Basic Labour Rights are Human Rights

Abstract

After World War I, the League of Nations and the International Labour Organization set in motion a global codification process of human rights. It was given new urgency by the ‘barbarous acts which have outraged the conscience of mankind’ perpetrated by European and East Asian fascist regimes. The 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), from which these words are quoted, re-launched the codification that, 18 years later, gave rise to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR). A number of Conventions and Declarations have since been elaborated on specific subjects under the auspices of the United Nations and some of its agencies, notably the International Labour Organization.