Trade Equality: Women's Economic Empowerment

In the past, most trade experts assumed trade was gender neutral and that gender-based human rights and complex technical international trading systems should never mix. As a result, the World Trade Organization (WTO) and the international human rights system proceeded to develop on completely separate tracks — until now.

In December 2017 at the WTO ministerial conference in Buenos Aires 118, WTO members and observers signed the Declaration on Trade and Women’s Economic Empowerment. Many trade ministers have realized they can no longer afford to treat trade in isolation from its gender-related human rights impacts.

Women's economic participation is an important part of the growth and stability equation. The International Monetary Fund points out that closing gender gaps benefits countries as a whole, not just women and girls. Recent research by McKinsey also points out that advancing women’s equality could add $28 trillion to global GDP by 2025 and instigate better development outcomes for families and communities worldwide.

In this video, Oonagh Fitzgerald, Director of CIGI’s International Law Research Program explores the efforts that the WTO has made to achieve the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) — notably SDG 5: achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls by 2030 — and how bilateral trade deals are working to include progressive trade chapters.

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