Pakistan's GSP Plus Status and Human Rights Compliance (2014-2024)

Abstract

Pakistan is the biggest beneficiary of the European Union Generalized scheme of preferences plus (GSP+) since January 2014 and had received a duty-free treatment of more than 85 percent of its exports- most of which are textiles- to the EU, the second largest trading partner. This has led to massive economic benefits, export to the EU increased 108 percent between 2014-2022 to EUR9.0 billion, which underpins millions in labor-intensive industries. But GSP+ conditionality demands the ratification and successful observance of 27 fundamental international human rights, labor rights, environmental protection, and good governance conventions, which is a dramatic paradox: economic gains with a continued lack of compliance. The paper examines a GSP+ path of Pakistan (2014-2024) and notes that the country ratified all 27 conventions, with deep-rooted weaknesses in their implementation. Among the major human rights issues, the forced disappearance as a problem (2,270 cases pending as of 2025), extrajudicial killings, torture, arbitrary detainments, and impunity are the priority of EU monitoring missions. Violence of labor rights continues in the textile industry, involving bonded labor, child labor and limitations on unions despite the ILO conventions. Freedom of expression has been censored through PECA laws (225 cases in 2023), and minority protection is worsened by force conversion and violence. EU biennial reports, such as the Fourth GSP Assessment (2023) observe improvement in women rights, transgender rights and environment but worry of deteriorating human rights in 2024 despite elections that were harshly limited by restrictions. The paper finds that conditional trade cannot succeed without political intent, with the suggestion that independent accountability, stakeholder participation and transparency of data need to be supported in order to ensure the trade benefits are consistent across sustainable governance.