Bullying and Harassment in the Workplace An International Perspective

Abstract

One of the most enduring difficulties of a horizontal and decentralized international legal order lacking central legislative authority is determining the rules of international law on workplace harassment and bullying. What is distinctly deficient in international law is a treaty open to universal participation, which covers a wide range of employment issues and activities. The International Labor Organization (ILO) has organized workplace bullying in the broader context of violence at work. In a 2000 monograph, it observed that workplace bullying is the behavior that “by itself may be relatively minor but which cumulatively can become a very serious form of violence.” It also commissioned a report on violence and stress at work that included a summary of research on bullying from around the world. Although the ILO is affiliated with the United Nations and is the leading international organization in terms of establishing universal labor standards, it lacks authority to impose its standards on member nations. Unlike the UN itself, the ILO is not a “supranational entity”, and therefore may not impose obligations on member States unless they have voluntarily agreed to them. Thus, unless ILO gains the authority to impose and enforce labor standards (an unlikely development in light of political and economic realities) Its ability to address workplace bullying on an international scale will be limited to a research, advisory and consciousness-raising role rather than a legislative one. Thus, each country has provided a framework of safeguards for protection of employees from activities detrimental to their conditions of employment based on its legal and cultural peculiarities. Such safeguards in carefully selected countries are examined seriatim before using United Kingdom and United States as models because of the robust enactments on harassment and bullying in the two jurisdictions. This essay is a significant contribution to legal literature and its recommendations on how to bring workplace bullying and harassment to their lowest ebb, have been cited in many journal articles.