The rise of neoliberal policy and practice simultaneous to the growing recognition of economic and social rights presents a puzzle. Can the rights to food, water, health, education, decent work, social security and the benefits of science prevail against market fundamentalism? The edited volume...

In September 2015, the United Nations General Assembly will adopt the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which will guide international development policy and practice for a fifteen-year period from 2015 to 2030. The SDGs are critically important as most international development efforts over...

In June 2014, a new Protocol to ILO Convention No. 29 on Forced Labour was adopted. The purpose was to overcome implementation gaps for Convention No. 29. The Protocol is significant because it recognizes that all forms of forced labor, not just those that relate to trafficking, must be...

On September 25, 2015, the United Nations General Assembly adopted the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as the blueprint for a global partnership for peace, development, and human rights for the period 2016 to 2030. The 2030 agenda follows on the heels of the Millennium Development Goals...

Neoliberal ideology now permeates our laws, policies and programming at the international, national and local levels. The International Monetary Fund, the World Trade Organization, the European Union and the United States government, for example, all support trade liberalization, privatization...

Economic inequalities are among the greatest human rights challenges the world faces today due to the past four decades of neoliberal policy dominance. Globally, there are now over 2,000 billionaires, while 3.4 billion people live below the poverty line of US $5.50 per day. Many human rights...

This chapter examines the clash between neoliberalism and social justice at the International Labour Organization (ILO). Since its founding in 1919, employer, worker and government representatives, as “tripartite” social partners, have created and supervised a wide array of labor standards...