Violence and harassment at the work in the light of the new ILO Convention No. 190

Sammanfattning: Violence and harassment in the world of work is a complex issue that has numerous manifestations. This thesis provides an overview of the international law around violence and harassment at the workplace, both taking into the account the new ILO Convention on the Violence and Harassment, C 190 and the previous legal instruments that had touched on this issue. In so doing, it assesses the potential value as well as the risks to international law protection that are brought on by the adoption of the Convention. Additionally, this thesis provides a comparison of the scope and content of the protection against violence and harassment at the workplace from the international and regional levels, and further analysis on the question of whether and how the new Convention takes a human rights approach and how it can strengthen such protection. Furthermore, this thesis reviews national regulations of Sweden covering violence and harassment, which are limited to non-discrimination and occupational safety and health provisions. It also addresses if the protection of individuals against violence and harassment at work will be extended in Sweden if C 190 would be ratified. Overall, this thesis showed that the reviewed international and regional instruments whilst providing the protection against some manifestations of violence harassment at work, do so in a rather fragmented manner, either by omitting some of the possible manifestations of violence and harassment from a subject-matter scope or by having a limited personal protection scope. Furthermore, it showed that Sweden can benefit from ratifying the Convention, as it would give stronger protection of individuals’ freedom against violence and harassment in the world of work, as currently excising gaps in this protection can be solved by implementing C 190’s provisions.