Development, Labour and Human Rights (LAWS90018)

The proper role to be played by labour standards and human rights in the construction of the international economic order, and in the development process, is an intricate issue and a matter of controversy. This subject examines the relationship between (economic) development and labour law – exploring the place of rights within both investment and trade-led development models, and the contrasting social justice-based developmental approaches.

In investigating the role of labour law in development, this subject interrogates the rationales, content, institutions and regulatory frameworks relating to labour standards and human rights at regional and international levels. This entails not only a technical analysis of transnational instruments and supervisory structures but also detailed consideration of underlying political and economic concerns. Such regulatory frameworks for labour that have prevailed in the global ‘North’ have been the basis of transplantation and experimentation in the 'South', and might obscure the actual characteristics of labour relations in the ‘South’. The subject examines the redefinition of labour law, paying close attention to North-South relations in the regulation of labour; to the relationship between labour rights and human rights; and to the limits of rights discourse.

Attention will be given to various case studies. Illustrative topics include:

• Introduction: Re-imagining labour law for development
• Labour and the turn to human rights discourse
• The changing nature of work: informalisation, ‘precariatisation’, and the rise in low quality work
• Defining labour in the global North and the global South: Unpaid labour, family employment and care work
• Setting, supervising and enforcing international labour standards
• ‘Core’ labour rights and the International Labour Organisation
• Development, free trade and labour rights: socio-economic rights as a condition of international trade
• Competing regimes and norms on migrant labour
• The regional and sub-regional dimension: the European Union, the African Union and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations
• Labour dimensions of codes of conduct, social labelling and investor initiatives: effectiveness and legitimacy
• ‘Post-industrial’ labour law in the global North and South: Alternative models of social protection and social justice, Universal Basic Income and employment guarantees