In a precedent-setting case before the International Court of Justice, the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) provided written comments last week in a legal dispute over the right to strike.
The dispute, filed in 2023, is the first submitted by the United Nations International Labor Organization (ILO) to the International Court of Justice (ICJ). It arises from the refusal, in 2012, of the ILO Employers Group to recognize that the right to strike is protected by ILO Convention 87, as the ILO supervisory system has recognized since the 1950s.
On September 13, 2024, the ITUC filed its written comments. Oral arguments are expected to begin in the coming months. The ICJ’s advisory opinion is expected in 2025.
“This case is consequential, as the protection of the right to strike is essential not only for workplace democracy, but for democracy as a whole,” says Jeffrey Vogt, Solidarity Center rule of law director, co-author of the book The Right to Strike in International Law and member of the ITUC’s legal team. “The right of workers to withdraw their labor is so fundamentally intrinsic to the exercise of freedom of association and the right to organize that, without it, their very survival and the protection of their dignity as workers is at stake. We hope that the ICJ will agree with our reasoning as contained in our brief and affirm that the right to strike is protected under international law, including ILO Convention No. 87.”
The filing was made on behalf of ITUC General Secretary Luc Triangle and Paapa Kwasi Danquah, ITUC director of legal and human and trade union rights, and supported by members of the ITUC legal team, including Vogt, Catelene Passchier, workers vice-chair of the ILO Governing Body, and Monica Tepfer, an ITUC lawyer.