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Why the Shift from International to Transnational Law Is Important for Labour Standards

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Labour Standards in International Economic Law

Abstract

The importance of the shift from the international to the transnational lies in transnational labour law’s counter-hegemonic nature in relation to setting and enforcing labour standards. It brings in a wider range of non-State actors as it strives for greater accountability in a globally trading economy. Hybrid arrangements (private and public law, hard and soft law) seek more effective means and remedies for responding to violations of labour rights in value chains, such as through due diligence or responses to the Rana Plaza factory collapse. In the long term, interdisciplinary analysis and monitoring in transnational labour law promise to reunite the social and the economic.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Jessup (1956).

  2. 2.

    Trubek (2006), pp. 725–733.

  3. 3.

    Blackett and Trebilcock (2015), p. 3–31. For an in-depth review of governance aspects, see Halliday and Shaffer (2015).

  4. 4.

    Zumbansen (2012), pp. 898–925.

  5. 5.

    Peters et al. (2009), p. 550 et seq.

  6. 6.

    Pekdemir et al. (2015), p. 226.

  7. 7.

    See e.g. Bellace (2014), pp. 175–198.

  8. 8.

    For an example, see the indicators developed for use in the World Justice Index, which is oriented mainly towards civil and political rights. A broader examination of issues around indicators is provided by Barenberg (2015), pp. 76–92.

  9. 9.

    Van der Heijden and Zandvliet (2015), pp. 170–189.

  10. 10.

    Trebilcock (2015), pp. 93–107.

  11. 11.

    ILO (2016a), p. 8. See also ILO (2016a), No. 14 Part two and ILO (2016b).

  12. 12.

    Lansky et al. (2016).

  13. 13.

    ILO (2016c) and ILO (2016f), pp. 22–25.

  14. 14.

    ILO (2015).

  15. 15.

    Sukthankar (2015), pp. 37–50. The business models that make effective strategies difficult to devise are summarized by Martin (2015), pp. 51–64.

  16. 16.

    ILO (2016f), pp. 22–25.

  17. 17.

    Drouin (2015), pp. 217–229.

  18. 18.

    These are set out briefly in Compa (2015), pp. 127–131.

  19. 19.

    See Diller (2015), pp. 336–342 and Reinecke and Donaghey (2015), pp. 257–277.

  20. 20.

    The Arrangement uses the ILO Employment Injury Benefits Convention (No. 121), a public international law instrument unratified by Bangladesh, as the basis for income replacement. Disputes between the parties to the Accord are to be referred under rules set by the New York Convention on the Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Arbitral Awards, drawing on private international law.

  21. 21.

    Art. 22 ILO Constitution.

  22. 22.

    Compa and Brooks (2015).

  23. 23.

    ILO (2016d).

  24. 24.

    Kolben (2015), pp. 361–373. See also Barry and Macdonald (2016), pp. 92–118 and ILO (2016f), pp. 22–25.

  25. 25.

    ILO (2016e), see for instance paras. 16 (d), (e) and (f), Art. 18 and Art. 23 (f).

  26. 26.

    Ibid. para. 23 (b) concerning the ILO’s own programme of action on the topic.

  27. 27.

    Dahan et al. (2016), pp. 53–91.

  28. 28.

    See for instance Deva and Bilchiltz (2013), Murray (2015), pp. 337–366; Carse and Njoya (2015), pp. 311–335; Sukthankar (2015), pp. 37–50 and Trebilcock (2015), pp. 104–106 respectively.

  29. 29.

    See examples provided by Sukthankar (2015), pp. 37–50.

  30. 30.

    Hyde (2016), pp. 209–236.

  31. 31.

    Berliner et al. (2015).

  32. 32.

    Locke (2013).

  33. 33.

    See for instance, the website of the Transnational Law Institute, Dickson Poon School of Law, King’s College London: https://www.kcl.ac.uk/law/tli/index.aspx. Accessed 08 Aug 2017.

  34. 34.

    For a description of how the process operates, see Trebilcock (2010), pp. 553–570.

  35. 35.

    See ILO (2006), paras. 96–99.

  36. 36.

    In addition to Barenberg (2015), see e.g. Sari and Kuchera (2011) and Kucera (2007).

  37. 37.

    ILO (2016b), para. 25.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Labour Law, Georg-August-University Göttingen, Göttingen, Germany

    Anne Trebilcock

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  1. Anne Trebilcock
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Correspondence to Anne Trebilcock .

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  1. Institute of International and European Law, Georg-August-University Göttingen, Göttingen, Germany

    Henner Gött

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Trebilcock, A. (2018). Why the Shift from International to Transnational Law Is Important for Labour Standards. In: Gött, H. (eds) Labour Standards in International Economic Law. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-69447-4_4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-69447-4_4

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