Download This PaperThe ILO's Supervisory Bodies’ ‘Soft Law Jurisprudence’
Adelle Blackett and Anne Trebilcock, eds., Research Handbook on Transnational Labour Law (Edward Elgar, 2015, Forthcoming).
It was first presented at the Labour Law Research Network Conference in June 2013
13 Pages Posted: 16 Jul 2014 Last revised: 19 Jan 2016
Date Written: July 14, 2014
Abstract
This article examines the legal value of the pronouncements of the International Labour Organisation’s Committee of Experts on the Application of Conventions and Recommendations in the context of the recent unprecedented attacks it faced within the ILO by the Employer’s group. In particular, it studies what is meant by “soft law jurisprudence”, an expression first used by the Employers’ Group in 2012 to describe the Committee of Experts' comments. To do so, it examines interpretation at the ILO, how the Committee of Experts has had, over the years, the task of interpreting conventions and what influence the work of the Committee of Experts has, both intentionally and unintentionally, discussing the issue in the general context of the legal effects of soft law.
Keywords: ILO, international law, international labour law, interpretation, Committee of Experts on the Application of Conventions and Recommendations, right to strike, supervisory bodies, legal value, jurisprudence, soft law
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