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Traditional international labour law and the new “global” kind: Is there a way to make them work together? [Tradicionalno i novo “globalno” međunarodno radno pravo – može li se uskladiti njihovo djelovanje?]
The article provides an account of how international labour law, which had previously been promulgated mostly by the International Labour Organization, has been confronted by a new type of “global” labour law that has arisen from recent changes in the structure of employment brought about by the advent of globalization and multinational corporations. These rival influences on the regulation of labour have not yet reached a stable and productive accommodation to each other, and the author identifies several points of contact and conflict between them, as well as some of the background forces that bear on those conflicts. The article also evaluates several suggestions for the way the relationship between them should be managed. Separate attention is devoted to the possibility of linkage between the application of international labour standards and international trade. To date, the negotiations on inclusion of the “social clause” in the agreements on international trade within the WTO framework have been unsuccessful. However, the author considers that the current infrequent and weak linkage of international trade agreements with labour issues is inadequate, and concludes that significant limitation of the free flow of capital from one country to another is needed in order to avoid the “race to the bottom” between developing countries that leads to the degradation of the labour rights regime worldwide.