International Labour Law 1300-ILL-KPP

International labor law has a rich heritage. The International Labor Organization (ILO) was founded in 1919, more than 75 years earlier than the World Trade Organization. Yet, given the process of globalization and the commensurate exponential increase in international trade, in the last two decades international commercial law has been much more visible and also has developed at a much faster pace. However, along with environmental law, labor law has also been more and more internationalized in recent years, and is an increasingly relevant field for international lawyers. Multinational companies have workforces in many different parts of the world, and apart from domestic labor regulations, they also must contend with regional and international labor laws. The venerable labor standards set by the ILO have been given new life, in part by becoming benchmarks that states must comply with under free trade agreements. While corporations have adjusted much better to globalization than labor unions, unions have finally started to adjust and are trying to organize workers on a global scale, in part through the use of framework agreements.
This course will cover the ILO’s labor standards and enforcement procedures; international employment anti-discrimination law, including the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities; global union-management Relations and unions’ attempts to organize workers on an international level; international employee data protection; international employer codes of conduct; employee “whistleblowing” and multinational corporations; and international labor standards and sustainable development- labor side agreements and free trade treaties; among other topics.