Esta obra colectiva examina las posibilidades que la perspectiva del constitucionalismo transformador tiene para robustecer los derechos laborales en América Latina y, así, contribuir a que las y los trabajadores de la región mejoren sus condiciones, en un con­texto de cambio social, precariedad e informalidad, así como de importantes desafíos tecnológicos. Para ello, destacados labora­listas, constitucionalistas e internacionalistas latinoamericanos y europeos analizan en estas páginas la dimensión laboral del cons­titucionalismo transformador en América Latina, tal y como lo en­tiende el proyecto Ius Constitutionale Commune en América Latina. Esta tarea tiene aún mayor relevancia ahora que la región latinoa­mericana experimenta un aumento en los niveles de desigualdad, precariedad y vulnerabilidad socioeconómica de vastos sectores de las y los trabajadores tras la pandemia del covid-19 y la poste­rior crisis del costo de la vida.

This first volume develops and executes a comprehensive framework for assessing the impact of trade on the labour market, using a set of decent work indicators applied to commonly used methodologies. It also highlights the role of labour market policies and programmes, including ILO interventions, to ensure that trade contributes to – rather than hampers – decent work.

O presente artigo trata das atividades do Banco Mundial a partir da perspectiva do constitucionalismo transformador, conforme entendido pelo enfoque do Ius Constitutionale Commune na América Latina. O impacto social do Banco Mundial na América Latina é ambivalente e altamente controvertido. Argumenta-se que, embora os atritos entre as atividades do Banco Mundial e os objetivos desse constitucionalismo transformador tenham, em certa medida, sido mitigados ao longo do tempo, uma série de problemas permanecem. Com base em uma abordagem de direito público como estrutura analítica, este artigo examina os principais instrumentos por meio dos quais o Banco exerce autoridade pública internacional e impacta a formulação de políticas em áreas relevantes. Com base nisso, são exploradas várias opções que poderiam reduzir as tensões e facilitar uma aproximação entre os instrumentos do Banco Mundial, e os objetivos e princípios do constitucionalismo transformador latino-americano.

A growing number of trade agreements have taken an important step toward ensuring consistency by referring to - and hence incorporating the legal content of - ILO instruments. On its face, this uniform reference suggests an increasing alignment between the ILO's international labor standards system and the labor provisions included in the various trade agreements. The application of these references in the decentralized trade context needs to be considered carefully, however, as there is a risk of inconsistent practices between agreements.

This special issue takes the centenary of the International Labour Organization as an occasion to reflect on the roles of international institutions in governing labour standards.While at the time of its creation the ILO played a solitary role as the custodian of international labour standards, the culmination of various experiments with international regulation, 1 the ILO today is not the only international institution seeking to exercise governance in relation to the world of work.Instead, a number of institutional actors, both at the global and regional level, have emerged in this area, including the World Bank Group, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, the Council of Europe and the European Union.Their activities can complement but often also compete or even conflict with those of the ILO, of which the economic and financial crisis in the Eurozone is a powerful reminder. 2Meanwhile, the ILO has been struggling to ensure consensus among its tripartite constituents in the Post-Cold War-period and continues to be subject to significant internal 1

Over the last decades, international financial institutions ('IFIs') such as the International Monetary Fund ('IMF') or the World Bank have emerged as important actors in the area of labour governance. While the conditionality attached to IFI lending programmes is of particular importance in this regard, labour governance by IFIs transcends these well-known mechanisms. Through a variety of other governance instruments IFIs influence labour standards in their members' territories far beyond the countries that are recipients of their financial support. This paper sheds light on the so far under-researched IMF Article IV Consultations by analysing how they impact labour standards at the domestic level. After providing an overview of the origins, scope, and the procedure of the Article IV Consultations, the paper shows that these have sometimes advocated far-reaching labour law reforms. The paper then employs the International Public Authority approach to better understand the legitimacy concerns created by these Consultations in terms of labour governance. With a view to addressing these concerns, the paper discusses avenues to strengthen the legal framework for the IMF's Article IV Consultations in substantive and procedural terms.

The question of how to make trade agreements conducive to sustainable development has gained attention among academics, policy makers and civil society actors in recent years. These agreements have been subject to heightened scrutiny by the public as concerns spread that trade negotiators unduly prioritize economic gains for certain groups at the expense of other societal objectives. The need to rethink the design of trade agreements in terms of both environmental and social sustainability is exacerbated by the fact that such agreements increasingly go beyond trade in goods and services and reach into a vast number of economic governance issues. This concern has gained further prominence in the face of increased political opposition to so-called 'mega-regional trade agreements'. A key challenge in terms of rendering trade agreements more socially sustainable lies in ensuring that they safeguard rather than hamper decent employment conditions. This chapter takes stock of the sustainable development discourse and elaborates on the issue of trade and labour standards. It then turns to the legal arrangements under the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and analyses them against the backdrop of earlier trade agreements. The argument is put forward that while the TPP contains several innovative elements in comparison to earlier trade agreements, the approach to labour standards protection is overall fragmentary and remains embryonic on several fronts. In this light, the chapter outlines components for a more comprehensive approach to labour standards protection with regard to trade agreements.

Business and Human Rights: Taking Stock of Trends in International Governance and Domestic Litigation (Editorial)

While civil society groups have been urging the World Bank to integrate human rights concepts into its policies, borrower countries have increasingly made the case for flexibility and deference to domestic standards in the implementation of bank-funded projects. This article analyses how the World Bank has navigated these conflicting legitimacy demands in the context of its 2016 Environmental and Social Framework (ESF). Drawing on insights from organizational sociology, we focus on practices of decoupling, which allow organizations to correspond to legitimacy demands by different audiences while not having to substantially adjust their core activities. The labour and indigenous peoples' safeguards serve as cases in point. Specifically, the article argues that the Bank has decoupled its discourse concerning the ESF from the framework's actual content by making statements about the ESF's coherence with key human rights concepts which, upon closer scrutiny, do not fully correspond to its actual requirements. The article also shows how the design of the ESF furthers a decoupling of relevant requirements from its actual implementation. In particular, the confined scope ratione personae of the relevant safeguards and the discretion granted to the Bank's staff and the borrower to add meaning to undefined key concepts may render their human rights-related requirements in a number of cases inconsequential. By and large, the decoupling practices identified regarding the Bank's ESF entail problematic effects for the normativity of relevant human rights concepts and may, in the long run, undermine the Bank's legitimacy as a whole.

A number of International Financial Institutions (IFIs) at the global and regional level have adopted labour-related safeguard policies to avoid that projects financed by them contribute to labour standards violations. This chapter analyses the potential of these safeguards to contribute to the protection of the Core Labour Standard, as defined by the ILO. To this end, the chapter looks, first, at the safeguards’ legal design. It reviews the normative content of selected IFI labour safeguards and assesses their relation with relevant ILO instruments, highlighting a number of inconsistencies in this regard. Furthermore, the chapter scrutinizes the scope of relevant labour safeguards, revealing several loopholes that may provide borrowers with avenues to avoid many of the safeguards’ requirements by adjusting the project structure. Secondly, the chapter assesses the safeguards’ practical implications. To this end, it examines the mechanisms established by several IFIs to prevent and remedy violations of the safeguards’ requirements. In addition, the chapter reviews evidence on the safeguards’ application, highlighting positive outcomes in several cases despite an overall mixed picture. The concluding section points to some general caveats that may hamper the safeguards overall effectiveness and emphasises the need for more comprehensive mechanisms to protect workers with regard to IFI activities.

Spanish Abstract: Este trabajo examina las actividades del Banco Mundial desde la perspectiva del constitucionalismo transformador, tal y como lo entiende el Ius Constitutionale Commune en América Latina. El impacto social del Banco Mundial en América Latina es ambivalente y altamente controvertido. El artículo argumenta que, aunque las fricciones de las actividades del Banco Mundial con los objetivos de este constitucionalismo transformador se hayan atenuado paulatinamente, sigue habiendo varios problemas al respecto. Utilizando un enfoque de derecho público como marco analítico, los autores destacan algunos instrumentos claves mediante los cuales el Banco ejerce autoridad pública internacional e impacta en las políticas públicas en los ámbitos pertinentes. Sobre esta base, se enuncian varias opciones que podrían reducir las tensiones y facilitar un acercamiento entre los instrumentos del Banco Mundial y los objetivos y principios del constitucionalismo transformador latinoamericano.

This chapter examines the relation between economic adjustments, on the one hand, and labour standards, on the other. Section I reviews how labour standard issues have been addressed in different economic adjustment programmes, often initiated at the behest of international financial institutions, or the institutions of what was formerly known as the ‘Troika’. Subsequently, Section II analyses the legal and practical implications thereof. It explains how several labour law reforms required by international financial institutions in the context of economic adjustment have, on a number of occasions, driven countries into violations of international human rights law and international labour law in particular. Section III goes on to examine the economic case of deregulatory labour law reforms in the context of economic adjustment. It shows that the empirical evidence for negative economic effects of labour law in general and in the context of financial and economic crises in particular is at best highly controversial and cannot justify the highly problematic social effects and breaches of international law these reforms have often entailed.