Universal Labor Standards and National Cultures

Present-day globalization has many facets. It comprises not only the transfer of capital, goods and services, but also societal, artistic, even individual exchanges. The growing pace of globalization prompts us to re-examine a perennial dilemma in international law, namely the role of global considerations, on the one hand, and national and local dimensions, on the other, in how social relations are arranged. Legal standards on labor, in particular those of the International Labour Organization (ILO), must constantly deal with this dilemma because their effectiveness depends to a large extent on how the two roles are combined in the protection of labor and in the regulation of worker behavior. It seems clear that the heightened internationalization of human activity will have a lasting and profound impact on culture in every region and country. This being said, each culture's defining characteristics continue to play a significant role in how human beings behave and work. Students of comparative law know to what extent positive law can vary, in content, naturally, but also in wording and means of implementation. This creates a major problem for the actual application of international labor standards. The purpose of this article is to examine whether those standards should be formulated in a different manner in such a way as to integrate more efficiently their international dimension and their still local implementation