Mobility Norms in Free Trade Agreements

Notwithstanding their traditional attachment to sovereignty, Southeast and East Asian countries have embraced a dynamic agenda of labour mobility liberalisation through trade agreements. This article assesses the free movement agenda within ASEAN from a multi-level perspective, comparing it to ASEAN countries’ corresponding commitments within the World Trade Organisation’s General Agreement on Trade in Services and Free Trade Agreements ( FTA s) concluded as a group or individually with non- ASEAN countries. Contrary to other trade aspects it turns out that intra-regional commitments within ASEAN do not significantly exceed multilateral ones, and score below the level of liberalisation achieved in ASEAN + and bilateral FTA s. This article interprets this discrepancy as a consequence of strong economic and labour market differences among ASEAN members as well as the lower sensitivity of allegedly technocratic FTA s for considerations of national sovereignty. The article concludes with the limits of this trade policy approach for migration governance and migrants’ rights.