ILO Standards Research Articles

THE ROLE OF ILO STANDARDS IN SHAPING SOCIAL PROTECTION IN GLOBAL SOUTH COUNTRIES: EXAMPLE OF BRAZIL

This paper focuses on the actions of the ILO towards Global South, with Brazil as a focal point. As the International Labour Organization has changed its paradigm during one hundred years of existence, the policies toward Global South have also altered. Brazil is a country often evoked in the ILO reports as an example of good practices, i.e. the country that has taken millions of its inhabitants out of poverty. The study shows that ILO standards can be easier achieved when other important conditions are also fulfi lled: especially good economic situation and government favourable to social change as well as active civil society and its pressure on reform and change.

ЩОДО РАТИФІКАЦІЇ УКРАЇНОЮ КОНВЕНЦІЇ МОП № 190 ПРО ВИКОРІНЕННЯ НАСИЛЬСТВА ТА ДОМАГАНЬ У СФЕРІ ПРАЦІ

The article provides a comparative analysis of the ILO Convention No. 190 and Ukrainian legislation concerning the issues of combating violence and harassment in the world of work. ILO standards have traditionally been one of the key sources of national labour law. Conventions and recommendations of this organization represent a balance of interests of workers, employers and governments, which have also been properly tested both in time and in practice. ILO Convention No. 190 is not an exception in this case. Ratification of this Convention will not only strengthen the international status of Ukraine, but also improve national mechanisms to combat violence and harassment in labour relations. Among the key features of the ILO Convention No. 190 the following should be highlighted: providing a definition of "violence and harassment" in the world of work, specification of the powers of the labour inspectorate in terms of detecting cases of violence and harassment, adoption in consultation with employees a workplace policy on violence and harassment, ensuring easy access to appropriate and effective remedies and dispute resolution mechanisms, etc. It has been established that Ukraine currently has a proper basis for ratification of ILO Convention No. 190. This is primarily due to the adoption in 2017 of the Law on Prevention and Counteraction to Domestic Violence, which introduced a number of important amendments to existing legislation in terms of enshrining at the regulatory level the concepts of "sexual harassment" and "gender-based violence", as well as mechanisms to combat them. The recognition of this Convention as legally binding for Ukraine would further eliminate a number of existing gaps in legal regulation relating to combating violence and harassment in the world of work. Such gaps include: the lack of a clear mandate from the State Labour Service to exercise state control over employers' compliance with anti-violence and harassment legislation, not taking into account violence and harassment and associated psychosocial risks in the management of occupational safety and health, lack of norms that would mitigate the impact of do- mestic violence in the world of work, etc.

A Comparative Analysis of the Implementation of Freedom of Association and Collective Bargaining Principles in Post-Apartheid South Africa and The U-nited States of America in Respect of ILO Standards

This article attempts to investigate the extent to which post-apartheid South Africa and United States of America have implemented freedom of association and collective bargaining principles in workplace environment in respect of ILO standards. The investigation shows that South Africa has done better than USA in the implementation of freedom of association and collective bargaining principles. Post-apartheid South Africa has well-structured legal framework to promote and implement freedom of association and collective bargaining principles when compared with USA. This paper highlights the precarious state of trade unions in the USA in implementing freedom of association and collective bargaining process in the workplace environment.

Greener Pastures or Banished to Slavery: The Case of Zimbabwean Migrant Workers in Botswana and South Africa (2000-2018) in the context of ILO Standards and Peoples’ Rights

Greener Pastures or Banished to Slavery: The Case of Zimbabwean Migrant Workers in Botswana and South Africa (2000-2018) in the context of ILO Standards and Peoples’ Rights

A comparative study on legal frameworks of work and family reconciliation in Mozambique and Tanzania

ABSTRACTThis paper analyses legal frameworks designed to reconcile work and family responsibilities in Mozambique and Tanzania from the perspective of ILO standards. Three labour laws are explored, the Mozambique Family Law 2004, the Mozambique Labour Law 2007, and the Tanzania Employment and Labour Relations Act 2004. ILO standards have encouraged both countries to become better equipped for working families to reconcile their work and family responsibilities. Their legal frameworks, however, remain below ILO standards, especially in parental leave and childcare services. The paper finds the root cause of such low compliance from a number of historical junctures, including a historical hangover from colonial regimes, social development policies and structural adjustment policies. The paper suggests a stronger commitment by the Mozambique and Tanzania governments’ and active involvement of civil societies to reshape the patriarchal political economy and promote gender equality in both public and private spheres.

СОВРЕМЕННЫЕ ПРОБЛЕМЫ ОБЕСПЕЧЕНИЯ ЗДОРОВЬЯ И БЕЗОПАСНОСТИ В СТРОИТЕЛЬНОЙ ПРОМЫШЛЕННОСТИ

A part of the research on the impact and interrelation between human factors and the safety of the working environment in the construction sector is presented. Labor in construction companies is often associated with a high risk of injury and, therefore, occupational safety is an important element of production efficiency in this area. The injured workers lost working days and financial costs affect the social and economic efficiency of the construction industry. Statistics indicate that occupational health and safety for modern research are current issues. Economic reforms in Uzbekistan envisage the creation of favourable and safe working conditions. From this point of view, ILO standards (Health & Safety) are really relevant for research and implementation in the construction industry of Uzbekistan. The purpose of this article is to analyze the implementation of best practices in the construction industry of Uzbekistan.

Editorial: The ILO is one hundred years old, but what is its future?

2 | International Union Rights | 26/2 EDITORIAL Editorial: the ILO is one hundred years old, but what is its future? A new Declaration has emerged from the centenary conference, described as ‘a reaffirmation of the relevance and importance of the ILO’s mandate in the changing world of work, a strong statement of intent, a mobilizing call, and a road map for action’. But while these seem laudible objectives, the new language elevates the private sector (‘a principal source of economic growth and job creation’) and subtly downplays the public sector (not a ‘principal’ anything, but merely ‘a significant employer and provider of quality public services’). More worrying still is the position of core workers’ rights as mere means to economic ends (the ILO, we are told, will devote its efforts towards ‘workers rights as a key element for the attainment of inclusive and sustainable growth’. This is the new document’s sole reference to freedom of association – justified only as a means to attain growth! How different things were at the ILO’s founding in 1919, when the ‘principle’ of freedom of association was ‘urgently required’ to address ‘injustice, hardship and privation to large numbers of people’, and to prevent ‘unrest so great that the peace and harmony of the world are imperilled’… It is with these concerns about the ILO’s direction and purpose that the latest edition of IUR takes on the challenge of the ILO centenary. Several of our contributors take us back to the early years of the ILO’s work, the context of its establishment, the ideas that fed its early work, the opening of the Organisation’s working model to embrace development, and the underpinnings of the technical assistance programmes. Plata-Stenger and Fitti Sinclair talk us through the ideas underlying ILO’s work in these areas from the outset through to contemporary ILO projects, while the ILO’s Azzi shares with us an inside insight into the changing work on the Organisation in its approach to health and safety at work. Some may question whether the business-friendly language of the new Declaration is really a sufficient answer to PSI’s ringing challenge posed earlier this year (reproduced as our opening article), and Hochscheidt and Vollmann note with concern that ILO’s new private sector partnerships create a perception of the conflict of interest. For ICTUR, standards and supervision have always been the core focus of our engagement with the Organisation. Tonia Novitz discusses the explosion in the late 20th Century of the use of ILO principles in courts around the world seeking to align local and regional human rights decision-making in those courts with the global principles that the ILO has established. And standard setting continues, as Amanda Brown reminds us, in a process based ultimately not on enforcement and sanction, but on consensus and encouragement: during the centenary conference a new convention on violence and harassment was adopted. Burns and Logan look at what the ILO has meant in a local context, from the Australian and US perspectives. A central concern for both contributors is with ILO standards and their application to the domestic trade union rights agenda. While there is much to celebrate with respect to the ILO’s standards machinery, this edition of IUR seeks also to remind our readers that there have been astonishing omissions from the Organisation’s work: where was the Commission of Inquiry on Colombia in the early 2000s; what did the Organisation do to protest the mass killing of striking oil workers in Kazakhstan in 2011; and why, with respect to South Africa, has the ILO rarely mentioned the massacre of striking mineworkers at Marikana in 2012? This edition of IUR seeks to avoid the cliché, pomp and sycophancy that so often surround any sort of centenary celebration. It was our intention from the outset to produce an edition that would not be shy to point out the Organisation’s flaws and failings. For my part I hope we haven’t overdone that aspect of the project: it was also always our ambition that an overriding admiration should shine through. This journal, and its parent organisation ICTUR, may on occasion be critics...

ILO Standards in the European Court of Human Rights: Ognevenko V Russia

ILO Standards in the European Court of Human Rights: Ognevenko V Russia

Inspekcijski nadzor kao instrument borbe protiv faktičkog rada u domaćem i međunarodnom pravu

The paper analyses the notion of undeclared work, its manifestation forms, with an overview of circumstances that affect its occurrence. Also, the author gives an overview of International Labour Organization standards, principles and guidelines in relation to inspection supervision, and an overview of an international framework for the implementation of inspection supervision and references that it provides as a basis for suppressing undeclared work. Considering the current situation in the labour inspection, the established ILO standards on the work of labour inspection, as well as a range of available legal options aimed at suppressing undeclared work, it is indicated that the proposed organizational, personnel and technical changes in the governmental body itself shall contribute to the suppression of the observed social phenomenon.

Universal Basic Income Proposals in Light of ILO Standards: Key Issues and Global Costing

This paper reviews proposals for a Universal Basic Income (UBI) in light of ILO standards. Some UBI proposals have the potential to advance equity and social justice, while others may result in a net welfare loss. The ILO Social Protection Floors Recommendation (No. 202) includes a number of principles which are highly relevant to guide the debate on UBI, namely: (i) adequacy and predictability of UBI benefits to ensure income security, set at least at the national poverty line; (ii) social inclusion, including of persons in the informal economy; (iii) social dialogue and consultation with stakeholders; (iv) enactment of national laws regulating UBI entitlements, including indexation of benefits; (v) coherence with other social, economic and employment policies, and (vi) sustainable and equitable financing. The impact of a UBI on poverty and inequality depends on the level of benefits and the source of funding. Based on these principles, the paper shows that some models of UBI can be in accordance with ILO standards, while others are not.

Application of Labor Laws and Other Compliances in Readymade Garment Industry of Bangladesh

Although, the economy of Bangladesh is primarily dependent on agriculture, Readymade Garment (RMG) industry has emerged as the largest earner foreign currency of Bangladesh in recent years. More than 75% of foreign earnings are coming through export from this very important sector of Bangladesh. In study of Islam & Chowdhuri, [1] presently more than four million workers are working in 4,500 RMG companies of Bangladesh in which 90% are illiterate women who are from the rural areas of the country. The policymakers and the employers of this sector claim that the growth of garment sector has helped employing a huge number of rural women that has subsequently developed their socioeconomic. But, it is a concern of the national and internal observers that the compliances like factory laws, industrial relations laws, employment laws, payment of wages laws, ILO standards, ethics applied in this sector are hardly followed by the RMG companies that make the lives of the workers very misery. Sometimes, the female workers are exploited by employing more hours a day without the payment of overtime by capitalizing their illiteracy and submissiveness. Hence, this paper aims at identifying the level of application of the labor laws and the compliances in RMG industry of Bangladesh that is the only protective measures of the large number of female workers of this sector of Bangladesh. A total of 238 workers of this sector were interviewed in this study with a structured questionnaire. Multivariate analysis techniques such as, Factor Analysis and Multiple Regression Analysis were used to analyze the data. Results show that in case of measures for protecting sexual harassment there is a severe problem of the use of the labor laws in this sector followed by physical movement and access control, exit and access path of the company, working hours, and counseling arrangements in the company. This study suggests that the readymade garment companies should address the sexual harassment issue seriously so that the workers will feel safe at their work. They also should focus more on the safety issues, working hours, and counseling of the workers in order to make the working environment more favorable to the workers.

Women's ILO: Transnational Networks, Global Labour Standards and Gender Equity, 1919 to Present ed. by Eileen Boris, Dorothea Hoehtker, and Susan Zimmermann

Reviewed by: Women's ILO: Transnational Networks, Global Labour Standards and Gender Equity, 1919 to Present ed. by Eileen Boris, Dorothea Hoehtker, and Susan Zimmermann Elizabeth McKillen Eileen Boris, Dorothea Hoehtker, and Susan Zimmermann, eds., Women's ILO: Transnational Networks, Global Labour Standards and Gender Equity, 1919 to Present ( Leiden: Brill 2018) The International Labour Organization (ilo) will celebrate its centennial in 2019. Studies by scholars and ilo functionaries of this long-lived and uniquely structured affiliate of the League of Nations and United Nations abound, but the role of women in shaping its policies has received only sporadic attention. Such neglect is not surprising because, until recently, women have constituted a very small percentage of the members of the ilo governing body, or of the delegates and technical advisors sent by individual nations to the yearly ilo conferences. Yet this edited collection of fourteen essays makes a convincing case that women have played an important role in shaping the ilo's policies toward women workers and in ensuring the ratification and implementation of ilo conventions governing women's work in diverse national contexts. The book is divided into two overlapping sections. The first section primarily considers the role of transnational women's networks in shaping debates and policies within the ilo; the second focuses on the ways in which ilo standards were negotiated and implemented within particular nations, regions, and populations of workers. In an important opening chapter of the first section, Dorothy Sue Cobble explores the neglected role of women in the "origin story" of the ilo. (27) The blueprints for the ilo were first drawn up by the all-male Commission on International Labour Legislation at the Versailles Peace Conference in 1919. Fearful of the growing contagion of Bolshevism and other forms of labour radicalism in the aftermath of World War I, they recommended an innovative tripartite structure for the ilo: the yearly conferences would include national delegations of government, business, and labour representatives, and the governing body would also include representatives from all three groups. These groups were charged with working together to raise labour standards in order to prevent the injustices and poverty that caused social unrest and threatened world peace. A coalition of women's groups visited the commission to voice their concerns and several women's organizations asked that representation for women also be mandated as a component of the tripartite structure of the ilo. Instead, the Commission required only that the ilo's director appoint women to the ilo staff and recommended that national delegations include at least one woman in an advisory position. Of the 40 nations that sent delegations to the founding convention of the ilo in Washington, DC in the autumn of 1919, none appointed a woman as a voting delegate and most included only a few female advisors. The US and British-based Women's Trade Union League, however, responded by staging their own International Congress of Working Women (icww) in Washington, DC at the same time as the ilo convention. Their meeting included over two hundred women from nineteen nations, some of whom were also advisors to their national delegations at the ilo convention. The icww prepared a set of resolutions and policy statements that were then championed by the women advisors at the ilo meeting. The icww recommendations proved particularly important in shaping the ilo's Maternity Convention [End Page 302] to include a far-reaching demand for six weeks paid benefits for women before and after childbirth. icww proposals were also taken into consideration in debates over conventions on child labour and the prohibition of night work for women. Subsequent articles by Françoise Thébaud, Kirsten Scheiwe, and Lucia Artner highlight the way women continued to influence debates over labour standards for women during the interwar period through the no's Correspondence Committee on Women's Work and its dedicated staff members. The Cold War, as Eileen Boris demonstrates, complicated the quest for international labour standards as the no's protective legislation for women came under attack by feminist activists from Communist bloc countries as well as legal equality feminists based in the UN Commission on the Status of Women. Silke Neunsinger...

From Principles to Practice: A Method for Identifying Income Sufficiency When Applying International Legal Standards

This paper gives content to the idea of a minimum income as reflected in ILO Conventions and Recommendations. It also aims to provide some practical guidance as to how such minima can best be operationalized. The practical purpose of this analysis is to define a reference income level that can play a role in defining adequate levels of social protection benefits, as discussed in ILO standards.

On the representative status of Belgian employers' organizations for the purpose of collective bargaining

In this paper, some legal characteristics of the Belgian system of collective bargaining (in the private sector) are highlighted for an Italian audience. The procedures identifying the representative employers’ organizations at the various bargaining levels concerned are analysed. It goes without saying that employers are per se representative for collective bargaining taking place at the level of the enterprises. Hence, the levels concerned are solely the branch and intersectoral levels. For a better understanding of this procedure, en filigrane, a comparison is drawn with the procedure applied for the identification of the representative trade unions. This paper concludes with some comparative observations dealing with the representative status of trade unions and employers and with an assessment of the conformity of the Belgian system for identifying representative employers’ organizations with the ILO standards.

Translating from multiple sources: Labour legislation reform in Turkey

AbstractBuilding upon the recent scholarship on “travelling ideas” and “translation”, the author discusses how ILO and EU labour standards were conveyed to Turkey's political landscape by domestic actors and how those standards were adjusted. The study first analyses the motivations of the Commission that drafted the 2003 Labour Act, and of employer and labour organizations, for choosing to draw on those international standards during the legislative reform process. It then focuses on the institutional outcomes of the reform by examining how domestic actors modified the international standards, while also preserving components of the old labour legislation, as on severance pay.

Application of Labor Laws and Other Compliance in Readymade Garment Industry of Bangladesh

Although, the economy of Bangladesh is primarily dependent on agriculture, Readymade Garment (RMG) industry has emerged as the largest earner of foreign income of Bangladesh in recent years. More than 75% of foreign earnings are coming from this very important sector of Bangladesh. Presently, more than four million workers are working in 4,500 RMG companies in which 90% are illiterate women came from the rural areas of Bangladesh (Islam & Muntaquimul Bari Chowdhuri, 2014). The policymakers and the employers of this sector claim that the growth of garment sector has helped employing a huge number of rural women that has subsequently developed their socioeconomic status in Bangladesh. But, it is a concern of the national and internal observers that the labor laws and other compliances like factory laws, industrial relations laws, employment laws, payment of wages laws, ILO standards, ethics applied in this sector are hardly followed by the RMG companies which are making the lives of these workers very difficult. Sometimes, these workers are exploited by employing more hours a day without the payment of overtime by capitalizing their illiteracy and submissiveness. Hence, this paper aims at identifying the level of application of the labor laws and other compliances in RMG industry of Bangladesh that is the only protective measures of this large number of female workers of this important sector of Bangladesh. A total of 238 workers of this sector were interviewed in this study with a structured questionnaire. Multivariate analysis techniques such as, Factor Analysis and Multiple Regression Analysis were used to analyze the data collected from the workers on the application of labor laws and other compliances of these companies. The results show that in case of measures for protecting sexual harassment there is a severe problem of the use of the labor laws in this sector followed by physical movement and access control of workers, exit and access path of the company, working hours, and counseling arrangements in the company. This study suggests that the readymade garment companies should address the sexual harassment issue seriously so that the workers will feel safe at their work. They also should focus more on the safety issues, working hours and counseling of the workers in order to make the working environment more favorable to the workers.

The Right for Strike in ILO Jurisprudence: Crisis of Recognition?

В статье рассматриваются: понимание права на забастовку как неотъемлемого права человека,сложившееся в течение XX века; его место среди других прав человека; нормативное закреплениеправа на забастовку на международном и национальных уровнях, а также его значение для трудовыхотношений и трудового права. Центральное место в статье уделено исследованию кризиса признанияправа на забастовку, вызванного заявлениями группы работодателей на Международной конферен-ции труда 2012 года. Во время конференции представители группы работодателей сделали заявле-ние об отказе обсуждать в Комитете конференции по применению стандартов ранее согласованныйтрехсторонними партнерами список дел по странам, не выполняющим обязательства, вытекающиеиз ратифицированных конвенций, отобранный на основании доклада Комитета экспертов по при-менению конвенций и рекомендаций. Заявление было обосновано тем, что право на забастовку пря-мо не предусмотрено в Конвенции № 87, а Комитет экспертов, делающий заключения о нарушенииправа на забастовку некоторыми государствами-членами МОТ, вышел за пределы своего мандата.Это поставило вопрос не только о пересмотре складывавшегося в течение десятилетий права назабастовку, но и о мандате Комитета экспертов в целом. Для понимания современных рамок при-знания права на забастовку в нормах МОТ исследуется история обсуждения и принятия конвенцийи рекомендаций МОТ, относящихся к праву на забастовку; проводится анализ развития толкованияКонвенции № 87 контрольными органами МОТ, в частности, Комитетом по свободе объединения и Ко-митетом экспертов МОТ; исследуются пределы мандата этих органов по интерпретации содержанияконвенций, а также роль групп работодателей, работников и правительств в признании и развитииэтих толкований. Рассматриваются усилия, предпринятые в рамках МОТ для преодоления кризиса,его современное состояние и перспективы урегулирования разногласий.

Report: Global Unions statement to the IMF and World Bank

INTERNATIONAL union rights Page 23 Volume 23 Issue 1 2016 Global Unions’ full statement is at: http://www.ituc -csi.org/statement -by-global-unions -to-the-17170 I n a statement to the 2016 Spring Meetings of the IMF and World Bank held in Washington on 15-17 April 2016, the Global Unions strongly criticised the policies of both international financial institutions, particularly with regard to labour protections. The Global Unions group comprises the ITUC, as well as the BWI, EI, IAEA, IFJ, Industriall, ITF, IUF, PSI, UNI, and the Trade Union Advisory Committee (TUAC) to the OECD. The statement specifically criticises the IMF and the World Bank’s systematic overestimation of the rate of recovery of the global economic since the financial crisis of 2008-9, their inconsistent approaches to addressing inequality, promotion of labour market flexibility, and failures to implement robust labour safeguards in development lending operations. The Global Unions further issued a series of recommendations focusing on improving the institutions support for public investment, social protections, energy efficiency and transition, stronger protection of labour rights, and comprehensive measures towards the effective regulation of the financial sector and tax transparency. The extracts below detail the Global Union’s position with regard to labour rights. Implementation of a robust World Bank labour safeguard Global Unions have urged the World Bank to require that its projects are in compliance with the International Labour Organisation’s core labour standards (CLS) starting in 1998, when it became a de facto condition of ILO membership for countries to adhere to the standards. Other multilateral development banks preceded the World Bank by requiring that the activities they finance comply with the CLS, as well as minimum occupational health and safety requirements, obligations to provide information to workers and some other working conditions. Trade unions, other civil society organisations and many governments urged the World Bank to adopt labour standard requirements as part of the review and update of its Environmental and Social Framework, commonly known as safeguards , that it began in 2012. A first draft of the new framework was made public in July 2014. In August 2015, the Bank released a second draft of its proposed new safeguards policy that followed extensive consultations on the first proposal . The revised draft of the labour safeguard contained many improvements on the version released a year earlier, which those who had supported the adoption of a labour safeguard criticised for its serious flaws. For example, the first draft had excluded contract or sub-contracted workers from any protection, even though this category of workers may be particularly subject to abuse and often constitutes the vast majority of workers in Bank-financed infrastructure projects. The draft of August 2015 included coverage of these workers. However, some important weaknesses remain in the most recent draft labour safeguard. Chief among these are the lack of any reference to the ILO standards upon which the CLS are based and insufficient protection of workers who exercise their freedom of association against acts of discrimination or reprisal. In both these areas, the latest draft does not meet the standards of the labour safeguards adopted by other development banks. The ITUC and its Global Unions partners submitted written suggestions to the World Bank for correcting the remaining flaws and presented them during the last round of public consultations that ended in March. They also called on the Bank to adopt effective means and procedures for implementing the new safeguard and monitoring its application. Global Unions have urged the World Bank’s private-sector lending arm IFC, which has applied ‘Performance Standard 2: Labour and Working Conditions’ (PS 2) as a borrowing requirement since 2006, to implement the recommendations of a May 2015 investigation report issued by its Compliance Advisor Ombudsman. The CAO report, which concerned a loan made to a Colombian borrower, found fault with IFC for proceeding with loan disbursements despite having corroborated information it received more than a year before from trade unions and the ILO showing that the firm’s labour practices were in clear violation of PS 2. The CAO also criticised IFC for not compelling the firm to divulge assessments and action plans concerning its labour practices...

Decent Work, Human Rights and the Sustainable Development Goals

In September 2015, the United Nations General Assembly will adopt the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which will guide international development policy and practice for a fifteen-year period from 2015 to 2030. The SDGs are critically important as most international development efforts over those fifteen years – including those of donors, major development institutions, national governments and civil society – will likely be directed toward achieving these goals. The SDGs follow on the heels of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), which have guided international development from 2000 to 2015. An extensive global public consultation has been underway for three years leading up to the UN General Assembly meeting planned for September 2015 that will finalize the new SDGs and targets. Much of the SDG discussion builds upon the lessons learned from the MDG experience, addressing both the achievements and the criticisms. This article uses a human rights lens to reflect back over the successes and shortcomings of the MDG framework generally, and then examines in particular the target and indicators on full employment and decent work for all. Against this background, the article considers whether the decent work goal, targets and indicators proposed for the post-2015 framework truly integrate human rights and ILO standards into the international development agenda in a way that is consistent with the international legal obligations of the States parties.

Child Labour and the Global Economy: Abolition or Acceptance?

This article traces the evolution of international attitudes toward child labour, and outlines its relationship to the global economy. It examines the way in which international treaties promulgated by the International Labor Organization (ilo) have conceived of child labour over time. At the national level, the most extreme pro-child labour position may be found in recent Bolivian legislation that recognizes work performed by children as young as ten years old. Much has been written on the problem of conflicting global values on child labour, but all agree that exploitative forms should be eliminated. The author updates her earlier recommendation that the World Trade Organization should place conditions on participation in the global economy by requiring its member states to honour core ilo standards. Eliminating exploitative child labour could thus be linked indirectly to the global economy, by requiring the elimination of children’s work detrimental to the child’s full development.