The Role of Human Rights in Labour Law

Abstract

Abstract This chapter investigates the role of human rights in the discipline of labour law. There are numerous benefits to introducing a human rights lens within the labour sphere, including the globally understood moral and legal force of fundamental rights, their universal and inalienable nature, and the strict scrutiny that should be applied wherever a right is interfered with. To integrate these benefits within a wider theory of labour law, one might consider an exclusive or a pluralist approach. Building a foundation for labour law based only upon human rights ideals may lead to several undesirable consequences, such as the relegation of any non-rights claims to a secondary status and a significant contraction of the realm of labour and employment laws when compared to current frameworks. Instead, a pluralist approach would place the protection of human rights amongst a range of other values and objectives that labour law can be considered to pursue, such as dignity, social justice, and democracy in the workplace. This chapter will also consider how the concepts, principles, and mechanisms employed to protect human rights at work must be sensitive to the context of employment relations, discarding irrelevant doctrines that have developed within international human rights cases and taking into account novel features such as the horizontal nature of disputes between workers and their employers.