their spiritual development in conditions of freedom and dignity, of
economic security and equal opportunity (II a).

14
The fourth paragraph of the Charter reads: ‘Fourth, [the United Kingdom and the United States]
will endeavor . . . to further the enjoyment by all States, great or small, victor or vanquished, of
access, on equal terms, to the trade and to the raw materials of the world which are needed for their
economic prosperity;’ (emphasis added).
15
The fifth paragraph of the Charter reads: ‘Fifth, they desire to bring about the fullest collabo-
ration between all nations in the economic field with the object of securing, for all, improved labor
standards, economic advancement and social security;’ (emphasis added).
16
Ibid.
17
The sixth paragraph of the Charter reads: ‘Sixth, after the final destruction of the Nazi tyranny,
they hope to see established a peace which will afford to all nations the means of dwelling in safety
within their own boundaries, and which will afford assurance that all the men in all lands may live
out their lives in freedom from fear and want; ‘(emphasis added).
18
The term resurfaces e.g. in the preamble of the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights,
UN GA Res. 217(III) A.
19
Roosevelt (1941).
20
ILO Declaration Concerning the Aims and Purposes of the International Labour Organisation
(Declaration of Philadelphia), adopted on 10 May 1944.
International Economic and Social Dimensions: Divided or Connected? 15

The declaration went on in stating that

(b) the attainment of the conditions in which this shall be possible must constitute a central
aim of national and international policy;

(c) all national and international policies and measures, in particular those of an economic
and financial character, should be judged in this light and accepted only insofar as they may
be held to promote and not to hinder the achievement of this fundamental objective;

(d) it is a responsibility of the International Labour Organization to examine and consider

all international economic and financial policies and measures in the light of this funda-
mental objective;

(e) in discharging the tasks entrusted to it the International Labour Organization, having
considered all relevant economic and financial factors, may include in its decisions and
recommendations any provisions which it considers appropriate. (II lit. a, b, c, d and e).

The Philadelphia Declaration, which eventually was annexed to the revised ILO
Constitution in 1946, can be seen as a milestone in view of the ILO and its work. It has
importantly broadened the objectives of the organization in applying a more general
and human-rights-type language and in referring to economic security as a broader
term, encompassing both macroeconomic elements as well as a human rights-type
approach.21 However, the aspirations concerning the role of the ILO as voiced in the
declaration were obviously too ambitious and at the same time not specific enough to
materialize. At the time of the adoption of the Philadelphia Declaration, plans were
underway firstly to create much more specific and functional international structures
and secondly to establish a much broader and general international organization,
namely the United Nations.22 Obviously, the protagonists of the United Nations
were eager to equip that organization with the maximum amount of competencies
and were reluctant to give established pre-war institutions much of a say.23

3.2 The World Bank Group and Keynesian Thought

The formation of today’s international system after World War II has particularly
focused on this aspect of economic cooperation, which had been combined from the
very beginning with a social dimension. Alongside to the establishment of the
United Nations, the World Bank Group was founded.24 The International Bank

21
Maul (2012), pp. 83 et seqq. and Monteiro (2014), pp. 213 et seqq.
22
Swepston (2013), pp. 339 et seqq.
23
UN, Report of the Preparatory Commission, 23 Dec 1945, PC/20, pp. 40 et seqq.; Haas (1964),
p. 163 and Meng (2012), Art. 57, paras. 31 et seqq.
24
The World Bank Group is comprised by five institutions: The International Bank for Recon-
struction and Development (IBRD), The International Development Association (IDA), The
International Finance Cooperation (IFC), The Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency
(MIGA) and The International Centre for Settlement of Investment Dispute (ICSID). See on the
nomenclature Ragazzi (2014), mn. 1 et seq.
16 P.-T. Stoll

for Reconstruction and Development, now known as the World Bank, was
established already in July 1944 as an institution to finance the reconstruction of
those countries and regions devastated by World War II.25 To the more, the World
Bank had a more general mandate to finance development, which today is its main
purpose. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) as established in December 1945
was designed as a mechanism for a joint response to monetary problems.26
The founding documents of both these instruments are noteworthy as they
clearly involve a social element. According to Art. I (III) of its Articles of Agree-
ment,27 the purpose of the World Bank is
[t]o promote the long-range balanced growth of international trade and the maintenance of
equilibrium in balances of payments by encouraging international investment for the
development of the productive resources of members.

However, the provision goes on in adding

thereby assisting in raising productivity, the standard of living and conditions of labor in
their territories.

Accordingly, Art. I of the IMF’s Articles of Agreement28 set out that the purpose
of the Fund is
(ii) [t]o facilitate the expansion and balanced growth of inter-national trade, and to
contribute thereby to the promotion and maintenance of high levels of employment and
real income and to the development of the productive resources of all members as primary
objectives of economic policy.

Both these institutions were deeply influenced by Keynesian thought and moreover
by John Maynard Keynes in person, who acted as a British delegate in those negoti-
ations.29 As is well known, the inclusion of employment and the raising of incomes
into the agenda of economic policymaking has been one of his most significant
findings.30

3.3 The United Nations: World Economic and Social

Governance

The formation of the United Nations as the universal and general organization
follows this pattern. The most visible institutional manifestation of the close link
between economic and social issues certainly has been the establishment of the

25
Articles of Agreement of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, 27 Dec
1945, 2 UNTS 134.
26
Articles of Agreement of the International Monetary Fund, 22 July 1944, 2 UNTS 39.
27
See Fn. 26.
28
See Fn. 27.
29
For an overview see e.g. Kitanovic and Kozuharov (2012), pp. 83 et seqq.
30
See for instance: Keynes (1935).
International Economic and Social Dimensions: Divided or Connected? 17

Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) as one of the principal organs of the
organization.31 In substantial terms, the link is most importantly reflected by Art.
55 UN Charter, which can be seen as the ‘work programme’ of ECOSOC. It
reiterates the link between peace and economic and social progress as originally
introduced by the ILO Constitution. Moreover, it is much more explicit about
economic aspects, including their social dimension. In this vein, Art. 55 lit. a refers to
higher standards of living, full employment, and conditions of economic and social
progress and development;

and in this way alludes to the Keynesian ideas as reflected in the Articles of
Agreements of the World Bank and the IMF. Art. 55 (b), jointly with Art. 56, calls
for a co-operation in matters of inter alia ‘economic, social, health, and related
problems’ and (c) addresses the issue of human rights.32

3.4 The Universal Declaration of Human Rights: Social

Rights and Human Rights

In 1948, the General Assembly adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights
(UDHR),33 which set out the UN human rights agenda for the years to come and can
be seen as a forerunner for the two 1966 United Nations Human Rights Cove-
nants.34 Most importantly and in contrast to the constitutions of many member
States, the UDHR embraces both political and civil as well as economic and social
rights. In the latter regard, it features a number of rights which have a close
connection to labour standards and rights, as is true for instance for the right to
form unions (Art. 23 (4)), the right to equal pay (Art. 23 (2)), the right to rest and
leisure, a reasonable limitation of working hours and periodic holidays with pay
(Art. 24). Furthermore, a number of rights reflect the idea of social security, just as
the right to protection against unemployment (Art. 23 (1)) and the right to a just and
favourable remuneration and means of social protection (Art. 23 (3)). Furthermore
and without a link to labour and employment, the UDHR in the sense of more
general social rights stipulates in Art. 25 (1) a right to an adequate
standard of living (...) including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary
social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability,
widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control.

Altogether, the Declaration is a cornerstone of the international human rights

system and its further development. It is even more relevant in the context discussed

31
Art. 61 UN Charter.
32
Stoll (2012), Art 55 (a) and (b), paras. 12–13 and Riedel and Arend (2012), Art 55 (c), para. 8.
33
Universal Declaration of Human Rights, UN GA Res. 217(III) A.
34
International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, 16 Dec 1966, 993 UNTS 3;
International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, 16 Dec 1966, 999 UNTS 171.
18 P.-T. Stoll

here, as it explicitly stipulates ‘social’ rights, and thereby translates ideas of social
justice into individual entitlements.

3.5 The 1948 Havana Charter: A World Economic

and Social Order Under the Auspices of the UN

Within the United Nations and more particularly under the aegis of ECOSOC,
initiatives have been taken to establish an institutional framework and rules for the
world economy in conformity with the more general objectives and principles
voiced by Art. 55 UN Charter.
Driven by quite some optimism as to what world governance may achieve in
international economic relations, an agreement was negotiated in this regard, which
included a number of issues, such as trade, economic development, raw materials and
competition. To implement and administer these rules, an international organization,
named the International Trade Organization was envisaged, which was supposed to
work as a specialized agency under the supervision of ECOSOC.35 This impressive
international instrument, named the Havana Charter,36 did address several pertinent
economic policy issues. This is true for Chapter III on economic development and
reconstruction as well as for Chapter VI on commodities and commodity agreements.
Even more impressive is its chapter II on ‘employment and economic activity’,
which links economic and social dimensions in several ways. Arts. 2 to 6 reflect
contemporary—or more clearly: Keynesian—economic thought by calling for
employment and economic growth and by addressing some particular aspects of
economic policy. The often-cited Art. 7 relates to ‘fair labour standards’ and this
way links to the work of the ILO. The article acknowledges
that measures relating to employment must take fully into account the rights of workers
under inter-governmental declarations, conventions and agreements.

Furthermore, the provision speaks about the ‘common interest of members in the
achievement in maintenance of fair labour standards related to productivity and
thus in the improvement of wages and working conditions as productivity may
permit.’ Also, Art. 7 (1) Havana Charter addresses the linkage to trade in pointing
out that unfair labour conditions may create difficulties in international trade. At
this point, Art.7 Havana Charter called on members to take whatever action may be
appropriate and feasible to eliminate such conditions within its territory. It further-
more envisages consultations and a co-operation with the ILO.37

35
Stoll (2012), Art 55 (a) and (b), para. 44.
36
Havana Charter for an International Trade Organization, 24 March 1948, UN Doc E/CONF.2/78.
37
Art 7 (3) of the Havana Charter reads: ‘In all matters relating to labour standards [. . .] it shall
consult and cooperate with the International Labour Organisation.’
International Economic and Social Dimensions: Divided or Connected? 19

After having been concluded in 1948, the Havana Charter eventually failed after
the US Senate had indicated that it would not ratify the instrument.38

3.6 An Early Divide: The GATT Agreement

During the negotiations of the Havana Charter, tariff reductions had been agreed
among parties based on reciprocity in the context of the trade chapter of the Charter.
To implement those achievements as early as possible, these tariff reductions, together
with provisions of the trade chapter, were applied provisionally. After it became clear
that the charter would not come into force, those few trade rules, together with the tariff
concessions, were separately framed as the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade
(GATT),39 which did not embody the aforesaid labour-related provisions of the Havana
Charter. The GATT was applied provisionally based on a Protocol on Provisional
Application.40 This development can be seen as a divide, as the GATT and its pro-
visions on the promotion of international trade were applied, whereas the manifold other
provisions of the Havana Charter, which did address ‘social’ aspects, were dropped.

3.7 In Sum: Important Achievements and Pragmatic

Promotion of Economic Cooperation

Altogether, the desire to combine economic and social dimensions and to promote
international cooperation in these areas has largely guided the architecture of the post-
war international order. The institutional setup of the United Nations as well as the
World Bank group reflect this desire, based on contemporary economic thought. Even
more, some of the main ideas of social justice and labour standards were translated into
individual entitlements with the UDHR, which guided the further development of the
international human rights system. However, the impressive project to create a more
concrete institutional and normative frame for the world economy along those lines—
the Havana Charter—failed. In a very pragmatic way, a small fragment of the Charter
dealing with trade was separately applied, while the rest of the ambitious project was
dropped. What is more, the World Bank quickly adopted a remarkably narrow
interpretation of its own mandate, striving to isolate financial considerations from
seemingly ‘political’ issues, including labour and human rights issues.41

38
See Sacerdoti (2014), para. 10.
39
General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade 1994, Marrakesh Agreement Establishing the World
Trade Organization, 15 Apr 1994, Annex 1A, 1867 UNTS 187, 33 I.L.M. 1153 (Hereinafter cited
as ‘GATT’).
40
Protocol of Provisional Application of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, 30 Oct
1947, 55 UNTS 308.
41
Maupain (2013), pp. 73 et seqq.; Janse (2014) and Cissé (2012), pp. 78 et seqq.
20 P.-T. Stoll

4 Development as a ‘Social’ Concern and the New

International Economic Order

Decolonization quickly became a main issue in the work of the United Nations.42
After having attained their political independence, the new States were heading for
economic independence and development. The formation of a group of developing
countries in the UN General Assembly, the Group of 77, created a strong political
momentum to put the issue of development on the agenda of the UN and to create
new bodies such as UNCTAD and UNDP and many others.43
The four UN development decades and a number of GA declarations set the
scene for a long-lasting process by which developing countries aimed to adapt the
world economy and its rules to accommodate to what they saw as priorities for
development.44 The main concept behind this development agenda can be seen as a
‘social’ one, as it was based on an idea of a responsibility of the state community or
more specifically of the developed countries to assist developing countries by
financial and other means and to cooperate with a view to change the rules for
international economic activities to the benefit of developing countries.45
Development in those days was primarily defined with a view to the national
economy and macroeconomic parameters such as the gross national product,
economic growth and the per capita income of the population. The closing of the
‘gap’ between developed and developing countries was taken as a major benchmark
in the various decisions and texts at the time. Also, development was seen in the
context of independence, and thus had a strong link to sovereignty. In terms of
theory, the gap-theory, the dependencia-theory and several postmarxist approaches
were quite influential.46 Particularly the dependencia-theory is worth mentioning,
as it saw developing countries as being dependent on an unjust world economic
order. In this way, the existing international economic system was considered to

42
See i.e. Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples, 14 Dec
1960, UN GA A/RES/15/1514.
43
Fabbricotti (2009); Fortin (2013) and Schoiswohl (2013).
44
It nevertheless had the effect of mobilizing them to obtain reforms and concessions, often in the
form of UN General Assembly resolutions: Resolution 1710 (XVI), 19 Dec 1961; Resolution 2626
(XXV), 24 Oct 1970; Resolution 35/56, 5 Dec 1980 and Resolution 45/199, 21 Dec 1990
concerning the Development Decades; Resolutions 3201 (S-VI) and 3202 (S-VI), 1 May 1974
on the New International Economic Order; Charter of Economic Rights and Duties of States,
Resolution 3281 (XXIX), 12 Dec 1974; Resolution 3362 (S-VII), 16 Sep 1975 on development and
international economic co-operation and Resolution 34/150, 17 Dec 1979 on the principles of the
new international economic order. But in 1986, the developing countries did not succeed in
winning general acceptance or recognition of the right to development, GA Res 41/128,
4 Dec 1986.
45
See for instance Charter of Economic Rights and Duties of States, GA Res. 3281 (XXIX),
12 Dec 1974.
46
James (1997), pp. 205 et seqq.
International Economic and Social Dimensions: Divided or Connected? 21

represent a double standard of morality, a term which clearly alludes to the question
of social justice.
In substance, the concept of development in those days focused on industriali-
zation,47 while other issues such as agriculture or the basic needs of individuals
were only added later. The issue of labour conditions was hardly ever mentioned. In
view of the international economy, the discussions focused on whether developing
countries should become an integrated part of the world economy, what benefits
they could achieve this way and how their situation could be improved.48 Besides
industrialization in general, one relevant point in this regard was the export of
commodities; in respect of which several details were discussed, including the
stabilization of commodity prices, trade policy, the shipment of such commodities,
competition issues, investment for extractive activities, and the role and conduct of
multinational enterprises.49 The declaration on the permanent sovereignty over
natural resources50 was a major cornerstone in this regard, which was later
complemented by the Declaration and Programme of Action of a New International
Economic Order51 and by the Charter of Economic Rights and Duties of States.52
This period of the development of international economic law with its focus on
development saw some achievements. One such achievement was the granting of
preferential market access for developing countries in the context of GATT,53 by
GATT decisions addressing economic development and the special and differential
treatment of developing countries,54 including the insertion of a Chapter IV to
GATT and the adoption of the enabling clause.55 Another was the establishment of
UNCTAD’s commodity programme.56 Furthermore, codes on restrictive business

47
Yusuf (2009), pp. 5 et seqq.
48
See e.g. World Bank, World Development Report 1978.
49
Ibid. pp. 19 et seq.
50
GA Res. 3281 (XVII), 12 Dec 1974.
51
GA Res. 3281 (XXIX), 12 Dec 1974 and GA Res. 3202 (S-VI), 1 May 1974.
52
Charter of Economic Rights and Duties of States, GA Res. 3281 (XXIX), 29 Sess., 12 Dec 1974,
UN Doc. A/RES/29/3281.
53
Especially concerning the Generalised System of Preferences (GSP) and the concept of Special
and Differential Treatment. See also: WTO Committee on Trade and Development (2013) Special
and Differential Treatment Provisions in WTO Agreements and Decisions, WT/COMTD/W/196.
54
See e.g. Report of the Review Working Party (1955) Quantitative Restrictions, BISD III, Supp
170 and Report of the Review Working Party (1955) Schedules and Customs Administration,
BISD III, Supp 205. Furthermore, see Committee on Trade and Development (1980) Note by the
Secretariat, COMTD/W/311. See as an example WTO, India – Quantitive Restrictions on Imports
of Agricultural, Textile and Industrial Products, Report of the Panel, 6 April 1999, WT/DS90/R.
Tortora (2003), p. 5.
55
World Trade Organization (1979) Differential and More Favourable Treatment: Reciprocity and
Fuller Participation of Developing Countries, WTO Doc No L/4903; see also: http://www.wto.org/
english/docs-e/legal-e/enabling-e.pdf. Accessed 1 Sept 2016.
56
UNCTAD, Integrated Programme for Commodities, 30 May 1976, TD/RES/93 (IV).
Another random document with
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 A Killing Play

He began to study music with C. G. Müller, for Beethoven’s works

made him decide that he wanted to know more. He also was taught
by Theodore Weinlig, the cantor or singer of St. Thomas’ school. At
sixteen, he wrote a play which had so tragic a plot that he killed off
forty-two of the characters, and afterwards said, he had to bring
some back as ghosts to wind up the drama, for there were no
characters left alive! His drama reading made him exaggerate
tragedy in his own play! After this he wrote a sonata, a polonaise and
a symphony, in classic style, performed in 1833.
In 1830 there had been a political revolution in Germany and it
greatly impressed the young man for he was an independent thinker
in politics as well as in music.
He visited Vienna in 1832 but he found it so appreciative of
Hérold’s opera Zampa and Strauss’ waltzes that he could not bear it
and left almost immediately. He was much like Beethoven in
disposition for he was quick to anger and kind in great gusts, and
could be most agreeable to his friends.
 His Early Operas

He had gone to Vienna with his symphony but showed it to no one;

it is said that Mendelssohn saw it but forgot about it. Here he wrote
the poem and some poor music for an opera Die Hochzeit (The
Wedding) which he tore up the next year.
Then off to Prague went he (1832), and wrote his first libretto, for
you must remember he did not go to people like Metastastio or
Molière for his libretto but wrote his own. Had he not been a
composer he certainly would have been a literary man. In fact, he
was, for he wrote more pamphlets and books than many a writer!
Yet, he showed his real genius as a composer.
But he was so poor now that he was glad to get a job as a chorus
master at the mean salary of 10 florins ($5) a month! It was here he
wrote the opera Die Feen (The Fairies) a wildly romantic work, after
which he returned again to Leipsic. For the first time he heard
Wilhelmine Schroeder-Devrient sing, whose marvelous talent
influenced him all his life. In 1834 as a conductor of a troupe with
headquarters in Magdeburg, he tried to produce his second opera the
tragic Das Liebesverbot (Forbidden Love), modeled after
Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure; but it was so badly given that it
was a dismal failure. The second was like Bellini and Auber, both of
whom he admired and it was too early in his life (twenty-one) to
show new ways of composing.
Soon he went to Königsberg, where (1836) he married Wilhelmina
Planer, a young actress whom he met in the theatre, and he spent the
year trying to get his Magdeburg troupe out of difficulties. Later he
was given a post in Riga.
While at Riga his duty was to lead orchestral concerts, at many of
which Ole Bull the Norwegian violinist played, here too, he read
Rienzi of Bulwer-Lytton, the English writer, and wrote a libretto and
opera on the showy model of Meyerbeer. He said himself that it “out-
Meyerbeered Meyerbeer.” Leaving hastily, debts and all, with Rienzi
in his hand, he went to Paris (the goal of all composers) in a sailing
vessel, with his new wife and a dog named Robber, stopping over in
England. The trip took four long perilous weeks. From the sailors he
learned the story of the Flying Dutchman, which he afterwards used
in his opera of that name.
We wish we could tell you the whole story of this gale-tossed,
unhappy mariner, the Flying Dutchman, and how at last he found
happiness and relief from storms and troubles of life by finding his
mate in the maiden Senta. You will love the music and the story
which is woven about Senta in the beautiful ballad bearing her name.
In this opera, Wagner first used the leit-motif or leading theme
(particularly in the overture) which he used as we use a name or
description of a person, idea or thing, except that he used them in
music instead of in words. For example, when Senta comes in to the
story, either as someone’s thought or as a person, or when she is
spoken of, her theme is heard, woven into the music. So it is when
Siegfried appears in the operas of the Ring of the Nibelungen, you
hear the Siegfried theme; when the Gold is mentioned, you hear the
Gold theme; or if the Giants appear, their theme is heard,—so it is
with the Dragon and everything connected with the story. You hear
in some form, their name plates, as it were, and so by listening, you
can follow just what is going on through the music. This is one of the
things that Wagner developed, though Gluck and others had
attempted to use it.
During his stay in Paris, he had a struggle for existence and did
everything possible to gain a livelihood, while striving to get a
hearing for his compositions. He wrote, in his misery, the Faust
Overture, the first work to win recognition.
He went to see Meyerbeer on his way to Paris, for Meyerbeer was
very popular and his approval could have aided poor Richard. Some
say Meyerbeer helped him and others say he did not. Wagner gained
little from him. Even when he first went to see Liszt, who later
became his best friend, it is said that Liszt snubbed him. Wagner
never stopped writing his theories for the papers, and a hot-headed
young scribbler he was! Yet withal he submitted the story of The
Flying Dutchman to the director of the Paris Opera House who
rejected it as an opera, but gave the story to Dietsch, the conductor,
to write the music. This did not daunt Wagner, who, after a defeat,
worked harder or his next task. So he wrote another Flying
Dutchman, story and music and orchestration in seven weeks!
 However, luck began to favor him, and Rienzi (1842) was accepted
by the Dresden Opera and was so successful that he became
conductor in Dresden, which saved him for a while from money
worries, and The Flying Dutchman, which had gone begging so long,
was loudly demanded. Strange to say, this wonderful legend did not
succeed, for the people missed the little tricks of Meyerbeer and they
could not understand the flowing music in new form. Wagner was
very disappointed for the story was one of the old German (Teuton)
legends and he thought the German people would love it.
Later, however, Spohr gave it with great success at Cassel, and won
Wagner’s gratitude for his understanding and kindness.
Now comes Tannhäuser, an entrancing legend which inspired him
to study more deeply into the Teutonic legends. This he produced in
Dresden, and other German cities played it later. Everything became
topsy-turvy in the musical and political world. Wagner was writing
fiery things about freedom in music and politics, nothing to amount
to much, but enough to rouse his enemies, who became hateful and
hissed Tannhäuser,—calling it nerve-killing, distressing music
without melody. How could anyone fail to find melody in Oh Thou
Sublime Sweet Evening Star, the Pilgrim’s Chorus, the Venusburg
music and the colorful overture with themes of the whole opera? Yet
music affects people this way when it is new in structure. “There is
no melody” is said today when the so-called modern music is played.
This should make us stop and listen carefully and look back on what
happened to the writers of the past when they dared differ from the
crowd. Perhaps calling your attention to this will make you listen
with open ears and open minds to the new, which so soon becomes
the familiar.
So Wagner, while conducting other operas in Dresden, began on
Lohengrin and finished it in 1847. But he was impetuous and his
written articles irritated the people. His ideas were fiery and his
musical speech so odd, that even Schumann, who was very
sympathetic, only partially understood him or his music. However he
did say that Wagner would have a great influence on German opera,
but Mendelssohn, after hearing Tannhäuser, only liked the second
finale. Even his friend Madame Devrient, though she loved and
admired him, said: “You are a man of genius but you write such
eccentric stuff, it is hardly possible to sing it.”
 Never did Wagner feel that he was at fault, so great was his faith in
his ideas of doing away with arias, of not having stopping places in
an opera, just to begin some other song, and of making the words
equally important to the music.
 The Nibelungen Ring

While working at Lohengrin he had started his studies of the

Icelandic and Germanic Saga, the Nibelungenlied. These tales
changed under his pen into the story of Siegfried, which he wove into
the trilogy known as The Nibelungen Ring or Trilogy with a
Prologue, as he called it, and as we call it now—The Tetralogy (in
four parts).
The four dramas of the Ring of the Nibelung are:
(1) The Rhine Gold (Das Rheingold)
(2) Valkyrie (Die Walküre)
(3) Siegfried
(4) The Twilight of the Gods (Die Götterdämmerung)
Many things happen in these tales but it takes the four to tell the
one big story:
Alberich the wicked Nibelung, a gnome, in his greed steals the gold
from the Rhine Maidens who were guarding it, hidden in the Rhine.
They tell him that the one who fashions a ring out of the gold will
rule the world, but must forego love. Alberich makes the ring but
Wotan the god of the gods wrests it from him. During the drama
various people secure the Ring but it had been cursed by Alberich
and brings disaster to all who get it. Finally the very gods themselves
are doomed to destruction, and Brünnhilde the oldest of the
Valkyries, the daughters of Wotan, returns the stolen treasure to the
waters of the Rhine.
The Wizard has painted in magnificent music the great Rhine
River, flowing across the stage; the fire surrounding Brünnhilde until
she is rescued by the valiant Siegfried, who knows no fear; Valhalla
the home of the gods; the hunt in which Siegfried drinks from the
magic horn of memory; and his funeral pyre into which Brünnhilde
casts herself and her horse carrying the ring which she has taken
from Siegfried’s finger back to the Rhine Maidens from whence it
came.
The scenes are gigantic and so is the music. Wagner, with his
ideals for freedom and the betterment of humanity, used these
legends as a cloak to cover his personal opinions which would have
been looked upon as anarchism if he had not used such clever and
artistic symbols. In Alberich’s greed for the gold, is hidden Wagner’s
ideas of the Government’s greed for power against which he had
fought so strenuously. Another lesson is that anyone possessing the
gold is denied love, showing that greed kills human feelings.
Because the Opera at Dresden did not use the things he liked, he
rebelled openly against the popular political and musical ideas; he
was banished and went to Zürich, Switzerland. Here he wrote more
fiery literature and made more enemies and a few friends, and the
enmity he stirred up against himself delayed his success. He hoped
for a better state of political life in order to write freer and more
beautiful music.
While he was in Zürich, Liszt, in Vienna, produced Lohengrin with
success. It was given to celebrate Goethe’s birthday (1850), before a
brilliant audience, and now Wagner’s fame seemed sure, though his
“pockets were empty.” Lohengrin’s success was slow in Germany, as
it took about nine years to reach Berlin and Dresden. It was thought
to be without melody! Can you hear Lohengrin’s song to the Swan,
the Wedding March or the Prelude? Listen to it in your mind’s ear or
auralize it! Wagner’s themes were so marvelously interwoven and he
did such amazing things with his orchestra, that it was difficult for
people to unravel the torrential new music. They were not prepared
for endless music flowing on like speech, suiting the music to the
word and not stopping the action to show off the singer’s skill. What
Gluck tried to do, Wagner did. His operas were music dramas
because the action or drama was his first thought.
For fifteen years in exile, he gave himself to literary work and
composition. He had ample time now to write of his musical theories
and his feelings about life.
Soon, London called him to lead the Philharmonic Society, which
he did during the time he was completing Valkyrie and sketching
Siegfried. He tried to interest the English in Beethoven and others
whom he loved, but of little avail. The people preferred the delightful
delicacy of Mendelssohn to the solidity of Beethoven. So here again
he made more enemies than friends, and his bitter pen did not help
to smooth things over. By the time he left London, he had finished
the Valkyrie.
 In this great music drama, he tells the story of Siegmund and
Sieglinda, Brünnhilde and the Valkyries who carried the dead
warriors from the battle fields on their saddles to Valhalla. You hear
in the galloping music of the Ride of the Valkyries and the Fire
Music and Love Song of the first act, such music as never was written
by anyone but Wagner! Oh, it is a wonderful legend, explaining itself,
in Wagner’s own poems and with the short music name tags (leit-
motifs) which are enlarged and turned around and intermingled with
other name tags and which stand out beautifully when you know how
to listen.
 Tristan and Isolde and Meistersinger

While in Zürich, Wagner met the merchant Otto Wesendonck,

whose beautiful and poetic wife Wagner loved dearly. She was a great
influence in his life and they were friends for many years. It was
during his friendship that he started the love drama of Tristan and
Isolde.
In 1859 he finished the love drama which tells of Tristan and the
lovely Queen of Ireland and how they drank the love potion and how
they loved and were separated. A noble story with some of the most
grippingly beautiful music ever written!
But with this masterpiece of masterpieces completed, he could get
nobody to produce it. Everyone said it was impossible to sing it, and
we know even today that it takes very special musical gifts and few
can do it well. For it is quite true that Wagner, with all his theories
about composition, thought little of the singer’s throat muscles and
more of what he wanted to say.
Poor Wagner was disconsolate! He could not get his works
performed and he was still prevented from returning to Germany,
the country he loved. So off he went to Paris and there Tannhäuser
failed utterly after three terrible, turbulent, horrible performances,
which almost ended in riots, no doubt planned ahead by his enemies.
But to offset this disaster, he was allowed to return home and
everyone rejoiced in his arrival. No doubt his treatment in Paris
softened the German heart.
Not long after this Wagner and his wife separated and some years
later in 1871, he married Cosima Liszt, who had been the wife of
Hans von Bülow.
After Wagner conducted opera on a tour through Russia, Hungary,
Bohemia (Czecho-Slovakia) and many German cities, Ludwig II,
King of Bavaria, sent for Wagner and offered him an income, and
from this time on Wagner composed without financial worries. He
was commissioned in 1865 to complete The Ring, and Tristan and
Isolde was performed by Hans von Bülow.
 Again political intrigues and his enemies drove him to Switzerland,
and after Tristan and Isolde was given and while he was in
Switzerland, he completed The Ring and Die Meistersinger, the most
beautiful comic opera in the world, which was also produced by von
Bülow in Munich, June 21st, 1868. And now we fulfill our promise to
you, which we made in Chapter VIII about the Meistersinger:
Walther von Stolzing, a young knight, falls in love at first sight
with Eva the beautiful daughter of Pogner, the goldsmith of
Nüremberg, who has promised her to the winning singer in the
coming Festival of the Mastersingers. Beckmesser, the old town
clerk, counts on winning as he also loves Eva. As Walther does not
belong to the music guild, he has to pass the examination.
Beckmesser gives him so many bad marks for not keeping the
committee’s rules that he is not admitted.
But Hans Sachs, the greatest Meistersinger of all, the town
cobbler, thought Walther a beautiful singer even though he broke
musical laws and the very freedom and the new loveliness in his
music charmed him.
In the evening when Walther and Eva try to run away, Beckmesser
decides to serenade Eva. Hans Sachs, cobbling shoes in his doorway
interrupts Beckmesser’s ludicrous serenade with a jolly song, in
which he marks all Beckmesser’s mistakes with his hammer, just as
Beckmesser had marked Walther’s. The neighborhood is aroused,
confusion follows, Beckmesser gets a beating and Hans Sachs slips
Eva and Walther into his own house.
Next day Walther sings a song to Hans which he has dreamed and
Hans writes it down. Beckmesser comes in and finding the words
steals them, sure he could win if he sang a song of Hans Sachs.
Beckmesser fails miserably and Sachs calls on Walther to sing it.
Here he sings Walther’s Prize Song, which wins the approval of the
Meistersingers, and the prize—lovely Eva.
Here we get a splendid idea of what Wagner felt about new music,
for in the Meistersinger he tried to picture the jealousies of
composers, who condemned the beauty of his inspiration and new
ideas and methods.
Never was there an opera more delightful for young people, who
love the melodies and charming pictures of medieval Nüremberg.
 Bayreuth

About this time the Valkyrie and Rhinegold had been given at the
Court Theatre in Munich (1869–1870). The King gave up his plan to
build a new theatre for these stupendous works, which needed
special machinery because of the elaborate stage effects. Wagner
insisted that scenery was as important as the words and music. So he
started to build, by general subscription over all Europe, a theatre at
Bayreuth. He succeeded so well that not only did Europe contribute
but America, too, and groups of people banded together to collect
money for it. Wagner was now the fashion and finally the new opera
house opened August 13th, 1876, with The Ring, for he had finished
Die Götterdämmerung the year before.
Artistically it was successful but not financially. If his pen had been
dipped in honey and not in bitters, he would have won his public
more easily, but he seemed unable to be diplomatic. So off he went to
London and other places to conduct concerts to make money to pay
the debts of his new theatre. Later he wrote the Festival March, for
the Philadelphia Centennial (1876), which helped financially.
The people were divided into two camps,—those for Wagner, and
those against him. So strong was the feeling, that during the 1880’s,
in Germany, signs in cafés read: “It is forbidden to discuss religion or
Wagner”! The proprietors wished to save their chairs and china
which the fists of their patrons would destroy.
 Parsifal

During this time he was at work on Parsifal, a drama in music as

serious as oratorio yet with the most thrilling stage effects and
richness of music. Parsifal, Tristan and Isolde, The Ring and Die
Meistersinger are to every other opera what a plum pudding is,
compared to a graham cracker. In fact, all Wagner’s late music
dramas are like plum puddings, so rich and compact are they.
Parsifal was produced in 1882 in Bayreuth and was not given
again for six years. Later it was the occasion for yearly pilgrimages to
Bayreuth, as if to a shrine. It is so long that it takes the better part of
an afternoon and evening to perform it, yet you sit enraptured before
its gripping spell of beauty and holiness.
In 1903 the musical world was startled by the first performance in
America of Parsifal, as Wagner, in his will, had forbidden a stage
performance outside of Bayreuth. It was covered by copyright until
1913, which was supposed to have protected it from performance.
Heinrich Conried, director of the Metropolitan Opera Company in
New York City, in his eagerness for novelties, disregarded the
master’s wish, and mounted an elaborate production under the
direction of Alfred Hertz. This so offended the Wagner family that
they refused to allow anyone who had taken part in that performance
to appear in Bayreuth.
Bayreuth became a Mecca, to which pilgrims went every other
year, to attend the festivals. After the World War, Wagner’s family
turned to America for help to continue these festivals, interrupted by
the war, as the Wizard himself had done, when building his theatre.
In 1924 his son, Siegfried, visited America, conducted some
symphony concerts and secured funds to carry on the festivals.
Parsifal is a combination of three legends—of which one is the
Parsifal of our old friend the Minnesinger Wolfram von Eschenbach
(1204). (Chapter VIII.)
It is the story of the Redemption of Mankind, told in symbols with
great beauty of poetry, music and scenery. It is certain to fill you with
religious fervor, for it reaches the depths of your soul and raises you
above the things of the earth. Amfortas, the guardian of the Holy
Grail, whose wound represents the suffering of mankind, hears the
mystic voice of his father, Titurel, who tells him that not until a
sinless one comes with pity in his heart will the wound be healed.
Parsifal, “the guileless fool,” is his redeemer.
The year following the first production of Parsifal Wagner’s health
began to fail and he went to Venice where he died suddenly in 1883.
He was buried with fitting honors at Bayreuth which always honors
the memory of the Great Master of German Opera.
Here is a picture of Wagner in the words of his brother-in-law:
“the double aspect of this powerful personality was shown in his face;
the upper part beautiful with a vast ideality, and lighted with eyes
which were deep and severe, gentle or malicious, according to the
circumstances; the lower part wry and sarcastic. A mouth cold and
calculating and pursed up, was cut slantingly into a face beneath an
imperious nose, and above a chin which projected like the menace of
a conquering will.”
 How the Wizard Changed Opera

When Wagner reached his full power, he composed drama rather

than opera in the old sense.
His music explained the words and action and expressed the state
of mind of the character.
The melodies are used very much like the theme in a sonata. These
leit-motifs (leading motives) are usually carried, as we told you, in
the weavings of his wonderful orchestral webs. This theme or leit-
motif or name tag, is tossed from instrument to instrument in
numberless entrancing ways. Sometimes he uses a flickering theme
for flames as in the fire music of The Valkyrie or glorious chimes or
trumpetings as in Parsifal to cast a holy spell; but, whatever he uses,
he charms and holds you spellbound.
He combines the counterpoint of the 16th century masters, with a
most modern feeling for harmony, inherited from the classic
Germans. He used harmony in a new way with a freedom it never
before had reached, and pointed the way for modern composers of
today.
As the Wizard, Wagner throws a glamor over the most mystic
happening, as when Siegmund, in Die Valkyrie, withdraws the
Sword from the tree; or in the most commonplace fact as when Eva
tells Hans Sachs that she has a nail in her shoe. In The
Meistersinger, you can always tell that he is making fun of
Beckmesser, because his name tag shows him to be petty and
ridiculous.
Although Wagner’s music is rich, very clear to us and beautiful, in
his day it seemed complicated and discordant, because of its great
volume and sonority, the result of the perfect part-writing.
For the first time, he makes the brasses of equal importance to the
string and wind instruments. It is thrilling to hear the trombones and
his beautiful use of trumpets. He used many of Berlioz’s ideas in
muffling horns and added new instruments, too, among them, the
bass clarinet and the English horn (cor anglais), which is a tenor
oboe and not a horn at all!
 Wagner had a beautiful way of dividing up the parts for violins and
other instruments into smaller choirs which answered each other
and with which he could get special effects. For example, the Prelude
of Lohengrin is probably the nearest thing in shimmering music to
what the angels must play, so heavenly is it. Here he divides the
violins into many parts and it is far more beautiful than if they all
played the same thing. Thus, he gave more value to the instruments
and greatly improved the orchestra.
His preludes in which you hear the leading motives or name tags,
are a table of contents for what follows.
Wagner did not use tricks of decoration like Meyerbeer nor did he
give show-off pieces for his singers’ benefit. His idea was to use
sincere musical speech to tell the story and not one bit did he care
how hard the singer worked to carry out his idea.
Wagner, above all, was a dramatist, choosing lofty and noble
themes of heroic and ideal subjects in which his imagination could
play. He loved the sublime and the great spectacle.
The chief interest of Wagner’s opera is in the orchestra which
carries the theme webs. He used neither the folk song in its simple
beauty nor accepted classic arias which could be taken out and sung.
His song is often declaimed and appears not to sing with the
orchestra, for the voices are used as instruments and not to show off
vocal skill. Yet, Liszt was quick to take out from the operas and
transcribe for piano the Fire Music, the Ride of the Valkyrie and
many others which we now sing and whistle.
Finally, Wagner by his example has given courage to the man of
ideas, if he will believe in himself and work without ceasing.
 CHAPTER XXVI
More Opera Makers—Verdi and Meyerbeer to Our Day

After reading about the feats of the Wizard it is not surprising that he
had many followers,—those who openly claimed to take him for an
example, and others who did not realize how much they received
from him and would not like to have been called his followers!
 Verdi—The Grand Old Man of Italy

After following the Italian methods of writing opera and having

become a very famous composer, Verdi received inspiration from
Wagner in the last three or four years of his very long life. He was
much loved and it is difficult to tell whether it was his operas or his
beautiful character which prompted the affection. He was called “the
Grand Old Man of Italy.” A national hero was he, and the Italians’
idol. Praise and flattery did not make him proud but spurred him to
work through trouble and good fortune, and so he became one of the
greatest opera writers. He was born a few months after Wagner, in
the village of Roncole near Parma, and his life was interesting, for he
lived at the time when opera was popular and was going through the
Wagner upheaval which spread all over Europe.
He had a unique chance to make opera more important in Italy,
and succeeded in giving it a new impetus, even though in the
beginning his popular things followed popular patterns.
 Verdi and the Organ grinder

Giuseppe Verdi (1813–1901) was the son of an innkeeper and, as a

little boy, showed marked musical talent. He was a good obedient
little fellow, but always rather melancholy in character and never
joined the village boys in their noisy amusements. “One thing only
could rouse him from his habitual indifference, and that was the
occasional passing through the village of an organ grinder. To the
child, who in after years was to afford an inexhaustible repertory to
those instruments for half a century all over the world, this was an
irresistible attraction. He could not be kept indoors, and would
follow the strolling player as far as his little legs could carry him.”
(Grove’s Dictionary.)
Who has not heard the Miserere from Il Trovatore played, all out
of tune, by an Italian organ grinder who sends a little monkey around
with a cup to gather in the pennies? We remember an organ grinder
in San Francisco who ground out the Miserere. Each year or two that
we returned there were more of the notes missing. Ten years later,
the performance was quite “toothless” and sounded very funny.
All his life, Verdi kept a little spinet that his father bought for him
in 1820. We see him then, at seven, deep in musical study and at ten
he was the organist of Roncole, going to school in Busseto, a nearby
town. One night when he was walking the three miles to go back to
Busseto after church, the poor little fellow was so weary that he
missed the road and fell into a canal, narrowly escaping death! Is it
not splendid that his village appreciated his talent and gave him a
scholarship which made it possible for him to go to Milan to continue
his musical studies!
 His Operas

He did not compose an opera until 1839 when his Oberto in the
style of Bellini was produced in Milan with such success that he
received orders to write three more from which he gained much
good-will and fame.
It must have been a thrilling time for opera writers, because
Wagner was composing, too, and you know the great excitement he
caused. Amidst this interesting whirl of opinion, Verdi wrote one of
the operas ordered by the Milan director, and during this time he
was sorely stricken by the deaths of his wife and two lovely children.
Besides this, his opera failed and in his discouragement the poor
young man made up his mind to give up composition. However, a
rare good friend coaxed him back to his work after a little rest, and
he produced his successful Nebucco (Nebuchadnezzar) (1842), I
Lombardi the next year and his well known Ernani (1844). In this,
his first period, he used as models, Bellini and men of his type, not
writing anything startlingly new.
In his second period he wrote operas nearly as fast as we write
school compositions, and among the famous things are Rigoletto
(1851), Il Trovatore, La Traviata (story from Dumas’ Camille or
Dame aux Camelias), (1853), and The Masked Ball (1859). Ernani
and Rigoletto are founded on stories by Victor Hugo. The first
performance of La Traviata in Venice was a failure due more to the
performers, than to the opera itself which still crowds opera houses
of the world.
The greatest opera of his third period is Aida (1871), one of Verdi’s
masterpieces. An opera on an Egyptian subject was ordered by the
Khedive of Egypt for the opening of the Italian Opera House in Cairo,
for which Verdi received $20,000. Mariette Bey a famous
Egyptologist made the first sketch in order to give the right local
atmosphere to the libretto. Curiosity ran so high that every seat was
sold before the first night and it was a great success. Think how
electrified the audience must have been by the tenor solo, “Celeste
Aida,” one of Caruso’s greatest successes; by the realistic Nile scene;
the voice of the priestess in the mammoth Egyptian temple, and the
famous march with trumpets made specially for it!
Dear old lovable Verdi was a wise man as well as an accomplished
composer. He used more modern methods in Aida to hold audiences
who were hearing about Wagner and his startling innovations.
Other operas of this third period were La Forza del Destino and
one given at the Paris Grand Opera, Don Carlos, which was not up to
his standard. Until this time he showed great mechanical skill and a
sense of color and melody. The great singers have revelled in the
operas of his second period. In our day Marcella Sembrich, Nellie
Melba, Frieda Hempel, Luisa Tetrazzini, Amelita Galli-Curci,
Florence Macbeth and many others have sung the coloratura,—frilly,
soaring, gymnastic-singing, still very popular. However in Aida,
Verdi departed much from the usual, and people said that he was
copying Wagner, because they didn’t know the difference between
the influences which change a person’s ways, and imitation.
So he deserted the old models, Auber, Meyerbeer and Halévy for
something more substantial, his deeper and gigantically conceived
Aida. James Wolfe of the Metropolitan Opera said of the bigness of
this work as produced at the Metropolitan Opera House in New
York: “I have played before audiences of 30,000 in arenas in Mexico.
I am so at home in the opera that I do cross-word puzzles waiting for
my cue, and yet at the Metropolitan when I first played the King in
Aida with its flaming music, its hundreds of people and its scores of
horses, I was over-awed and frightened!”
After this, Verdi’s splendid mass, The Requiem, was written for the
death of the Italian hero Manzoni. In it he approaches the German
school in depth and seriousness, veering away from the emptiness of
Italian writing.
In his last efforts he seems definitely influenced by Wagner; for,
with his Otello and Falstaff we find a new Verdi, surpassing in form
and sincere melody anything that he had done. He was very
fortunate to have Arrigo Boito, his friend, to write librettos based on
Shakespeare’s Othello and Merry Wives of Windsor. When Falstaff
was given in New York (1925) a young American baritone, Lawrence
Tibbet, in the rôle of Ford, flashed into fame.