- Title Pages
- List of Abbreviations
- Introduction: Understanding Labour Law: A Timeless Idea, a Timed-Out Idea, or an Idea Whose Time has Now Come?
- 1 Labour Law After Labour
- 2 Factors Influencing the Making and Transformation of Labour Law in Europe
- 3 Re-Inventing Labour Law?
- 4 Hugo Sinzheimer and the Constitutional Function of Labour Law
- 5 Global Conceptualizations and Local Constructions of the Idea of Labour Law
- 6 The Idea of the Idea of Labour Law: A Parable
- 7 Labour Law's Theory of Justice
- 8 Labour as a ‘Fictive Commodity’: Radically Reconceptualizing Labour Law
- 9 Theories of Rights as Justifications for Labour Law
- 10 The Contribution of Labour Law to Economic and Human Development
- 11 Re-Matching Labour Laws with Their Purpose
- 12 The Legal Characterization of Personal Work Relations and the Idea of Labour Law
- 13 Ideas of Labour Law – A View from the South
- 14 Informal Employment and the Challenges for Labour Law
- 15 The Impossibility of Work Law
- 16 Using Procurement Law to Enforce Labour Standards
- 17 Labor Activism in Local Politics: From CBAs to ‘CBAs’
- 18 The Broad Idea of Labour Law: Industrial Policy, Labour Market Regulation, and Decent Work
- 19 The Third Function of Labour Law: Distributing Labour Market Opportunities among Workers
- 20 Beyond Collective Bargaining: Modern Unions as Agents of Social Solidarity
- 21 From Conflict to Regulation: The Transformative Function of Labour Law
- 22 Out of the Shadows? The Non-Binding Multilateral Framework on Migration (2006) and Prospects for Using International Labour Regulation to Forge Global Labour Market Membership
- 23 Flexible Bureaucracies in Labor Market Regulation
- 24 Collective Exit Strategies: New Ideas in Transnational Labour Law
- 25 Emancipation in the Idea of Labour Law
- Index
Theories of Rights as Justifications for Labour Law
Theories of Rights as Justifications for Labour Law
- Chapter:
- (p.137) 9 Theories of Rights as Justifications for Labour Law
- Source:
- The Idea of Labour Law
- Author(s):
Hugh Collins
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
The chapter assesses whether two kinds of theories of fundamental rights, namely the natural law tradition underlying the international protection of human rights and the liberal political tradition that awards rights priority in theories of justice, provide an adequate grounding for a system of labour law. Having criticised the former view on the ground that international labour rights lack the qualities of universalism and a strong moral imperative, the chapter argues that liberal theories of rights, as in the work of John Rawls, have the potential, to provide a grounding for some but not all important dimensions of labour law. Finally, it is suggested that within the liberal tradition, the project of basing rights on respect for dignity as well as liberty, has a better potential for providing a justification for the kinds of solidarity rights that are needed to underpin collective labour law.
Keywords: rights, labour law, theory of justice, international labour rights, dignity, Rawls, Waldron, social rights
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- Title Pages
- List of Abbreviations
- Introduction: Understanding Labour Law: A Timeless Idea, a Timed-Out Idea, or an Idea Whose Time has Now Come?
- 1 Labour Law After Labour
- 2 Factors Influencing the Making and Transformation of Labour Law in Europe
- 3 Re-Inventing Labour Law?
- 4 Hugo Sinzheimer and the Constitutional Function of Labour Law
- 5 Global Conceptualizations and Local Constructions of the Idea of Labour Law
- 6 The Idea of the Idea of Labour Law: A Parable
- 7 Labour Law's Theory of Justice
- 8 Labour as a ‘Fictive Commodity’: Radically Reconceptualizing Labour Law
- 9 Theories of Rights as Justifications for Labour Law
- 10 The Contribution of Labour Law to Economic and Human Development
- 11 Re-Matching Labour Laws with Their Purpose
- 12 The Legal Characterization of Personal Work Relations and the Idea of Labour Law
- 13 Ideas of Labour Law – A View from the South
- 14 Informal Employment and the Challenges for Labour Law
- 15 The Impossibility of Work Law
- 16 Using Procurement Law to Enforce Labour Standards
- 17 Labor Activism in Local Politics: From CBAs to ‘CBAs’
- 18 The Broad Idea of Labour Law: Industrial Policy, Labour Market Regulation, and Decent Work
- 19 The Third Function of Labour Law: Distributing Labour Market Opportunities among Workers
- 20 Beyond Collective Bargaining: Modern Unions as Agents of Social Solidarity
- 21 From Conflict to Regulation: The Transformative Function of Labour Law
- 22 Out of the Shadows? The Non-Binding Multilateral Framework on Migration (2006) and Prospects for Using International Labour Regulation to Forge Global Labour Market Membership
- 23 Flexible Bureaucracies in Labor Market Regulation
- 24 Collective Exit Strategies: New Ideas in Transnational Labour Law
- 25 Emancipation in the Idea of Labour Law
- Index