Human Rights at Work

This is a course in advanced employment and labour law, with a particular focus on the human rights dimensions of the subject. 

The course examines how the idea of human rights benchmarks, guides, constitutes, and regulates the legal rules and standards governing work. Human rights perspectives have become increasingly popular in the field in recent years because of a perceived need to find a way of guaranteeing basic protections for working people against the pressures arising first from globalisation and more recently from technological change. However, the approach is not uncontroversial: why should rights drafted with states in mind be applied to employers, and do employers themselves have rights the law should protect? We address these and other controversies at various points during the course. 

Our strategy is to examine a number of different rights in depth, to illustrate the complex interplay between international, regional, and national norms, and between various forms and sources of protection. These rights include freedom of association, the right to strike, the right to privacy, freedom of expression, freedom of religion, freedom from slavery, forced labour and trafficking, and equality rights across various protected characteristics. We also explore a number of cross-cutting themes, such as the rise of the gig economy and the possibility that many jobs may become obsolete because of automation. 

In addition, the course critically examines the various mechanisms for protecting rights, which range from judicial enforcement, through international conventions with various mechanisms of interpretation, to self-regulation by employers through corporate codes of conduct.

The course ranges widely across international, regional and national law, though it reflects the expertise of those involved in teaching it and thus makes no claim to be global or universal in its coverage. Human rights of relevance to working people may be found in (a) international law, such as the UN Declaration of Human Rights and the ILO’s Declaration of the Fundamental Rights of Workers, and other ILO instruments; (b) regional human rights instruments (we focus particularly on the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the EU, the European Convention on Human Rights and the European Social Charter); (c) national constitutions and laws such as the UK Human Rights Act 1998. 

Assessment is by way of a submission.