The thesis concerns maritime labour and its recent challenges from an international law perspective. The purpose of the work is twofold. First, it analyses how maritime labour has changed in most recent years. In particular, the work discusses the impact on maritime labour of two recent phenomena, namely globalisation and digitalisation. As far as the former is concerned, the thesis outlines that globalisation has given rise to flags of convenience and open registries, which have led to a marked deterioration in living conditions on board. As far as the latter is concerned, it is shown that digitalisation has made crews less and less numerous, although at the same time increasingly qualified and competent. Second, the study investigates whether the current international legal framework is adequate to cope with the changes described above, or whether it should be modified – and, if so, in which sense. Specifically, the research examines the main Conventions, bilateral agreements as well as voluntary or self-regulatory instruments. In addition, the study takes into account international collective bargaining, which is relevant because the maritime sector is highly unionised, and the International Transport Workers’ Federation (ITF) has made a great effort over the years to get global shipowners to guarantee minimum conditions for seafarers. This research has an innovative and original approach. Maritime labour law is a rather neglected branch of legal studies. Only few researchers have investigated this subject. In particular, an organic study on this topic still represents a desideratum in Italy. This work intends to fill this gap, providing an Italian point of view on maritime labour law. In fact, even though the issue transcends national borders by its very nature, the transposition of international legal instruments at domestic level can vary greatly from state to state. In addition, the maritime sector is usually studied from an economic perspective, rather than from a labour law perspective. For example, most publications about flags of convenience focus on the distortion of competition. This research shifts the approach and looks at the phenomenon from the workers’ point of view. Such an approach is relevant for seafarers and for the entire sector, since taking the human factor into account is crucial for the sustainable development of the field.

Historically, International Labour Law was developed to mitigate the negative social externalities of the Industrial Revolution and protect international trade from unfair competition. With a similar objective, the international community failed to establish the International Trade Organisation provided for in the 1948 Havana Charter. In its place, the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) was adopted. However, the Havana Charter remains the first universal trade treaty to include a social clause. During the Cold War, Western countries failed to introduce a social clause in the GATT. The most resounding failure was in the 1990s when the World Trade Organisation (WTO) was created. This failure drove Western countries to introduce social clauses in bilateral and non-universal multilateral trade agreements. Since the 2000s there has been a ‘boom’ of new social clauses. These clauses have developed into two main models: the conditional model and the cooperative (or promotional) model. The former model is typical of the US, the latter of the EU. The US and EU clauses have four characteristics and structural elements: social obligations, procedural commitments, implementation mechanisms and dispute settlement mechanisms. The main difference between the two types of social clauses lies in the presence (US model) or absence (EU model) of sanctions for breach of obligations. The research question of this dissertation concerns the legal efficacy of social clauses. First, the research reconstructs the historical-legal background and conceptualises social clauses. Second, the study compares the EU and US models from a legal-historical perspective. Third, the dissertation comparatively assesses two fundamental (and so far unique) cases for breach of social obligations: the US v. Guatemala case and the EU v. Republic of Korea case.

Made available in DSpace on 2016-04-26T20:22:02Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Fernanda de Miranda S C Abreu.pdf: 546978 bytes, checksum: 897e2c02c9a2d8e07a40d9eaa592c9d4 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2013-09-20 / This paper aims to study the international labor conventions arising from the International Labour Organization and the treatment they received in the Brazilian legal system. To do so, we start the study of the general theory of treaties, encompassing its species (including a novel kind of human rights treaties), its relationship with national law - including the hierarchy that will once internalized-, its ratification and its complaint always tangential to the vision of the Supreme Court on the respective subjects. Then move into the study of the International Labour Organization and what its creation represented to the consolidation of labor law and human rights, analyzing the instruments owned by this organization for the protection of these rights and their specific front treaties in general. Finally, we will analyze three ILO conventions: the n° 132, 87 and 158, because they represent different situations facing our constitutional system and allow an accurate analysis and practice of all institutes here scattered, allowing us to give an overview of treatment received by the international labor conventions by the highest court of the country and by the law enforcement in general. Because this is a descriptive study, it will be based on research, sometimes using the deductive method and other inductive, especially in critical reflections on the normative texts / O presente trabalho objetiva estudar as convenções internacionais do trabalho oriundas da Organização Internacional do Trabalho e o tratamento por elas recebido no sistema jurídico brasileiro. Para tanto, parte-se do estudo da teoria geral dos tratados, englobando suas espécies (inclusive a novel espécie dos tratados de direitos humanos), sua relação com o direito nacional inclusive a hierarquia que terão uma vez internalizados-, sua ratificação e sua denúncia, sempre tangenciando a visão do Supremo Tribunal Federal sobre tais temas. Em seguida passa-se ao estudo da Organização Internacional do Trabalho e o que representou sua criação na consolidação do direito do trabalho como matéria de direitos humanos, analisando o ferramental possuído por esta organização para a tutela destes direitos e suas especificidades frente aos tratados em geral. Por fim, serão analisadas três convenções da OIT, quais sejam as de n° 132, 87 e 158, por representarem diferentes situações frente à ordem constitucional pátria e permitirem uma análise acurada e prática de todos os institutos aqui esmiuçados, permitindo-nos traçar um panorama do tratamento recebido pelas convenções internacionais do trabalho pela mais alta Corte do país e pelos operadores do direito em geral. Por se tratar de um estudo descritivo e exploratório, será realizado com base na pesquisa bibliográfica e histórica, utilizando por vezes do método dedutivo e outras o indutivo, principalmente nas críticas e reflexões acerca dos textos normativos.

The resizing of International Labor LawThe transformations brought about by the globalization of the labour world render insufficient the national efforts to face a cross-boundaries phenomenon. Similarly, the International Labour Organization efforts are praiseworthy but incomplete because its Members are reluctant to new international commitments. In this situation, labour human rights are in the best position to face the challenges of globalization. / Las transformaciones que viene provocando la globalización en el mundo del trabajo hacen insuficientes los esfuerzos desde los ordenamientos nacionales para abordar un fenómeno que trasciende sus fronteras. De igual modo, los esfuerzos desde la Organización Internacional del Trabajo son meritorios pero todavía incompletos porque sus Miembros son renuentes a adquirir nuevos compromisos internacionales. Frente a este panorama, son los derechos humanos laborales los que están en mejores condiciones para enfrentar los retos de la globalización.

Dans un important arrêt rendu en 2007 dans l’affaire Health Services and Support, la Cour suprême du Canada a reconnu pour la première fois que la liberté d’association énoncée à la Charte canadienne des droits et libertés protégeait la «capacité des syndiqués d’engager des négociations collectives sur des problèmes reliés au milieu de travail». Pour conclure ainsi, la Cour trouve appui dans le droit international du travail. Avec cette décision, la Cour renverse sa position établie une vingtaine d’années plus tôt voulant que la négociation collective ne soit pas une activité bénéficiant d’une protection à titre de droit fondamental. Suite à ce changement de paradigme, nombre d’auteurs ont été d’avis que la constitutionnalisation du droit de négociation collective pourrait avoir des effets sur la validité de différentes mesures législatives et sur l’interprétation des lois encadrant les régimes de relations de travail. De plus, la négociation collective étant historiquement indissociable de la grève, il y avait tout lieu de croire que la protection de la Charte pourrait être étendue au droit de grève. Par la suite, en 2011, la Cour suprême a rendu la décision Fraser portant sur l’accès à un régime de représentation collective, précisant la portée du droit de négociation collective tel qu’envisagé dans Health Services. Le présent mémoire recense la jurisprudence qui a abordé la protection constitutionnelle de la négociation collective en droit public canadien et en droit privé québécois depuis l’arrêt Health Services afin d’identifier ses effets sur la validité des restrictions au droit de grève, sur la validité des restrictions au contenu des négociations et sur l’imposition de conditions de travail, sur la validité des exclusions de certaines catégories de travailleurs des régimes de représentation collective, et sur l’interprétation des dispositions de ces régimes. Les résultats de la recherche nous permettent de conclure que la constitutionnalisation du droit de négociation collective a engendré un certain volume de contestations de la part d’organisations syndicales. Ces procédures ont porté fruit dans des situations où l’atteinte aux droits était similaire aux précédents de la Cour suprême ainsi que dans un cas lié au droit de grève. Les effets plus vastes envisagés dans la recension de la littérature ne se sont pas matérialisés. Par ailleurs, nos résultats en droit privé indiquent que la constitutionnalisation du droit de grève n’a pas eu d’impact sur l’interprétation des régimes de relations industrielles. Enfin, le recours ou non au droit international par les tribunaux n’a pas d’effet sur nos résultats. / In 2007, the Supreme Court of Canada issued an important decision in the case Health Services and Support, as it recognised for the first time that the guarantee of freedom of association under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms protects the capacity of members of labour unions to engage in collective bargaining on workplace issues. The Court finds support in international labour law in order to come to this conclusion. With this decision, the Supreme Court overturns its position established some twenty years before that collective bargaining does not benefit from the protection of the Charter as a fundamental right. This paradigm change led many authors to comment that the shift would probably lead to the constitutional invalidity of a number of legislative measures and would affect the interpretation of labour law regimes. Furthermore, collective bargaining being historically interrelated with strikes, it would be logical that Charter protection be extended to the right to strike. Later on, in 2011, the Supreme Court issued a decision in the Fraser case on the right to access a labour relations regime, shedding light on the ambit of the constitutional guarantee. This research surveys case law that dealt with the constitutional protection of collective bargaining after Health Services in order to assess its influence on the validity of restrictions on the right to strike, on the validity of restrictions on bargaining and the imposition of working conditions, on the validity of exclusions of certain categories of workers from labour relations legal regimes and on their interpretation. Our results show that the constitutionalization of the right to bargain collectively has led to a certain volume of legal challenges by labour unions, which were successful in instances where the infringement on bargaining rights were similar to the Supreme Court precedents as well as one case related to the right to strike. The larger influence as foreseen in our literature review did not materialize. The constitutionalization of collective bargaining has had no effect on the interpretation of labour law regimes in private law. Finally, the use of international labour law has no measurable effect on our results.

La thèse s’attache à définir la certification équitable depuis une perspective juridique. Tant l’analyse de sa dimension formelle que matérielle permettent de conclure qu’elle est caractérisée par un dualisme face au droit étatique. Elle entretient à la fois une relation d’autonomie et d’hétéronomie à l’égard des ordres juridiques étatiques. Sur le plan formel, le caractère autonome du régime équitable est révélé par l’existence d’un ordre juridique distinct des ordres étatiques. En effet, les institutions du régime équitable jouent le rôle de tiers impartial et désintéressé à l’égard des producteurs du Sud et des acheteurs du Nord. Le rapport d’hétéronomie se manifeste par l’intervention d’éléments provenant d’ordres juridiques étatiques au sein du régime. Celle-ci contribue à sécuriser et à bonifier le régime équitable. Sur le plan matériel, l’autonomie du régime se traduit par des dispositions inédites. Bien qu’originales par rapport aux normes d’origine étatique, l’analyse de ces normes montre qu’elles ne se placent cependant pas en situation de concurrence face à celles-ci. Elles interviennent plutôt comme complément. Les standards de la certification équitable ne comportent cependant pas que des normes inédites. Plusieurs reprennent textuellement des dispositions d’instruments juridiques internationaux et nationaux d’origine étatique, alors que d’autres les traduisent dans un langage plus accessible et adapté au contexte de leurs destinataires. Dans ces deux cas, il s’agit de réitérer le droit en vigueur plutôt que de s’y opposer en ne se limitant pas à le répéter mais plutôt en facilitant sa connaissance et sa mise en œuvre par des mesures concrètes. / The thesis aims to define fairtrade certification from a legal perspective. Both its formal and its material dimensions allow concluding that it is characterized by a dualism towards state law. It is both autonomous and heteronomous in relation to state legal orders. On the formal dimension, the fairtrade regime autonomy is revealed by the existence of a legal order distinct from state orders. Indeed, fairtrade regime institutions act as the impartial and disinterested third party towards the producers of the South and the buyers of the North. The heteronomy is shown by interventions, in the fairtrade regime, of elements originated in state legal orders. These interventions contribute to secure and improve the fairtrade regime. On the material dimension, the regime’s original provisions reveal its autonomy. The analysis concludes that these provisions although novel if compared to state norms are not competing with the latters. To the contrary, they intervene as a complement to state legal orders. Fairtrade standards do not only contain unprecedented norms. Several simply reproduce the exact wording of state legal instruments, while other translate them into a more accessible and context adapted language. In both cases, they reiterate the law instead of contradicting it. The regime’s main appeal is that it does not repeat the law but contributes to facilitate its understanding and implementation by concrete measures.

Nul n’est censé ignorer la loi… même supranationale. La « censure » des dispositions relatives au contrat « nouvelles embauches » l’a vigoureusement démontré. Des normes supranationales, l’influence n’a jamais été aussi forte : elles couvrent progressivement l’ensemble des compartiments du droit français du travail. Tous les acteurs, publics et privés, doivent porter leur regard au-delà du cadre hexagonal. Un but est affiché : maîtriser la diffusion des normes supranationales, sans laquelle il n’est point d’adhésion de leurs destinataires, et appréhender les transformations du droit français du travail auxquelles elles conduisent. De nouveaux instruments doivent, à cet effet, être forgés. / No one is deemed ignorant of the law… including supranational standards. The “censure” of the provisions relating to the “new hiring” employment contract vigorously demonstrated so. The influence of supranational standards has never been so strong: they progressively cover all of the fields of French Labour Law. All stakeholders, whether public or private, need to look beyond French borders. The stated aim is to control the spread of supranational standards, without which there is no acceptance by its recipients, and apprehend the resulting transformations of French Labour Law. New legal methodologies and instruments need to be implemented in this respect.

Dans un important arrêt rendu en 2007 dans l’affaire Health Services and Support, la Cour suprême du Canada a reconnu pour la première fois que la liberté d’association énoncée à la Charte canadienne des droits et libertés protégeait la «capacité des syndiqués d’engager des négociations collectives sur des problèmes reliés au milieu de travail». Pour conclure ainsi, la Cour trouve appui dans le droit international du travail. Avec cette décision, la Cour renverse sa position établie une vingtaine d’années plus tôt voulant que la négociation collective ne soit pas une activité bénéficiant d’une protection à titre de droit fondamental. Suite à ce changement de paradigme, nombre d’auteurs ont été d’avis que la constitutionnalisation du droit de négociation collective pourrait avoir des effets sur la validité de différentes mesures législatives et sur l’interprétation des lois encadrant les régimes de relations de travail. De plus, la négociation collective étant historiquement indissociable de la grève, il y avait tout lieu de croire que la protection de la Charte pourrait être étendue au droit de grève. Par la suite, en 2011, la Cour suprême a rendu la décision Fraser portant sur l’accès à un régime de représentation collective, précisant la portée du droit de négociation collective tel qu’envisagé dans Health Services. Le présent mémoire recense la jurisprudence qui a abordé la protection constitutionnelle de la négociation collective en droit public canadien et en droit privé québécois depuis l’arrêt Health Services afin d’identifier ses effets sur la validité des restrictions au droit de grève, sur la validité des restrictions au contenu des négociations et sur l’imposition de conditions de travail, sur la validité des exclusions de certaines catégories de travailleurs des régimes de représentation collective, et sur l’interprétation des dispositions de ces régimes. Les résultats de la recherche nous permettent de conclure que la constitutionnalisation du droit de négociation collective a engendré un certain volume de contestations de la part d’organisations syndicales. Ces procédures ont porté fruit dans des situations où l’atteinte aux droits était similaire aux précédents de la Cour suprême ainsi que dans un cas lié au droit de grève. Les effets plus vastes envisagés dans la recension de la littérature ne se sont pas matérialisés. Par ailleurs, nos résultats en droit privé indiquent que la constitutionnalisation du droit de grève n’a pas eu d’impact sur l’interprétation des régimes de relations industrielles. Enfin, le recours ou non au droit international par les tribunaux n’a pas d’effet sur nos résultats. / In 2007, the Supreme Court of Canada issued an important decision in the case Health Services and Support, as it recognised for the first time that the guarantee of freedom of association under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms protects the capacity of members of labour unions to engage in collective bargaining on workplace issues. The Court finds support in international labour law in order to come to this conclusion. With this decision, the Supreme Court overturns its position established some twenty years before that collective bargaining does not benefit from the protection of the Charter as a fundamental right. This paradigm change led many authors to comment that the shift would probably lead to the constitutional invalidity of a number of legislative measures and would affect the interpretation of labour law regimes. Furthermore, collective bargaining being historically interrelated with strikes, it would be logical that Charter protection be extended to the right to strike. Later on, in 2011, the Supreme Court issued a decision in the Fraser case on the right to access a labour relations regime, shedding light on the ambit of the constitutional guarantee. This research surveys case law that dealt with the constitutional protection of collective bargaining after Health Services in order to assess its influence on the validity of restrictions on the right to strike, on the validity of restrictions on bargaining and the imposition of working conditions, on the validity of exclusions of certain categories of workers from labour relations legal regimes and on their interpretation. Our results show that the constitutionalization of the right to bargain collectively has led to a certain volume of legal challenges by labour unions, which were successful in instances where the infringement on bargaining rights were similar to the Supreme Court precedents as well as one case related to the right to strike. The larger influence as foreseen in our literature review did not materialize. The constitutionalization of collective bargaining has had no effect on the interpretation of labour law regimes in private law. Finally, the use of international labour law has no measurable effect on our results.

This dissertation examines the Conventions and Recommendations to regulate the minimum age for admission to employment between the years 1919 and 1973 – the ILO minimum age campaign. The adoption process has been studied in its chronological and historical context. The dissertation has three points of departure: that childhood is a historical construction and that the legal material is part of that construction; that the minimum age campaign suffered from a ‘hang-over-from-history’, namely, the history of Western industrialisation during the 19th and early 20th centuries; and, finally, that children had a subordinate and weak position in the minimum age campaign. The study was organised around five central themes: (1) the over-all theme of predominant conceptions of children and work; (2) the relationship between industrialised and colonised and developing nations; (3) the relationship between the child, the family and the state; (4) minimum age; and (5) the importance of school. The most important results of the study are that: (1) In view of the revolutionary changes during the 20th century the continuity in the minimum age campaign was remarkable. In 1919, the ‘child labour problem’ was an issue mainly for the Western industrialised word. By the end of the campaign, in 1973, the transformations in societies during the century had made ‘the child labour problem’ an issue mainly for the developing world and with different conditions and implications in many respects. The content and ‘grammar’ of the minimum age campaign was however never really challenged. (2) The study has verified that the minimum age campaign suffered from a ‘hang-over-from history’. The campaign built directly on the Western industrial experience during the 19th and early 20th centuries. The Western dominance in the ILO, the legal transplants, and the roots in the labour movement all contributed to the ‘hang-over’. (3) The minimum age campaign was modelled on the ‘norm of the Western industrialised childhood’. The norms and realities of childhood in other parts of the world were neglected of considered as provisional and inferior phases in relation to the Western ‘norm’. In this way, there were two separate childhoods in the minimum age campaign: ‘the normal’ childhood conceived for Western conditions and ‘the other’ childhood conceived for the ‘imperfect’ conditions of poor children in the colonised and developing nations.(4) In the minimum age campaign the ‘best interests of the child’ was negotiable and was subordinated in case of conflict with other interests.

Cette étude traite des difficultés que rencontrent les travailleurs agricoles salariés dans l’exercice de leur droit à la liberté d’association et à la négociation collective. Ils sont souvent exclus des régimes législatifs nationaux de protection des droits syndicaux ou restreints dans leur capacité de les exercer en dépit du fait qu’ils sont parmi les plus pauvres et mal nourris de la planète et donc requerraient une protection accrue. Quelles sont les causes historiques de ce traitement discriminatoire (première partie) ? Comment le droit international du travail contribue-t-il à remédier à cette situation (deuxième partie) ? En quoi est-ce que le droit international du travail a-t-il influencé le droit interne canadien pour la protection des travailleurs agricoles salariés (troisième partie) ? Les causes du traitement singulier accordé à ces travailleurs remontent aux origines mêmes de l’agriculture. Consciente des caractéristiques particulières de cette activité, l’Organisation internationale du travail affirmera dès le début du 20e siècle qu’il est injustifié d’empêcher les travailleurs agricoles salariés de se syndiquer. Elle insiste sur la valeur fondamentale des droits syndicaux devant différents forums onusiens et favorise leur promotion à travers l’élaboration de normes du travail mais également d’instruments de soft law, considérés mieux adaptés dans un contexte contemporain de mondialisation. Ce droit international du travail influencera ensuite l’interprétation de la Charte canadienne des droits et libertés par les tribunaux canadiens dans leur analyse de la constitutionnalité de l’exclusion totale ou partielle des travailleurs agricoles salariés des régimes législatifs de protection des droits syndicaux. / This study analyses the difficulties faced by agricultural workers exercising their rights to freedom of association and collective bargaining. These workers often find themselves excluded from national legislation providing for the protection of union rights, and when these rights are provided to them, their ability to exercise them is limited. Being amongst the poorest human beings on earth, agricultural workers would instead require stronger protection. What are the historical causes of this discriminatory treatment (part one) ? How has international labour law helped to correct this situation (part two) ? In what way did international labour law influence canadian domestic law in regard of the protection of wage earning agricultural workers (part three) ? The reasons for the singular treatment of this class of workers go back to agriculture’s very roots. Conscious of the particular characteristics of this activity, the International Labour Organisation asserted, at the very beginning of the 20th century, that no justification stood to limit the rights of agricultural workers to unionize. It later insisted on the fundamental value of union rights in front of diverse UN forums and favoured their promotion for agricultural workers through the elaboration of labour standards as well as extensive use of soft law tools, considered more suited to the globalised world. International labour law also contributed to the interpretation of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedom by Canadian courts in their analysis of the constitutionality of total or partial exclusion of agricultural workers from legislation protecting union rights.