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Perhaps the least discussed aspect of the 1919 settlement is its provisions on social justice, and yet an entire section of the Versailles Treaty and an article of the League Covenant were devoted to the international regulation of labour, which resulted in establishment of the International Labour Organization. These developments reflected the activities of the trade union movement, and particularly its Congresses during the war, as well as heightened sensitivity to labour in the context of both the war and the outbreak of the Russian revolution. It is clear that inclusion of a section on labour was sponsored by all of the Big Three powers for various political and instrumental reasons. What was radically new about the structure of the ILO was that it allowed membership from state representatives, but also from business and labour, thereby recognizing world society membership in an otherwise international society forum. The decisive argument was that social justice was properly the business of international society because it was fundamental to achieving international peace.

The International Labour Organisation's 1998 Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work prioritised four core labour standards' principles and led to a burst of new ratifications of the international treaties that are the subject of those principles. Ten years on there are important identified gaps in state implementation of the ratified Conventions that are the subject of the four principles. These gaps leave important holes in public policy and legislation. In a number of important substantive areas, these gaps have the effect of leaving it to private actors to figure out what would amount to fulfilling the norms of fundamental labour principle inspired codes of conduct. Inescapably left on their own to figure out approaches, corporate social responsibility (CSR)-respecting enterprises are subject to criticism levelled on the basis of interpretations of these principles given by civil society organisations and labour rights' campaigners. This chapter details this situation. The first part provides the necessary background information. The second part gives concrete examples of how this governance gap raises challenges to implementing CSR initiatives. The third part suggests that, considering the arguable origins of CSR in neo-liberal deregulatory fervour, social dialogue and reform by non-compliant state actors is the only sustainable solution.

This chapter examines the International Labour Organization's (ILO) contribution to the recognition and promotion of the inherent dignity of sub-Saharan African labour. It argues that in the pursuit of its mandate, the ILO has always focused on individuals' and minority groups’ security as a means of ensuring national and world peace. Its long experience in information gathering and processing and development of policy in the prosecution of its mandate could benefit new UN attempts to ensure national and international security by targeting individual and minority group rights rather than the protection of state organs only.

This chapter considers the role of International Labour Organization (ILO) on the protection of the right to strike. The constitutional objectives of the ILO and the form of its standard-setting mechanisms arguably made the adoption of conventions concerning freedom of association imperative. These were, in turn, to provide the basis for the protection of a right to strike, by virtue of the jurisprudence developed by the ILO supervisory bodies, which also made reference to the terms of the ILO Constitution.

This chapter discusses States' obligations under international human rights, criminal and labour law, as regards the prevention of trafficking in persons, the fight against the phenomenon, and victims' protection. Some of the most relevant international human rights instruments adopted in the framework of the United Nations can surely contribute to improving the standards of protection contained in the Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons. The chapter then focuses on the work of some relevant UN Special Mechanisms to underline their tireless action aimed at denouncing the phenomenon and at putting pressure on States to act. In the field of international criminal law, the chapter focuses on the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court which recognizes that trafficking in persons, especially women and children, can be a form of enslavement, constituting — under certain conditions — a crime against humanity. The chapter concludes by discussing some of the Conventions adopted in the framework of the International Labour Organization (ILO).

This chapter discusses the international legislation enacted with the purpose of regulating and modifying children's work, and considers the impact of this legislation including how States are held to account. The scope of international legislation addressing child labour is wide ranging. In recent years, the focus has moved from prohibition and minimum age requirements to the elimination of the worst forms of child labour and the identification of hazardous child labour. This statement is tempered with a proviso that age is in fact considered a key feature in the identification of hazardous child work. So age has come to be accepted as an important consideration, although individual countries may identify specific key ages.

This chapter considers the relationship between women's equality, care work, and sustainable development, and develops a conceptual framework that can be used to understand this complex relationship. The chapter is organized as follows. The second section briefly reviews the relationship between sustainable development, which includes the International Labour Organisation's (ILO) ‘Decent Work’ Agenda, and women's equality. It answers the question on what basis or dimension women's equality should be measured. Instead of assessing a range of potential answers, it focuses on Amartya Sen's notion of substantive freedom and his capabilities approach. The third section argues that women's equality, and especially the relationship between women's equality and responsibility for care work, illustrates both the promise of, and the limitations to, Sen's capabilities approach. The fourth section sketches some of the salient differences between paid and unpaid care work in the North and the South, which also considers the capacity of the ILO 2009 report, ‘Decent Work for Domestic Workers’, to respond to these differences. Drawing upon feminist scholars, the fifth section argues that, supplemented by a theory of choice, deliberative mechanisms, and a social theory of power, the capabilities approach can be a useful tool for conceptualising women's equality and for recognising the significance of socially necessary care work. The chapter concludes by suggesting that a robust capabilities approach designed to address gender inequality and to incorporate care work illuminates the limitations in the current approaches of antidiscrimination law for addressing women's inequality.

I consider the claim that social rights cannot be constitutionalized and protected by the judiciary, because the latter is unable to adjudicate rights which, by nature, are vague and cannot constitute a solid basis for assessing governmental policy‐making. I reject this practical objection to constitutional social rights whilst taking on board some of its insights, by looking at the ways in which social rights are given specific content by institutions such as the ILO and the UN, and at the way constitutional social rights are dealt with by some domestic constitutional courts.

This chapter examines the early activities of the International Labour Organization (ILO). It begins by outlining the political context of the ILO’s founding and the framework of its constituent instrument. The chapter then details the vision of “constitutional” growth that guided ILO officials, the reforming actions they took to realize that vision, and the moral grounds of those actions. The ILO faced a succession of political and legal challenges, resulting in a series of seminal advisory opinions by the Permanent Court of International Justice that confirmed the organization’s broad competence. Drawing upon contemporary discourses of efficiency and expertise, the ILO was finally transformed into a dynamic instrument of technical assistance services, especially in the area of social insurance. The chapter ends by describing the mix of constitutional and administrative ideas that emerged in internationalist thinking, and in the ILO, at this time.

This final chapter discusses the past resources of divergence between international labour standards and future prospects for more consistent or coherent protection of a right to strike. It summarizes the differences between the International Labour Organization (ILO), the Council of Europe, and the European Union with regards to their respective attempts to promote protection of the right to strike. It concludes by considering the particular concerns of the ILO, as well as issues faced by European organizations, and discusses how these could affect future developments in this field.

This chapter investigates the connections that may be forged between sustainability, labour standards and trade. It offers a history of ‘social sustainability’ considering the opportunities presented by the SDGs. The approaches taken by the International Labour Organization (ILO) and the European Union (EU) are compared and contrasted, considering recent developments, such as the ILO centenary reports and instruments, alongside EU commitments to enforcement of selected ILO standards. The chapter concludes by considering how the trade and policy coherence objectives set out in SDG 17 can be achieved and how the common and divergent approaches of the ILO and EU may yet evolve. It is suggested that SDG 16 could guide the processes for dialogue that are necessary to forge connections and solutions.

This chapter examines the extension of the International Labour Organization (ILO)’s technical assistance to countries beyond Europe. Under pressure from its membership, as well as exogenous political and economic events, the ILO’s “centre of gravity” underwent a marked shift to the “East,” including India, China, and Egypt, and to the “West”—the United States and Latin America. Simultaneously, the ILO’s focus expanded from the “purely social” work of setting and implementing international labor standards to embrace economic planning and rationalization. The chapter describes the interweaving of several lines of thought and activity to show how the ILO helped to construct an intellectual and institutional framework for a universal project of development that became entrenched in the decades following World War II, and within which technical assistance was a key technique of international intervention.

This chapter describes the two different ways in which workers' rights to collective action have been conceived at the international level. The first form was through conventions promulgated by the International Labour Organization, which were aimed principally at protecting domestic labour rights in capitalist welfare states against competition from states that did not abide by these standards. The ‘second wave’ of international recognition came through the inclusion of labour-related rights (such as freedom of association) in international human rights instruments, such as the Universal Declaration on Human Rights, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. In these international legal instruments, labour rights became a subset of universal human rights (although as Macklem shows, the collective nature of labour rights did not always sit easily with the individualist interpretations dominant in the human rights field).

This practical guide provides a baseline understanding of the concept of forced labour to assist researchers in the humanities and social sciences ensure their representations of the phenomenon are rigorous and credible. While recognising the limitations of the 1930 ILO Convention definition of forced labour, this Chapter provides helpful guidance in understanding what does – and what does not – constitute forced labour. Summarised in 10 Practical Points for Understanding Forced Labour, this Chapter helps researchers build a baseline understanding of forced labour by providing a dozen helpful markers to ensure that those within the humanities and social sciences are speaking the same language when they represent the phenomenon of forced labour.

In the matter of general instruments on indigenous peoples, the International Labour Organization (ILO) was first in the field. ILO Conventions 107 and 169 are in force, although the former is now closed to ratification. Both employ, to differing extents, the language of collective rights—rudimentary in the first treaty, massively conditioning the second. They represent the bulk of contemporary hard law of international indigenous rights. They work within the context of the ILO, but interrelate with the general world of human rights. They offer adapted general rights as well as specific rights not found elsewhere in international treaty law. The ILO can claim much of the credit for bringing rights of indigenous peoples—as such, and not as derivatives of other rights or applications of them—into the forefront of contemporary discussion. The Organisation has been regularly concerned with the condition of indigenous peoples during the course of its existence.

This chapter focuses on the different methods of International Labour Organization (ILO) for supervising the enforcement of international standards. These include the analysis of State reports, as well as complaints procedures. ILO experts may also visit a State so as to examine the extent of compliance. One strength of ILO supervision lies in the ‘panoply’ of multiple overlapping supervisory methods which supplement and reinforce one another.

This chapter discusses the role of international organizations as treaty-makers. The broadest grant of delegated treaty-making power is arguably contained in the Constitution of the International Labour Organization. Treaties are no longer limited to states as parties, but now include international organizations as parties. The chapter also details initiating treaty negotiations. The wide diversity of processes for initiating treaty negotiations among international organizations makes generalization difficult. Organizational patterns for treaty-making are mentioned, such as UN treaty-making conferences, treaty-making by experts, ‘managerial’ forms of treaty-making, and treaty-making with ‘strings attached.’ Plenipotentiary treaty-making conferences convened by the United Nations may occur only after an exhaustive canvassing of views, decades-long study by an expert body, and agreement on a draft text by other intermediary entities.

International organizations are increasingly involved in attempts to address the growing global problem of the mistreatment of migrant workers, with a view to better managing migration flows, so as to achieve the economic benefits of migration without generating conflict. Many states view migrants as a source of illegality or cultural tension, and hence emphasize border control and law and order. Activists and advocates for migrants have tried to introduce more progressive ideas at the United Nations and the International Labour Organisation, emphasizing the role that states play in generating migration. This chapter compares how migrants’ rights are conceptualized in ‘mainstream’ international organizations, such as the UN Committee on Migrant Workers and their Families and the International Labour Organization, and in grassroots organizations such as the International Migrants Alliance. Ultimately, this chapter argues that for migrant activists, participating in all three forums is important because doing so allows them to voice their concerns.

This chapter analyzes international harmonization of labour standards, tracing its history from early efforts in the late 19^th century in Europe to developments under the ILO (International Labour Organization) with a focus on the unique decision making procedure of the ILO and implementation mechanisms of the ILO Conventions and Recommendations. The chapter finally turns to efforts to include social clauses under the GATT, WTO and regional trade agreements, as well as to recent initiatives to raise labour standards by the private sector (Corporate Social Responsibility and the UN Global Compact).