The Case for Social Rights

This is part of the book Debating Social Rights (Oxford, Hart Publishing, 2010) where I am making the case for social rights and Professor Conor Gearty (LSE) is making the case against social rights. This paper argues that social and economic rights, defined as rights to the satisfaction of basic needs, are constitutional essentials at domestic level and claims of the highest priority at supranational level. Their inadequate legal protection in national and supranational orders is not justified. Social rights have common foundations with civil and political rights, but have been neglected in law because of Cold War ideologies. The paper explores the role of courts and the role of legislatures in the protection of social rights, and identifies the key challenges in each of these fields. In the full version of the book, there is further analysis of the issues discussed here. There are also additional sections on global justice and on the horizontal application of rights, which are not included in this paper

Modern slavery? The UK visa system and the exploitation of migrant domestic workers

It might be hard to believe that a domestic worker – or anyone – is currently forced to sleep on a bathroom floor or is locked up in a house. Yet such experiences are very real for those who come to the UK on an overseas domestic worker visa, writes Virginia Mantouvalou. She explains how the current system – which provides a six-month, non-renewable right to stay – does not allow such workers to change employers. Those who run away due to appalling experiences are thus unable to find a new job and become undocumented. She writes that changing the visa system is the only way forward, if the UK is to treat everyone as human

Foreword

Foreword to Volume 7 Issue 1 of the UCL Journal of Law and Jurisprudenc

COVID-19 and free speech:: 'gagging' NHS staff is not proportionate and lawful

George Letsas and Virginia Mantouvalou explain why any blanket restriction on NHS workers’ freedom of speech in the light of the pandemic is unlikely to pass the legal test of proportionality, or fit the image of a democracy that values transparency and accountability

Does Labour Law Need Philosophical Foundations? (Introduction)

This is the introductory chapter of the book Philosophical Foundations of Labour Law (Collins, Lester, Mantouvalou eds, OUP, 2018). It argues that labour law needs philosophical foundations and explains that careful reflection about underlying moral and political principles and values can serve to provide firm foundations and a clear sense of direction for labour law. At a time when many appear to doubt the value of labour laws and workers’ rights at all, the chapter suggests that it is necessary to reassert that the values and principles that provide the foundations for a system of labour law are not those of a narrow special interest group, but rather embrace interpretations of key values such as freedom, autonomy, dignity, equal respect, democracy, and social justice

Genealogies of Slavery

This chapter addresses the concept of slavery, exploring its character and significance as a dark page in history, but also as a specifically criminological and zemiological problem, in the context of international law and human rights. By tracing the ambiguities of slavery in international law and international development, the harms associated with slavery are considered. Harms include both those statutorily proscribed, and those that are not, but that can still be regarded as socially destructive. Traditionally, antislavery has been considered within the parameters of abolition and criminalization. In this context recently, anti-trafficking has emerged as a key issue in contemporary anti-slavery work. While valuable, anti-trafficking is shown to have significant limitations. It advances criminalization and stigmatization of the most vulnerable and further perpetuates harm. At the same time, it identifies structural conditions like poverty, vulnerability, and “unfreedom” of movement only to put them aside. Linked to exploitation, violence and zemia, the chapter brings to the fore some crucial questions concerning the prospects of systemic theory in the investigation of slavery, that highlight the root causes of slavery, primarily poverty and inequality. Therefore, the chapter counterposes an alternative approach in which the orienting target is not abolition of slavery but advancing structural changes against social harm

Life after work: privacy and dismissal

This article addresses the issue of termination of employment because of the conduct of the employee in her leisure time, in the light of the human right to private life. It explores the impact on the retention of employment of activities taking place outside the workplace and outside working hours, and argues that the approach of domestic courts and tribunals on the matter, which is based on a spatial conceptualisation of privacy, is flawed. Having analysed the reasons why the current interpretation of privacy is wanting, the paper suggest a fresh approach, which rests on the idea of domination that the employer can exercise on the employee. The paper's proposition is based on an interpretation of the right to privacy as a right to control information, rather than a right to act in spatial isolation. It argues that life after work may lead to lawful dismissal only if there is a clear and present impact or a high likelihood of such impact on employment, whilst a speculative and marginal danger does not suffice

Is there a human right not to be a trade union member?: labour rights under the European Convention on Human Rights

This paper examines the protection of labour rights in the context of civil and political rights documents and explores the compatibility of closed shop arrangements with human rights law. It contributes to the relevant debates in two ways. First, it seeks to examine how the “integrated approach” to interpretation, a method increasingly preferred by the European Court of Human Rights when examining work-related complaints, affects the regulation of closed shops. Second, it attempts to resolve the apparent tension between individual rights and the collective interests of labour that is commonly articulated in both the case law and the academic literature. The paper suggests that, contrary to a widely held understanding, civil and labour rights share common values. Through the example of closed shops it is argued that the rights of workers and their unions can be enhanced rather than harmed by an effective and principled human rights regime