'Core Labour Standards' and the Transformation of the International Labour Rights Regime

Abstract

Bellace acknowledges that the choice of which rights to include and which to exclude was 'delicate, since calling some rights "core" might imply other conventions are less important'. 141 Indeed it could hardly be otherwise. Those rights which did not make it into the premier league were inevitably relegated to second-class status. The attention lavished on the Declaration by the ILO in terms of the additional reports undertaken, the promotional activities engaged in, and the manpower and other resources devoted to the tasks, has not been replicated in relation to the non-core standards, at least not within a human rights framework. To the extent that the Declaration has succeeded in one of its principal objectives, which is to make it easy for other actors ranging from corporations, through international financial institutions, to international labour rights monitors, to narrow their gaze and focus on the four core rights, it has by implication taken the pressure off them in relation to the non-core rights, whatever rhetorical assurances to the contrary might issue forth from the ILO or those other actors.