Why Do States Commit to International Labor Standards? The Importance of 'Rivalry' and 'Friendship'

Established 100 years ago as a normative institution to promote social justice, the International Labour Organization (ILO) fulfills its mission principally through the adoption of international labor standards. To date, those standards have taken the form of 189 international labor Conventions, six Protocols, and 205 international labor Recommendations. ILO standard-setting follows special techniques and practices, mainly because of the Organization’s unique tripartite structure, that have given shape to specificities such as the inadmissibility of reservations, the frequent recourse to built-in flexibility, and the limited possibility for denunciation. The interpretation of international labor Conventions is, pursuant to a specific constitutional provision, entrusted to the International Court of Justice, while the application of international labor standards is monitored by an elaborate supervisory system that combines standing bodies responsible for the regular examination of reports and special adversarial procedures activated by different complaint mechanisms. Today, the abrogation of outdated instruments and the consolidation of up-to-date standards into framework Conventions are among the key challenges for enhancing the relevance and impact of standards. Standard-setting has distinctively marked the Organization’s 100-year-long history and has in many respects broken new ground in the field of international treaty law.

Download Full-text

Precarious Employment Trend: Features of its Development in Labor Legislation and the Problems of Other Norms of Industry Affiliation Influence on the World of Work, Taking into Account International Labor Standards

Actual Problems of Russian Law ◽

10.17803/1994-1471.2019.106.9.153-165 ◽

2019 ◽

pp. 153-165

Author(s):

К. S. Ramankulov

Keyword(s):

Labor Relations ◽

Labor Standards ◽

Kyrgyz Republic ◽

International Labor Standards ◽

Precarious Employment ◽

Eurasian Economic Union ◽

Labor Legislation ◽

International Labor ◽

The World ◽

Economic Union

The paper notes that the conceptualization of the basic concepts related to precarious employment and the adoption of norms and legal acts adequate to these relations in the system of labor legislation of the states of the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) are at the preparatory stages. In the paper, the features of the manifestation of precarious employment in the labor legislation of the EAEU countries are analyzed by the example of norms on a fixed-term labor contract taking into account international labor standards. The labor legislation of the EAEU countries shows a tendency to expand the scope of fixed-term employment contracts, including towards lowering the level of legal guarantees for workers (Article 41 of the Labor Code of Belarus, Article 30 of the Labor Code of Kazakhstan, Article 82 of the Labor Code of Kyrgyzstan, Article 348.12 of the Labor Code of Russia), which contradicts the rules of ILO Recommendation No. 166 on the termination of labor relations on the initiative of the employer (Article 3) and the fundamental Convention No. 105 on the abolition of forced labor (Article 1), ratified by all states of the Eurasian Economic Union. In the paper, in the context of the development of precarious employment, the problems of the influence of norms of a different sectoral affiliation on the world of work are analyzed (by the example of Kyrgyzstan). It is noted, in particular, that the practice of applying the patent system to regulate the world of work does not contribute to resolving the issues of legalization of labor relations, and the tax authorities are not motivated to prove the existence of labor rather than civil law relations, even when they meet the criteria set forth in the ILO Recommendation No. 198 on labor relations and in Art. 13 of the Labor Code of Kyrgyzstan. The conclusion is formulated in relation to the restrictions of the labor inspectorates established by the Law of the Kyrgyz Republic dated May 25, 2007 No. 72 and by the Decree of the Government of the Kyrgyz Republic dated December 17, 2018 No. 586 as contrary to the ILO priority Convention No. 81 on labor inspection in industry and trade (Part 1 of Article 12) ratified by Kyrgyzstan. Serious inconsistencies of measures to deregulate administrative responsibility to the tasks of the labor legislation of Kyrgyzstan to counteract precarious employment are identified.

Download Full-text

Monitoring Compliance with International Labor Standards

Challenge ◽

10.1080/05775132.2001.11034093 ◽

2001 ◽

Vol 44 (2) ◽

pp. 51-72 ◽

Cited By ~ 8

Keyword(s):

Labor Standards ◽

International Labor Standards ◽

International Labor

Download Full-text