Abstract
Recent years have witnessed the expansion of human rights standards relating to migrant domestic workers. This includes, in particular, the adoption of the 2011 International Labour Organization (ILO) Convention on Decent Work for Domestic Workers (no. 189), General Comments from UN human rights treaty bodies, and an expanding body of case law in domestic and regional courts. Migrant domestic workers have played central roles in these cases, engaging in the public sphere to advocate for law reform, and, in doing so, gradually expanding the field of global migration law. This essay describes the emerging recognition evident in the approaches of UN human rights treaty bodies that axes of discrimination intersect and, in particular, that migration status and gender can be significant to the enjoyment of rights. This integrated approach is evident in the case law of international human rights bodies adjudicating the rights claims advanced by migrant domestic workers. The case law on Article 4 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) shows the potential for such integrated approaches to move beyond the usual fragmentation of human rights, labor, and migration laws, but that potential remains limited.
Highlights
Recent years have witnessed the expansion of human rights standards relating to migrant domestic workers
The case law on Article 4 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) shows the potential for such integrated approaches to move beyond the usual fragmentation of human rights, labor, and migration laws, but that potential remains limited
As Joseph Carens notes, are “hard to locate on the map of democracy.”[4]. They are hard to locate on the blurred lines of global migration law, at risk of double jeopardy—as migrants and as domestic workers
Summary
Recent years have witnessed the expansion of human rights standards relating to migrant domestic workers. Migrant domestic workers have played central roles in these cases, engaging in the public sphere to advocate for law reform, and, in doing so, gradually expanding the field of global migration law.[2] This essay describes the emerging recognition evident in the approaches of UN human rights treaty bodies that axes of discrimination intersect and, in particular, that migration status and gender can be significant to the enjoyment of rights. Dejuridification, understood as the enactment of legal exceptions, is of particular significance in the domestic work context,[3] creating specific challenges for reform initiatives that promote decent work standards and more secure migration status and pathways Such processes of dejuridification bring into question the potential of human rights laws to secure reforms that can withstand challenges from states.
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