ON MAY 23, the International Court of Justice (‘ICJ’) delivered a resounding ‘YES’ in its verdict to the question, referred to it by the International Labor Organization (‘ILO’) to draw advisory opinion on “whether the right to strike is protected under the international legal framework of the Convention No. 87 ‘Freedom of Association and Protection of the Right to Organize’ (‘Convention No. 87)? While the Court upheld this labor right in principle, the devil lies in the details of judicial analysis that formed this affirmative advisory opinion. The larger constitutional question regarding the ILO’s Committee of Expert (‘CoE’) is left unanswered.
This affirmation has sought to tie several loose ends within the ILO itself. First, it has answered the question of legal interpretation. Second, it has also addressed the question of the status of supervisory bodies of ILO in its own way. Third, and most importantly, it has also redressed the internal tension simmering in ILO from within for long that the ILO itself called an “institutional crisis”. The verdict, hence, re-booted and re-invigorated the global labor governance system of ILO.
