The book displays not only the social but also the economic importance of women’s financial autonomy and its positive impacts on countries’ national income. It seeks to elucidate how trade agreements with specific chapters or clauses on gender can fight inequality, with positive economic, legal, and social impacts reflected in the daily lives of girls and women. To achieve this purpose, the author identifies, with real examples, the main barriers faced by women in international trade, both legal and attitudinal as well as financial. It also lists the barriers women face before, during and after customs. In addition, with an innovative methodology, it recommends specific solutions for each of the obstacles identified through the negotiation of trade and gender chapters and/or clauses. It also delves into negotiating strategies and the use of expressions that can yield a greater or lesser level of commitment, with the implementation of practical responses to each problem to be solved. Useful for both the general public and trade policy experts, the book offers strategies for both developed and emerging countries, with varying degrees of progress, within their legal frameworks, on equal rights and opportunities for men and women. The diagnosis and strategies for solutions proposed in the book are comprehensive enough to encompass the different realities faced by different countries.
In the First chapter, the author addresses the cross-cutting nature of the gender issues and explains that her research seeks to bridge a gap in the feminist analysis of international law by adding the aspects of trade policy and gender. Divided into ten chapters, an introductory chapter followed by nine specific chapters, Dr. Bahri’s book also includes a short conclusion by the end of each chapter with valid, current, and precise reflections on each topic.
One of the most impressive features of the book are the real examples collected by the author in 85 interviews and field studies, such as the chapter dedicated to the barriers faced by women before, during and after customs. In addition to the more obvious obstacles, such as the lack of access to credit and finance or the lack of information and training on customs, regulatory and trade issues, the reports collected episodes of threats, harassment and sexual violence faced by women seeking to export their products. The accounts are impressive and serve as a warning to the reader about how much we still need to evolve in terms of gender equality in international trade.
With regards to innovation, it is worth noting the use of the maturity index tool, developed by the International Trade Center (ITC), discussed in chapter 6, to assess the extent to which a trade agreement responds to women needs: limited; evolving; or advanced. The index is divided into three assessment categories – awareness of the relevance of applying gender concerns; use of affirmative action; and level of enforcement – detailed in ten dimensions of evaluation, featuring analytical depth with objective methods easy to assimilate. It is worth highlighting the table on pages 144 to 149 of the book with the Maturity Framework Questionnaire, developed for analyzing the Agreements and its practical implementation based on the index.
The practical application of the trade and gender clauses and chapters is explored in chapter seven of the book, with an analysis of the language adopted and the commitments made in current trade agreements, such as the Brazil-Chile and Canada-Panama Free Trade Agreements, among bilateral agreements; and ASEAN-South Korea and the European Union-Canada, among regional agreements. The author details ten different ways in which gender can be incorporated into current trade agreements, exploring the positive and negative aspects of each choice, ranging from mentions in the preamble and generic clauses to the reaffirmation of rights and commitments made in other international treaties (such as CEDAW), from the inclusion of public policy commitments at the domestic level to a specific chapter to address the topic or the inclusion of minimum regulatory standards for the private sector. One of these ten ways is the adoption of side instruments, protocols or declarations to a larger agreement, such as the Global Arrangement on Trade and Gender (GTAGA), founded in 2020 by Canada, Chile, and New Zealand and grew its membership with eight more members: Mexico (2021), Colombia and Peru (2022), Costa Rica, Ecuador, and Argentina (2023); and Australia and Brazil (2024). One of the pillars of the Arrangement is to use different strategies to seek to increase the number of companies led by women engaged in international trade.
After mapping the current commitments in force, chapter eight of the book identifies eight problems in current clauses, chapters and trade agreements: a) non-binding promises, written imprecisely and with permissive language; b) lack of monitoring of the practical application of commitments; c) women culturally classified in their maternal role and in caregiving tasks, always as employees and never as entrepreneurs or leaders; d) lack of clear definition of concepts; e) deficiency of implementation mechanisms; f) lack of vision by negotiators of the role of women and the barriers they face at each stage of the foreign trade operations process; g) disconnection between the barriers faced by women and the measures to be adopted to solve them; and h) use of previous models without innovation and adaptation to the reality of each country.
The recommendations contained in chapter nine are a powerful tool to ensure that the practical outcome of the implementation of trade agreements is ultimately beneficial to women working in international trade. Referred as the pentagon roadmap for trade and gender negotiations, it offers five considerations to ensure the operational effectiveness of the commitments to be incorporated into clauses and chapters in the negotiation phase, such as mobilizing resources for access to credit, financing, training, cooperation, exchange of good practices and engagement of the private sector, especially with regards to minimal standards, among other factors.
I recommend the book to diplomats, academics, and negotiators as an innovative legal study on trade agreements, with a specific approach to gender responsiveness. It displays useful recommendations for the preparation, review and negotiation of specific trade and gender clauses or chapters in trade agreements. For negotiators, the recommendations are useful to ensure that the practical outcome of the implementation of trade agreements is ultimately beneficial to real-life women working in international trade.
The book offers a new perspective and high-quality recommendations for the preparation, review and negotiation of specific trade and gender clauses and/or chapters in trade agreements. A current work, with a variety of options for mandatory or best endeavor languages and different implementation and monitoring strategies, depending on the environment, culture, and objectives of the negotiating countries. Dr. Bahri´s previous experience and extensive research renders academics and negotiators with useful strategies, listing alternatives for binding and non-binding language and different implementation and monitoring tactics for achieving advanced gender responsiveness in Trade Agreements.
