Labour Rights Protection in Post-Conflict and Post-Disaster Recovery: What Role for International Labour Standards?

Sammanfattning: The world continues to be shaped by crises in both new and familiar forms. International and non-international armed conflicts and disasters are barriers to individual wellbeing, development, stability, and in the case of the former, represent a basic challenge to peace. The aftermath of such crises, in which communities can be rebuilt and the fabric of society can be mended, can be a time for recovery and reconstruction. It can also be period in which fundamental challenges to human rights, including fundamental labour rights, can emerge, become entrenched, and impede long-term progress to the processes identified above. This thesis explores the role of international labour standards in responding to and mitigating the risks to fundamental labour rights that can emerge in post-crisis contexts. It will approach this endeavour by examining one emerging International Labour Recommendation in particular – the Employment and Decent Work for Peace and Resilience Recommendation, 2017 (No. 205). The thesis will establish its potential role in rights protection in an existing international legal framework of hard and soft regulation, before turning to an examination of the impacts of conflicts and disasters on different forms of national capital, and the implications of impacts for national labour markets and the priorities of post-crisis employment policies. It will next explore the scope and emphasis of the Recommendation in detail. The thesis will conclude by developing a human rights risk analysis framework through which the application of Recommendation No. 205 for the protection of the fundamental rights to freedom of association and collective bargaining, to freedom from forced labour, to freedom from child labour, and to equality and non-discrimination on the grounds of ethnic origin, sex, and disability, can be tested, and its utility as an instrument of general human rights protection, and of soft law, will be elucidated.