Brussels, 15/05/2006 (Agence Europe) - WTO Director General and former European Commissioner for Trade Pascal Lamy took part in a conference in Brussels, on 11 May, organised by the Socialist Group of the European Parliament on the theme: “The right to decent work - the road towards a new kind of modernisation” (EUROPE 9190). After noting that the WTO Treaty does not make any explicit reference to working standards, that the WTO “has no brief to allow its members to discuss this” and that there is therefore, today, no direct legal link between the rules of international trade and respect for basic working standards, Mr Lamy nonetheless spoke of several theoretical elements of international law that should nonetheless allow a link to be established between these two issues that are in principle divided. The question of social labour standards “must be included in the agenda for good world governance”, said Mr Lamy, who, because of his post at the World Trade Organisation, called for great caution when drawing conclusions. “I am convinced that a necessary condition for improving social rights and the fundamental rights of workers is the opening of trade talks, but I also feel that this is not enough”, as economic capitalism is also a “system that causes and nurtures inequality” when it comes to social rights. “Perhaps, and I do say perhaps, a capital/labour ratio is needed at the international level” but not without a ratio being reached at national and local level first, Lamy said, concluding: “The ball is now in the court of the local capital/output ratios”.