IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/h/elg/eechap/18768_9.html
   My bibliography  Save this book chapter

Sovereignty and the ILO

In: Handbook on Globalisation and Labour Standards

Author

Listed:
  • Steve Charnovitz

Abstract

Sovereignty has long been an orienting principle of international law, but the meaning of sovereignty is perennially contested. Now in its second century of operation, the International Labour Organization (ILO) was born in 1919 at the dawn of the modern era of global economic and social cooperation. Erected against an ideology equating sovereignty with unbridled national autonomy, the ILO inspired scholars and civic society actors to reimagine a more pluralistic international community in which governments would use international organizations and treaties to shape the regulation of labor markets. This essay retells the story the birth of the ILO in the context of the 19th century intellectual history of the "sovereignty" concept and then details the ways in which the tensions underlying sovereignty were addressed in the fabric of the ILO's constitution. The essay also examines some important episodes in the ILO's first decade that demonstrate the normative challenges facing the ILO as it seeks to fulfill its progressive mission of basing a world economy on social justice.

Suggested Citation

  • Steve Charnovitz, 2022. "Sovereignty and the ILO," Chapters, in: Handbook on Globalisation and Labour Standards, chapter 9, pages 166-182, Edward Elgar Publishing.
  • Handle: RePEc:elg:eechap:18768_9
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.elgaronline.com/view/edcoll/9781788977364/9781788977364.00015.xml
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:elg:eechap:18768_9. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Darrel McCalla (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.e-elgar.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.