Trade-gender alignment of international trade agreements: insufficiencies and improvements

There is a growing call for gender equality in international trade. Enhancing trade-gender alignment of international trade agreements (ITAs) is a major way to make ITAs gender-responsive. In recent years, an increasing number of gender provisions have been incorporated in ITAs, which can be roughly categorized in four major types from normative perspective: declaratory, aspirational, obligatory, and exceptive. While these provisions help draw attention to gender issues associated with international trade and investment, their normativity, enforceability and effectiveness remain at an insufficient level in general. Given the sensitivity and complexity of gender issues in many states, it seems unrealistic and undesirable to transform ITAs into a major discourse for states to address gender concerns, but it still makes sense to enhance trade-gender alignment of ITAs. This impliedly calls for incorporating larger number and more types of gender provisions in ITAs, enhancing their normativity and enforceability through suitable means, and harmonizing national gender laws and ITA gender provisions to create synergies for pursuing gender equality.