Events and courses

Research Seminar

Between utopia and action - New perspectives on Albert Thomas, first director of the ILO

Adeline Blaszkiewicz presents key finding of her PhD thesis on Albert Thomas, first director of the International Labour Office from 1920 to 1932. A special focus will be on so far less well-known aspects of his personal life, his political engagement and his career prior to his appointment. How did they shape his identity as an international civil servant, his convictions, and the policies of the newly founded ILO?

Brown Bag Lunch

Effects of a transition for environmental sustainability on labour and trade: literature review

The working paper reviews the extant theoretical and empirical literature on the environment, labour, and trade. It gives an overview of the evidence of the impacts of climatic change on labour and trade, of the concept of a green economy, environmental policy measures and introduces some questions arising from the calls for a ‘just transition’. It reviews theoretical literature on the channels through which policies promoting an environmental transition affect labour and trade, and which empirical strategies are commonly used to study this relationship. It also provides an overview of existing empirical evidence on the relationship between labour and environmental transitions, trade and environmental transitions, and labour, trade and the environment. Finally, it identifies the gaps in the literature and concludes.

Brown Bag Lunch

Scoping Study: International Investment Agreements

The aim of the report is to gain a better initial understanding of the references to labour in investment agreements. The main purpose is to scope investment agreements on references for keywords that can be related to labour protection since they might have an impact on the application of investment agreements and potentially address concerns with regard to freezing or lowering labour protection. In this report, the focus is on keywords that can be linked to labour protection, but which as such do not yet constitute a labour provision as defined by the International Labour Organization (ILO). These keywords can be considered as proxies to gain insight into the importance of labour concerns in investment agreements. The search of keywords is executed on two datasources from UNCTAD. One which contains all negotiated investment agreements and one which contains so-called Model Bilateral Investment Agreements.

ILO Research Department Seminar

Labour Law in a Warming World

The seminar will discuss regulatory dimensions of the labour and environmental sustainability nexus, and will explore possibilities for developing a more ecologically-attuned labour regulations.

ILO