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The ILO and the New ‘Common Sense’: Reflections on a Centenary

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European Yearbook of International Economic Law 2019

Part of the book series: European Yearbook of International Economic Law ((EUROYEAR,volume 10))

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Abstract

Taking the cue from Alain Supiot’s important defence of the ‘spirit of Philadelphia’ the paper argues that the Philadelphia Declaration of 1944 renewed and deepened the commitments on which the ILO was set up in 1919, and seeks a firm theoretical footing in Supiot’s defence of the law’s ‘dogmatic’ foundations. It then goes on to track a double mutation, firstly away from political-constitutionalist protection of work toward a form of human rights protection, and secondly away from ‘hard’ institutional processes to ‘soft’ aspirational standards. This gradual migration allows a certain decisive separation to install itself and organise the field, a break between a pragmatic common sense on the one hand, and on the other an aspirational, if not utopian, discourse. This separation misreads and undercuts the integrity of international labour law that depends on holding together its organising principles and their instantiations.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    On the ‘tripartite’ structure of the ILO and its novelty see Tikriti (1982) and Lahovary (in this volume).

  2. 2.

    On this sense of critical theory see Christodoulidis (2019) and Christodoulidis and van der Walt (2018).

  3. 3.

    Rationalisation would include here the range of classifications, causalities, imputations, and the array of techniques of selection through which the past is rendered operative for the present. We understand ‘genealogy’ as the critical intervention that addresses (following Foucault) the conditions of possibility of the formation of knowledge. See Foucault (1977).

  4. 4.

    See Ewing (2012) and the useful post on the Institute of employment Rights website (http://www.ier.org.uk/news/troika-imposing-illegal-terms-greece) More generally see Countouris and Freedland (2013).

  5. 5.

    ILO, 101st Session, Report of the Committee of Experts on the Application of Conventions and Recommendations (Geneva: ILO, 2012) (Greece), my emphasis. See Supiot ‘Solidarity and work: what are the prospects for Greece?’ Discussion with Emilios Christodoulidis, Open Democracy, 17 May 2015. At: https://www.opendemocracy.net/can-europe-make-it/solidarity-and-work-what-are-prospects-for-greece.

  6. 6.

    For an early account see Koukiadaki and Kretsos (2012).

  7. 7.

    See Ewing (2012).

  8. 8.

    The Greek Conceil d’Etat examined the constitutionality of the austerity measures in Koufaki and Adedy v. Greece. In its judgment of 20 February 2012 (Decision 668/2012 of the Council of State (Plenary Assembly)) it rejected several arguments based on the alleged breach of the principle of proportionality by the disputed measures was justified because the aim was not merely to remedy the immediate acute budgetary problem but also to strengthen the country’s financial stability in the long term. In addition the Court observed that the applicants had not claimed in so many words that their situation had deteriorated to such an extent that their very subsistence was in jeopardy. The case was taken to the European Court of Human Rights in 2013 where it was dismissed as inadmissible as ‘manifestly unfounded’. (Decision of the ECHR dated 7th May 2013 (Case Koufaki and Adedy v. Greece)). Proceeding to the proportionality test, the Court, underlined that the financial crisis constitutes an element which is seriously taken into account when examining salary cuts, and concluded that the measures were not disproportionate.

  9. 9.

    Supiot (2010).

  10. 10.

    Supiot (2010), pp. 21–25.

  11. 11.

    The ‘anthropological function’ of law is analysed in Supiot’s major theoretical work Homo Juridicus (2007).

  12. 12.

    Supiot (2010), p. 24: ‘un paix durable ne peut être établie que sur la base de la justice sociale.’

  13. 13.

    Supiot (2010), p. 24: ‘To this end it is important to renew two imperatives declared in the Declaration of Philadelphia. The first of these is the objective of social justice, which must be re-established as the unit of measure of the soundness of the juridical order in the following sense: that ‘all national and international policies and measures, in particular those of an economic and financial character, should be judged in this light and accepted only in so far as they may be held to promote and not to hinder the achievement of this fundamental objective’ (Declaration of Philadelphia art II, c). The second is the imperative of social democracy, which allows us to found this evaluation in the diversity of experiences, and which requires that ‘the representatives of workers and employers … [participate] in free discussion and democratic decision with a view to the promotion of the common welfare’ (ibid., art I, d).

  14. 14.

    ‘La dignité humaine est un principe sur lequel on ne peut pas transiger sans remettre en cause l’ordre juridique tout entire.’ Supiot (2010), p. 22.

  15. 15.

    Supiot (2010), p. 23: ‘La pauvreté, où qu’elle existe, constitue un danger pour la prosperité de tous.’

  16. 16.

    Supiot (2010), ch. 1 (‘Le grand retournement’) pp. 29 ff.

  17. 17.

    Supiot (2010), p. 25.

  18. 18.

    Supiot (2010), p. 101.

  19. 19.

    Supiot (2010), p. 25.

  20. 20.

    Supiot (2010), p. 94.

  21. 21.

    Supiot (2010), p. 97.

  22. 22.

    Supiot (2010), p. 100.

  23. 23.

    Supiot (2010), p. 100.

  24. 24.

    Supiot (2010), p. 88.

  25. 25.

    Supiot (2010), p. 88.

  26. 26.

    Supiot (2007), p. 58.

  27. 27.

    Supiot (2013), p. 99.

  28. 28.

    Freedland and Kountouris (2011), p. 233.

  29. 29.

    Supiot (2013), p. 86, my emphasis.

  30. 30.

    Hughes and Wilkinson (1998), p. 375.

  31. 31.

    ILO Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work and its Follow-up, adopted by the International Labour Conference at its 86th Session, Geneva, 18 June 1998.

  32. 32.

    Supiot (2013), pp. 112, 110.

  33. 33.

    Amongst the earlier and best collections, Alston (2005) With a special focus on the ILO see Fenwick and Novitz (2010).

  34. 34.

    Langille (2005), p. 409.

  35. 35.

    Ewing (2010), p. x.

  36. 36.

    Demir and Baykara v Turkey [2008] ECHR 1345.

  37. 37.

    Ibid., xiv–xv.

  38. 38.

    Macklem (2015), p. 13.

  39. 39.

    Dukes (2017), p. 559.

  40. 40.

    Dukes (2017), p. 560.

  41. 41.

    See Dukes (2014).

  42. 42.

    “La dignité humaine est un principe sur lequel on ne peut pas transiger sans remettre en cause l’ordre juridique tout entire.” Supiot (2010), p. 22.

  43. 43.

    In the European context, ‘formally, the [2000] Charter is merely a solemn proclamation by the European Parliament, Council and Commission. It was at one point hoped that, although the instrument is not as yet legally binding, it could provide a new source of reference for the courts in the exercise of its [sic] fundamental rights jurisprudence. This aspiration has abated…’ Novitz (2005), p. 228.

  44. 44.

    See Luhmann (2010) on the distinction between ‘coding’ and ‘programming’ in the legal system.

  45. 45.

    Collins (2005), p. 883.

  46. 46.

    Collins (2005), p. 883.

  47. 47.

    In the first chapter of Fuller (1969).

  48. 48.

    Supiot (2010), p. 88 [‘to find in the intelligence of the past the means to understand the present and to project a future.’].

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Glasgow, Glasgow, UK

    Emilios Christodoulidis

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  1. Emilios Christodoulidis
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  1. Faculty of Law, Saarland University, Saarbrücken, Germany

    Marc Bungenberg

  2. Faculty of Law, University of Erlangen-Nuremberg, Erlangen, Germany

    Markus Krajewski

  3. School of Law, University of Glasgow, Glasgow, UK

    Christian J. Tams

  4. Competition and Regulation Institute, Leuphana University Lüneburg, Lüneburg, Germany

    Jörg Philipp Terhechte

  5. Faculty of Law and Criminal Sciences, University of Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland

    Andreas R. Ziegler

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Christodoulidis, E. (2019). The ILO and the New ‘Common Sense’: Reflections on a Centenary. In: Bungenberg, M., Krajewski, M., Tams, C.J., Terhechte, J.P., Ziegler, A.R. (eds) European Yearbook of International Economic Law 2019. European Yearbook of International Economic Law, vol 10. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/8165_2019_43

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