This thesis explores the normative and empirical case for the inclusion of labour standards in trade regimes using the Southern African Development Community (SADC) as a case study. It investigates the extent to which the race to the bottom thesis, unfair trade claims and human rights arguments for trade and labour linkage in the context of economic relations between developed and developing countries are valid justifications in the SADC context. The thesis assesses the implications that the prevailing socio-economic, legal, political and historical situation in SADC have for the assumptions underlying these arguments. The thesis suggests that the economic efficiency analysis of the motivations for free trade is a major conceptual obstacle to the resolution of the trade-labour debate. This analysis sees other values, besides economic efficiency and welfare, as non-trade issues whose realization should best be achieved by utilizing the benefits that flow from unhindered free trade. This is a segregated view which creates a dichotomy between economic and socio-political aspects of human development. The segregated view assumes that any meaningful exercise of labour rights depends on the attainment of economic development and so must be deferred until the later has been realized. In this thesis I propose that the best way to make a compelling normative and empirical case for trade and labour linkage both at the global level and in SADC in particular, is to adopt an integrated approach to the objectives of free trade. According to this approach, free trade and labour rights share the same normative foundation. It is the need to ensure human autonomy and freedom. The approach accordingly considers the pursuit of economic efficiency and labour rights as being the integrated purpose for the liberalization of trade. Once it is accepted that free trade and labour rights share the same normative foundation, the perceived dichotomy between "pure-trade" and "non-trade" issues, which has hitherto served as a conceptual bulwark to the establishment of the trade-labour linkage disappears. Most fundamentally, the integrated approach puts to rest the notion that there is a contradiction between free trade (and the consequent economic gains) and respect for labour rights.

This book explores how law and policy makers within the Southern African Development Community regional structure might reform the legal and regulatory frameworks to best capitalise the benefits of the movement of people, drawing lessons from other experienced jurisdictions by critically engaging with the regulatory efforts and approaches in regions such as the European Union, the Economic Community of West African States, and the East African Community to propose a revised approach to migration governance and practice in the SADC. Deeper regional integration allows citizens to move freely across national boundaries, and services are a rising component of global trade and investment. However, global trade in services is stifled by barriers at and behind the border. These barriers make it difficult for service providers from developing regions to access key markets in their preferred modes of service trade. Against this background, this book aims to take the discussion on furthering regional integration and trade through the movement of people by tackling issues on stringent immigration policies, arguing that having a vibrant and rewarding trade in services will require an approach towards the unrestricted movement of persons.

This book examines regional integration in Africa, with a particular focus on the Southern African Development Community (SADC). It argues that the SADC’s pursuit of a rationalist and state-centric form of integration for Southern Africa is limited, as it overlooks the contributory role and efficacy of non-state actors, who are relegated to the periphery. The book demonstrates that civil society networks in Southern Africa constitute well-governed, self-organised entities that function just like formal regional arrangements driven by state actors and technocrats. The book amplifies this point by deploying New Institutionalism and the New Regionalism Approach to examine the role and efficacy of non-state actors in building regions from below. The book develops a unique typology that shows how Southern African regional civil society networks adopt strategies, norms and rules to establish an efficient form of alternative integration in the region. Based on a critical analysis of this self-organised regionalism, the book projects the reality that alternative regionalism driven by non-state actors is possible. This book expands the study of regionalism in the SADC, and makes a significant and innovative contribution to the study of contemporary regionalism.

The African Union (AU) aims at creating an African Economic Community (AEC) by 2034. Eight recognized Regional Economic Communities (REC) are supposed to form the building blocs of the AEC. The book shows that the Southern African Development Community (SADC) is currently the most advanced and promising REC but still behind schedule in reaching its own integration objectives. If the currently most successful of the African RECs may not achieve sufficiently deep regional integration in time then the chances to establish the AEC by 2034 are slim indeed. Combining economic and political analysis the author examines SADC, its achievements and potential in detail. Special reference is given to the impact of the Zimbabwe crisis on regional integration.