The architecture of global labour governance

• Published date: 01 September 2016
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1564-913X.2015.00039.x
• Date: 01 September 2016

Copyright © The authors 2016

Journal compilation © International Labour Organization 2016

International Labour Review, Vol. 155 (2016), No. 3

* Leuven Centre for Global Governance Studies, University of Leuven, emails: frank.hen

drickx@law.kuleuven.be; axel.marx@ggs.kuleuven.be; jan.wouters@ggs.kuleuven.be. ** Ghent

University, email: glenn.rayp@ugent.be.

Responsibility for opinions expressed in signed articles rests solely with their authors, and

publication does not constitute an endorsement by the ILO.

The architecture of global

labour governance

Frank HENDRICKX,* Axel MARX,* Glenn RAYP**

and Jan WOUTERS*

Abstract. In their introduction to this Special Issue, the authors situate the archi-

tecture of global labour governance against the background of the challenges posed

by globalization. Noting the limitations of a conventional governmental approach

to labour governance, they suggest considering new “hybrid” regulatory modes

and mechanisms, which involve a combination of public and private actors and

initiatives alongside or instead of traditional international labour law. The authors

conclude by examining possible explanations for the emergence of gaps in the en-

forcement of labour rights, looking in particular at the issues of labour-standard

“selectivity” and the stringency with which standards are enforced.

O

n 24 April 2013, the world was shocked by the collapse of the Rana Plaza

factory, part of Bangladesh’s hazardous garment industry. More than

1,000 casualties were mourned in the aftermath of the disaster, and the “life-

blood of the economy of Bangladesh” – the garment industry – was criticized

for its “lack of minimum facility and safety at work [and] sub-standard living

conditions” (Ahmed, Raihan and Islam, 2013, p. 68). This was just one of sev-

eral incidents in the past few years to generate global attention, and it served

to revive the debate on the need for labour regulation and protection.

The call for stronger protection of labour rights is also substantiated by

empirical research that shows a downward trend in labour rights protection

around the world, and by studies that investigate the impact on labour rights

of the globalization of economic activities. The authors of a background paper

for the World Development Report 2013, using an aggregate measure of labour

rights for the period 1985–20 02 developed by Mosley (2011), found that “not

only do most regions exhibit no sustained improvement over time in average

labor rights performance, but most appear worse off in 2002 than in 1985”

(Levi et al., 2012, p. 7).

International Labour Review340

At a time when we observe not only greater interest in, but also an

increasingly complex set of international rules for, the protection of labour

rights, the aim of this Special Issue is to assess the state of play regarding the

enforcement of labour standards via different means and instruments, and to

provide critical insights into the architecture of global labour governance. This

introductory article situates this architecture against the background of glo-

balization and reects on the existing legal framework of global mechanisms

for the protection of labour rights, in light of the recent incidents and debates.

It provides an overview of this legal framework, with specic reference to

international standards, conventions and initiatives adopted by the Inter-

national Labour Organization (ILO) and other stakeholders. Subsequently,

the different contributions in this Special Issue discuss, in more detail, a num-

ber of instruments that could strengthen the enforcement of labour rights,

including trade policy, development policy and private initiatives.

The context of global labour governance

Global labour governance faces the challenge posed by two interrelated major

trends. The rst is that the world of work is changing and globalization has

become its key feature. International trade liberalization, international pro-

duction or service provision, and new technologies are the driving factors of

change, leading to the increasing economic interdependence of regions and

countries. As Bernard Hoekman noted, “the extent to which world trade has

grown since the 1950s is dramatic, especially when put in historical perspective.

The volume of trade increased 27–fold between 1950 and 2008, three times

more than the growth in global GDP” (Hoekman, 2014, p. 13). While global-

ization – and the resulting creation of the “global workplace” – may make a

global approach to labour regulation more relevant, it also poses a number of

challenges for employers, workers, unions and governments. While businesses

are subject to global economic competition, governments face regulatory com-

petition, and local workers and unions are confronted with global corporate

networks and chains of decision-making. Underlying all of this are elements

of uncertainty and of control – or rather lack of control – as has been demon-

strated by the recent economic and nancial crisis.1

The second trend is that traditional sovereign-State-based labour laws

and labour systems are confronted with increasingly powerful, transnational

non-State actors, which means that legal intervention at supra-State level is

becoming increasingly relevant. Consequently, national and international sys-

tems of labour regulation have become “interlocked” (Gravel and Delpech,

2008). We seem to have lost the comfort of our traditional geographical bound-

aries (Arthurs, 2006). This is not a new phenomenon, but rather a key concern

of international labour-standard setting. In the rst issue of the International

Labour Review, Albert Thomas, the rst Director of the International Labour

1 This analysis is more extensively described in Hendrickx (2010).