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The Decent Work for Domestic Workers Convention and Recommendation, 2011

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

Adelle Blackett*
Affiliation:
McGill University

Extract

The international landscape on the regulation of domestic work is changing dramatically. At the hundredth session of the International Labour Conference (ILC) in June 2011, the International Labour Organization (ILO) adopted the historic Decent Work for Domestic Workers Convention, 2011 (No. 189) and accompanying Recommendation No. 201. These new international labor standards come sixty-three years after the ILO adopted its first resolution on the conditions of employment of domestic workers and forty-six years after its second such resolution, which recalled the "urgent need" for standards "compatible with the self-respect and human dignity which are essential to social justice" for domestic workers. The robust, comprehensive international norms were adopted after two decades in which the ILO's standard setting has been deeply criticized and its tripartite structure repeatedly challenged to become more representative. Since additional critique of the ILO standards system emerged at the ILC's 101st session in 2012, it would be an overstatement to suggest that the new instruments reflect an unequivocally positive trend in standard setting. Even so, they offer a critical realist basis for considering that ILO standard setting remains salient and that international social dialogue remains possible.

Type
Current Developments
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of International Law 2012

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References

1 Domestic work includes a broad range of responsibilities, functions, and tasks, often invisible and undervalued, undertaken in and for a household. The Law and Practice Report, prepared in advance of the ninety-ninth session of the Ilo’s International Labour Conference, contains a detailed discussion of the definitional challenges across jurisdictions, as well as the terminological challenges. Decent Work for Domestic Workers 15, 28-33 (2010), Report IV(1), International Labour Conference, 99th Sess., 2010, at http://www.ilo.org/ILC/Ilcsessions/99thSession/reports/WCMS_104700 [hereinafter Law and Practice Report]. Domestic work is defined broadly in Article 1 of Convention No. 189, infra note 2, as “work performed in or for a household or households.” The records of, and documents associated with, the annual sessions of the International Labour Conference are available at http://www.ilo.org/ilc/Ilcsessions/lang—en/index.htm (for sessions 85 of 1997 to 101 of 2012).

2 June 16, 2011 [hereinafter Convention No. 189 and Recommendation No. 201]. Convention No. 189 was adopted by a vote of 396 to 16, with 63 abstentions. International Labour Conference, 100th Sess., Provisional Record 30, at 6 (2011). The accompanying Recommendation No. 201 was adopted by a vote of 434 to 8, with 42 abstentions. Id. at 8. These voting scores reflect a weighting system that includes government, employer, and worker representatives. The convention, see Art. 21(2), has received the two requisite ratifications (from Uruguay on June 14, 2012, and the Philippines on September 5, 2012) that will enable it to enter into force a year from the date that the second ratification was registered with the Ilo’s director-general. See http://www.ilo.org/global/about-the-ilo/newsroom/news/Wcms_189191/lang—en/index.htm. Ilo labor standards, including conventions and recommendations, are available at http://www.ilo.org/global/standards/.

3 Resolution Concerning the Conditions of Employment of Domestic Workers (June 30, 1948). ILO resolutions are available at http://www.ilo.org/public/english/bureau/leg/resoIutions.htm. Most ILO conventions and recommendations apply to domestic workers unless domestic workers are excluded through the application of flexibility clauses. The Law and Practice Report discusses the existing exclusions in conventions and also the cases in which ILO members have duly notified the ILO of their intention to invoke flexibility clauses. The report, supra note 1, para. 82, notes a paradox in ILO members’ practice: “Although ILO Members have expended considerable efforts in the drafting of flexibility clauses, few have resorted to them in practice.” Even so, a flexibility clause was included in Article 2 of Convention No. 189.

4 Resolution Concerning the Conditions of Employment of Domestic Workers (June 23, 1965).

5 International Labour Conference, 101st Sess., Provisional Record 19, Report of the Committee on the Application of Standards, pt. 1 (revised) (2012).

6 See de Sousa Santos, Boaventura & Rodriguez-Garavito, César A., Law, Politics and the Subaltern in Counter- hegemonic Globalization, in Law and Globalization From Below: Towards A Cosmopolitan Legality 1 (de Sousa Santos, Boaventura & Rodriguez-Garavito, César A., eds., 2005)CrossRefGoogle Scholar (identifying a critical realist sociology of “subaltern cosmopolitan legality that is fully alive to law’s contingency, but that moves beyond hyper-deconstructive critique to consider counter-hegemonic understandings and possibilities”); Orford, Anne, A Jurisprudence of the Limit, in International Law and Its Others 1 (Orford, Anne ed., 2006)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Specifically in labor law, see Ruben J. Garcia, Marginal Workers: How Legal Fault Lines Divide Workers and Leave Them Without Protection (2012).

7 International Labour Office, Global and Regional Estimates on Domestic Workers (2011), at http://www.ilo.org/travail/whatwedo/publications/Wcms_155951/. Methodological and conceptual challenges affect who “counts” as a domestic worker, rendering official estimates inaccurate (and presumably understated). For a discussion, see Chen, Martha Alter, Recognizing Domestic Workers, Reguhting Domestic Work: Conceptual, Measurement, and Reguktory Challenges, 23 Can. J. Women & L. 167 (2011)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

8 Un Development Programme, Overcoming Barriers: Human Mobility and Development 25 (2009), at http://hdr.undp.org/en/reports/global/hdr2009/; UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs, United Nations Population Facts, Nov. 2010, at 3 (adding that the proportion varies with age), at http://www.un.org/esa/population/publications/popfacts/popfacts_2010-6.pdf.

9 ILO, Women and Men Migrant Workers: Moving Towards Equal Rights and Opportunities (n.d.), at http://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/@dgreports/@gender/documents/publication/wcms_101118.pdf; see also Law and Practice Report, supra note 1, at 6 (table on domestic workers as a percentage of total population, by sex). It is crucial to note that that some domestic workers are men (and often from minority communities). See, e.g., McGregor, JoAnn, ‘Joining the BBC (British Bottom Cleaners)’: Zimbabwean Migrants and the UK Care Industry, 33 J. Ethnic & Migration Stud. 801, 802 (2007 CrossRefGoogle Scholar).

10 The ILO estimates the number of seafarers worldwide at 1.2 million, see http://www.ilo.org/global/about-the-ilo/newsroom/news/Wcms_l87660. According to the International Maritime Organization, see http://www.imo.org/OurWork/HumanElement/GoToSea/Pages/Default.aspx, the worldwide supply of seafarers in 2010 was estimated at 624, 000 officers and 747, 000 ratings. The International Transport Workers Federation, see http://www.itfseafarers.org/ITI-women-seafarers.cfm, estimates that only 2 percent of seafarers are women.

11 Doumbia-Henry, Cleopatra, The Consolidated Maritime Labour Convention: A Marriage of the Traditional and the New, in Les Normes Internationales Du Travail: UN Patrimoine Pour L’Avenir: MÉLanges En L’Honneur De Nicolas Valticos 319, 320 (Javillier, Jean-Claude & Gernigon, Bernard eds., 2004)Google Scholar.

12 Law and Practice Report, supra note 1, paras. 18, 19.

13 Id., paras. 48-52. The report provided a detailed comparative law analysis of seventy-two ILO members, comprising 80 percent of the world’s population. It offered a theoretical framework for understanding how domestic work can be regulated, and made a case to the ILO’s constituency—its tripartite deliberative community of governments, workers’ representatives, and employers’ representatives—in favor of moving forward on standard setting through a binding convention, supplemented by a nonbinding recommendation. The constituency responded to a detailed questionnaire in the report, on the basis of which the new international labor standards were negotiated.

14 Blackett, Adelle, Introduction: Regukttng Decent Work for Domestic Workers, 23 Can. J. Women & L. 1, 19 (2011)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

18 Recommendation 1970, supra note 17, para. 3.3.

19 See, e.g., UN Human Rights Council, Recommendations of the Forum on Minority Issues at Its Third Session, on Minorities and Effective Participation in Economic Life ( 14 and 15 December 2010), UN Doc. A/Hrc/16/46 (2011); Guiñara Shahinian (Special Rapporteur), Contemporary Forms of Slavery, Including Its Causes and Consequences, UN Doc. A/Hrc/15/20 (June 18, 2010) (this report includes a section entitled “Domestic Servitude: A Global Human Rights Concern”); see also UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Rights of Migrant Domestic Workers in Europe, at http://www.europe.ohchr.org/Documents/Publications/Study_Domestic_Migrant_webversion.pdf.

20 29 U.S.C. §§201-219 (2006 & Supp. Ill 2009).

21 See Application of the Fair Labor Standards Act to Domestic Service, 76 Fed. Reg. 81190 (proposed Dec. 27, 2011), at http://webapps.dol.gov/FederalRegister/PdfDisplay.aspx?DocId=25639. The exclusion of occupational categories like domestic work and farm labor, which are deeply rooted in a history of slavery in the United States, has been controversial.

22 Vallejos Evangeline Banao v. Comm’r of Registration, Case No. HCAL 124/2010 (C.F.I. Sept. 30, 2011), at http://legalref.judiciary.gov.hk/lrs/common/search/search_result_detail_frame.jspiDis=78403&Qs=%2B&Tp=Ju; see Drew, Kevin, Court Rules on Side of Maids’ Right to Residency, N.Y. Times, Sept. 30, 2011 Google Scholar, at http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/01/world/asia/court-rules-on-side-of-maids-rights-to-residency.html.

23 Vallejos Evangeline Banao v. Comm’r of Registration, Case No. Cacv 204/2011 (Ca. Mar. 28, 2012), at http://legalref.judiciary.gov.hk/lrs/common/ju/ju_frame.jsp?Dis = 81019; see Hong Kong Government Wins Appeal in Maid Residency Case (Mar. 28, 2012), at http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-17532723.

24 See Filipino Maid Takes Fight for Permanent Residency to Hong Kong’s Top Court, Guardian, June 22, 2012, at http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/jun/22/filipino-maid-hong-kong-court.

27 Article 46(4)(a) provides for the expansion of the category of “skilled community nationals.” see also Global Forum for Migration and Development, Summary Report: Domestic Workers at the Interface of Migration and Development (2011), at http://gfmd.org/documents/switzerland/jamaica/gfmd_swissll_jamaica-summary-report.pdf.

28 Domestic Workers Welfare and Social Security Act, 2010, at http://ncw.nic.in/Pdffiles/domestic_worker_welfare_and_social_security_act_2010.pdf.

29 See ILO, Regional Office for Arab States, Regional Overview (2011), at http://www.ilo.org/public/english/region/arpro/beirut/downloads/publ/overview_eng.pdf.

30 UN Doc. A/HRC/21/41/Add. 1 (July 4, 2012), at http://www.ohchr.org/En/Issues/Slavery/Srslavery/Pages/SrslaveryIndex.aspx.

31 It has been heavily studied. Limits with respect to regional migrant domestic workers and collective representation are the subject of ongoing reflection. Shireen Ally, From Servants To Workers: South African Domestic Workers and the Democratic State (2009); Griffin, Laura, Borderwork: “Illegality,” Unbounded Labour and the Lives of Basotho Migrant Domestic Workers (2010) (Ph.D. dissertation, University of Melbourne)Google Scholar (on file with author).

32 Blackett, supra note 14, at 41.

33 Alana Erickson Coble, Cleaning Up: the Transformation of Domestic Service in Twentieth Century New York City 56 (2006) (“No matter how desperate, domestics continued to reject live-in work. Independence was more important to them . . . .”);Ally, supra note 31, at 52 (noting that the shift to live-out work constituted a way to claim “incredibly important autonomy from employers and the capacity to maintain an independent familial life.”).

34 Law and Practice Report, supra note 1, para. 265.

35 Id., para. 38.

36 Blackett, supra note 14, at 14. Equal pay for work of equal value is recognized in two conventions that the ILO considers to be fundamental: the Equal Remuneration Convention, 1951 (No. 100), and the Discrimination (Employment and Occupation) Convention, 1958 (No. 111).

37 Law and Practice Report, supra note 1, paras. 45-47; see Blacken, Adelle, Promoting Domestic Workers Human Dignity Through Specific Reguktion, in Domestic Work and the Formation of European Identity: Understanding the Globalization of Domestic Work, 16th-21st Centuries 247 (Fauve-Chamoux, Antoinette ed., 2004 Google Scholar).

38 See Sally Engle Merry, Human Rights & Gender Violence: Translating International Law Into Local Justice 5 (2006).

39 Leary, Virginia A., The Paradox of Workers’Rights as Human Rights, in Lance A. Compa & Stephen F. Dia Mond, Human Rights, Labor Rights and International Trade 22 (2003 Google Scholar).

40 See, e.g., Kolben, Kevin, Lahor Rights as Human Rights? 50 Va. J. Int’l L. 449 (2010 Google Scholar).

41 Substantive inclusion into a labor law paradigm might be considered a form of “workplace citizenship.” For a succinct discussion of the literature, see Coutu, Michel & Murray, Gregor, Towards Citizenship at Work? An Introduction, 60 Relations Industrielles/Industrial Relations 617 (2005)Google Scholar.

42 International Labour Conference, 99th Sess., Provisional Record 12 (2010); International Labour Conference, 100th Sess., Provisional Record 15 (2011).

43 William R. Simpson, Standard-Setting and Supervision: A System in Difficulty, in Les Normes Internation Ales Du Travail, supra note 11,at 52; Vosko, Leah F., ‘Decent Work’: The Shifting Role of the ILO and the Struggle for Ghbal Social Justice, 2 Global Soc. Poly 19 (2002)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Duplessis, Isabelle, La mollesse et L’droit international du travail: Modederégulation privilégiépoursociétédécentralisée, ¿»Governance, International Law and Corporate Societal Responsibility 1 (Javillier, Jean-Claude ed., 2007)Google Scholar, available at http://www.ilo.org/public/english/bureau/inst/publications/discussion/dpl8207.pdf.

44 Magnus, Erna, The Social, Economic, and Legal Conditions of Domestic Servants: I, 30 Int’l Lab. Rev. 190, 206 (1934 Google Scholar).

45 Law and Practice Report, supra note 1, para. 39 (footnote omitted); see also Guha-Khasnobis, Basudeb, Kanbur, Ravi & Ostrom, Elinor, Beyond Formality and Informality, in Linking the Formal and Informal Economy: Concepts and Policies 4 (Guha-Khasnobis, Basudeb, Kanbur, Ravi & Ostrom, Elinor eds., 2007 Google Scholar).

46 See Colleen Sheppard, Inclusive Equality 103 (2010).

47 see also UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women, Art. 11, para. 1(d), opened for signature Mar. 1, 1980, 1249 UNTS 13 (entered into force Sept. 3, 1981).

48 Convention No. 189, supra note 2, at 4-5.

49 This challenge pervades attempts by member states to regulate conditions of work bilaterally and to ban (temporarily) their nationals from participating in domestic worker schemes in some countries without “decent work” concessions. See, e.g., Wangui, Joyce J., Pursuit of Greener Pastures in Saudi Arabia Spells Doom fir Kenyan Immigrants (July 10, 2011)Google Scholar, at http://www.thewip.net/contributors/2011/07/pursuit_of_greener_pastures_in.html.

50 These two elements are beyond the scope of this Current Development, but I address them in a forthcoming book chapter: Blackett, Adelle, L’autonomie collective, element clé du travail décent des travailleuses et travailleurs domestiques, in L’Autonomie Collective En Droit Du Travail: Perspectives Nationales Et Internationales (Roux, Dominic ed., forthcoming)Google Scholar.

51 Ga Res. 45/158 (Dec. 18, 1990).

52 Article 6 articulates an equality of treatment standard between “immigrants lawfully in its territory” and national workers, at least for a defined set of conditions of employment.

53 Equal treatment is addressed in Article 10.

54 Vosko, Leah F., Out of the Shadows? The Non-binding Multi-lateral Framework on Migration (2006)Google Scholar and Prospects for Using International Labour Regulation to Forge Global Labour Market Membership, in The Idea of Labour Law 365, 369-77 (Guy Davidov & Brian Langille eds., 2011) (discussing three phases in international labor regulation on migrant workers, and the current problems of exclusion).

55 Catherine Dauvergne, Making People Illegal: What Globalization Means For Migration and Law 22 (2008).

56 Id. Dauvergne accentuates the “reciprocity” between illegality and sovereignty in the International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of their Families, supra note 51.

57 I thank my colleague François Crépeau, UN special rapporteur on the human rights of migrants, for this insight. Strong human rights protections for migrant workers, regardless of their status, are also in keeping with principles 8 and 9 of the ILO Multilateral Framework on Labour Migration: Non-binding Principles and Guide lines for a Rights-Based Approach to Labour Migration (2006), at http://www.ilo.org/public/english/protection/migrant/download/multilat_fwk_en.pdf.

58 Convention No. 189, supra note 2, Art. 1(b).

59 See, e.g., Hoffman Plastic Compounds, Inc. v. Nat’l Labor Relations Bd., 535 U.S. 137 (2002); cf. Discovery Health Ltd. v. Comm’n for Conciliation, Mediation & Arbitration, Case No. JR 2877/06, 2008 (29) ILJ 1480 (LC) (S.’Afr. Mar. 28, 2008), at http://www.saflii.org/za/cases/Zalc/2008/24.html (distinguishing between the “contract” and the employment “relationship”).

60 Article 8(1) of Convention No. 189, supra note 2, calls for

[n]ational laws and regulations . . . [to] require that migrant domestic workers who are recruited in one country for domestic work in another receive a written job offer, or contract of employment that is enforceable in the country in which the work is to be performed, addressing the terms and conditions of employment referred to in Article 7, prior to crossing national borders for the purpose of taking up the domestic work to which the offer or contract applies.

Although this provision seeks to protect migrant domestic workers’ rights and to reduce the uncertainties associated with unenforceable contracts, it does not address the difficulties of undocumented migrant domestic workers already present in the receiving country.

61 Law and Practice Report, supra note 1, para. 56.

62 Convention No. 189, supra note 2, Art. 8(4); Recommendation No. 201, supra note 2, para. 22.

63 Recommendation No. 201, supra note 2, para. 20(2).

64 Id., para. 21(1)(b).

65 Convention No. 189, supra note 2, at 4. The cooperation theme is developed further in paragraph 26(2) of Recommendation No. 201.

66 General Comment No. 1 on Migrant Domestic Workers, supra note 15, para. 9. It is worth noting that the Council of Europe has called for member states to establish international cooperation among labor inspectors, police, and border guards. Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, Res. 1534 (2007), The Situation of Migrant Workers in Temporary Employment Agencies (TEAs), at http://assembly.coe.int/Main.asp?link=/Documents/AdoptedText/ta07/Eres1534.htm.

67 Article 15 provides, in full, as follows:

  1. 1.

    1. To effectively protect domestic workers, including migrant domestic workers, recruited or placed by private employment agencies, against abusive practices, each Member shall:

    1. (a)

      (a) determine the conditions governing the operation of private employment agencies recruiting or placing domestic workers, in accordance with national laws, regulations and practice;

    2. (b)

      (b) ensure that adequate machinery and procedures exist for the investigation of complaints, alleged abuses and fraudulent practices concerning the activities of private employment agencies in relation to domestic workers;

    3. (c)

      (c) adopt all necessary and appropriate measures, within its jurisdiction and, where appropriate, in collaboration with other Members, to provide adequate protection for and prevent abuses of domestic workers recruited or placed in its territory by private employment agencies. These shall include laws or regulations that specify the respective obligations of the private employment agency and the household towards the domestic worker and provide for penalties, including prohibition of those private employment agencies that engage in fraudulent practices and abuses;

    4. (d)

      (d) consider, where domestic workers are recruited in one country for work in another, concluding bilateral, regional or multilateral agreements to prevent abuses and fraudulent practices in recruitment, placement and employment; and

    5. (e)

      (e) take measures to ensure that fees charged by private employment agencies are not deducted from the remuneration of domestic workers.

  2. 2.

    2. In giving effect to each of the provisions of this Article, each Member shall consult with the most representative organizations of employers and workers and, where they exist, with organizations representative of domestic workers and those representative of employers of domestic workers.

68 Opened for signature June 19, 1997, 2115 UNTS 249 (entered into force May 10, 2000) [hereinafter Convention No. 181]. At the 2011 International Labour Conference, the U.S. governmental representative expressed the position that the proposed instrument should be aligned to Convention No. 181, “to establish practical guide lines in favour of domestic workers and reputable employment agencies, and to curtail exploitative operators. “Provisional Record 15, supra note 42, para. 24. The representative from Human Rights Watch also argued that “the provisions on employment agencies should be consistent with” Convention No. 181 and its accompanying recommendation, “and should prohibit agencies from charging domestic workers for recruitment costs incurred by employers, because that could lead domestic workers into debt and forced labour.” Id., para. 49.

69 Convention No. 181, supra note 68, Art. 3.

70 The number is accurate as of October 4, 2012. See ILO Table of Ratifications, at http://www.ilo.org/dyn/normlex/en/. The Convention has been subject to important critique. See, e.g., Benjamin, Paul, Beyond the Boundaries: Prospects for Expanding Labour Market Reguktion in South Africa, in Boundaries and Frontiers of Labour Law 181 (Dávidov, Guy & Langille, Brian eds., 2006 Google Scholar).

71 Convention No. 181, supra note 68, Art. l(l)(a).

72 See discussion in Provisional Record 15, supra note 42, paras. 112-17.

73 The convention and recommendation are both framed, however, to place responsibility on state actors, which would include public institutions like the Philippines Overseas Employment Administration. Linked to the Philippines Department of Labor and Employment, it is responsible for licensing private employment agencies, including those acting on behalf of foreign principals, under the Migrant Workers and Overseas Filipinos Act of 1995, Rep. Act No. 9422 (2007), as amended. Not only does the act regulate “private sector participation in the recruitment and overseas placement of workers by setting up a licensing and registration system,” it provides pre- employment services and establishes a “system for promoting and monitoring the overseas employment of Filipino workers taking into consideration their welfare and the domestic manpower requirements.” Id., §23(b)(l).

74 See, in particular, the explanation offered by the employers’ vice-chairperson, which suggests that “his concern was to ensure that such fees were not charged prior to employment but rather that they be paid after domestic workers started receiving remuneration accruing from their employment.” Provisional Record 15, supra note 42, para. 745. While he further asserted that “there was no prohibition in Convention No. 181 against charging agency fees,” Article 7(2) permits exceptions only “[i]n the interest of the workers concerned,” and following consultations.

75 Provisional Record 15, supra note 42, para. 729.

76 Article 37(1) of the ILO Constitution, June 28, 1919, 49 Stat. 2712, 225 Consol. T.S. 378, gives the International Court of Justice the authority to issue interpretations of the ILO Constitution and ILO conventions. Article 37(2) provides for the establishment of a “tribunal for the expeditious determination of any dispute or question relating to the interpretation of a Convention which may be referred thereto by the Governing Body or in accordance with the terms of the Convention.” In its various activities, the Committee of Experts on the Application of Conventions and Recommendations, see http://www.ilo.org/global/standards/applying-and-promoting-international-labour-standards/committee-of-experts-on-the-application-of-conventions-and-recommendations/, issues formal observations and responds to direct requests for advice. Given that the Committee of Experts was established in 1926 and has been issuing annual reports since 1932, the resulting body of “guidance” is formidable.

77 Dauvergne, supra note 55, at 24.

78 Declaration Concerning the Aims and Purposes of the International Labour Organization (Declaration of Philadelphia), Art. I, May 10, 1944, 15 UNTS 35, at http://www.un-documents.net/dec-phil.htm. It is worth recalling, however, that one of the ILO’s most influential conventions, the Indigenous and Tribal Peoples Convention, 1989 (No. 169), is anomalous in that it is not obviously focused on the “worker” or even on establishing international labor standards. It has its historical roots, however, in the regulation of colonial labor. See Luis RodrÍGuez-Pinero, Indigenous Peoples, Postcolonialism, and International Law: the ILO Regime (1919-1989) (2005).

79 See Guy Standing, Global Labour Flexibility: Seeking Distributive Justice (1999); Jennifer Nedelsky, Law’s Relations: A Relational Theory of Self, Autonomy, and Law (2011); see also Recommendation No. 201, supra note 2, Art. 25(l)(c).

80 Blackett, Adelle, Domestic Workers at the Interface of Migration & Development: Action to Expand Good Practice 34 (2011) (background paper prepared for the Global Forum on Migration and Development), at http://gfmd.org/documents/switzerland/ghana/gfmd_swissll_ghana_background_paper.pdfGoogle Scholar.

81 ILO Governing Body, 301st Session, Decision on the Second Item on the Agenda: Date, Place and Agenda of the 99th Session (2010) of the International Labour Conference (Mar. 16, 2008), at http://www.ilo.org/gb/decisions/GB301-decision/WCMS_093430/lang—en/index.htm.

82 Rodríguez-Pinero, supra note 78, at 8.

83 See Simpson, supra note 43.

84 I discuss these approaches in my review of Les Normes Internationales Du Travail, supra note 11, at 101 AJIL 529, 530-32 (2007).

85 Luc Demaret, Decent Work for Domestic Workers—International Convention on the Way, Labour Educ., nos. 3-4, 2007 at 1, 3-4 (special issue on decent work for domestic workers), available at http://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/@ed_dialogue/@actrav/documents/publication/wcms_l 11439.pdf; see Trebilcock, Anne, Using Development Approaches to Address the Challenge of the Informal Economy for labour Law, in Boundaries and Frontiers of Labour Law 63 (Dávidov, Guy & Langille, Brian eds., 2006 Google Scholar).

86 For an important early discussion of tripartism, tripartism plus, and social dialogue, see Anne Trebilcock, Towards Social Dialogue: Tripartite Cooperation in National Economic and Social Policy Making (1994). See Fashoyin, Anne, Tripartite Cooperation, Social Dialogue and National Development, 143 Int’l Labour Rev. 341 (2004 CrossRefGoogle Scholar).

87 Brunnée, Jutta & Toope, Stephen, Legitimacy and Legality in International Law 16 (2011 Google Scholar).

88 Id.; see Kingsbury, Benedict, International Law as Inter-public Law, in Moral Universalism and Pluralism 167 (Richardson, Henry S. & Williams, Melissa S. eds., 2009 Google Scholar).

89 Balakrishnan Rajagopal, International Law from Below: Development, Social Movements and Third World Resistance 47 (2003).

90 Id. at 292.

91 Id. at 23.

92 Helpful recent critique can be found in Jill Murray, Transnational Labour Regulation: the ILO and Ec Compared (2001).

93 Provisional Record 12, supra note 42, para. 12.

94 International Labour Conference, 99th Sess., Provisional Record 19 (2010), at 35, 41.

95 Provisional Record 15, supra note 42, para. 1278.

96 Opened for signature June 20, 1996, 2108 UNTS 161 (entered into force Apr. 22, 2000); «Dan Gallin, The ILO Home Work ConventionTen Years Later (2007) (presentation at Women, Work and Poverty: Sewa/Unifem Policy Conference on Home-Based Workers of South Asia) (noting the significant role of social movements, such as the Self-Employed Women’s Association, in advocating for this convention), at http://previous.wiego.org/program_areas/org_rep/Gallin_homework_speech.pdf.

As of October 4, 2012, the convention had been ratified by only ten member states, see ILO Table of Ratifications, supra note 70, despite strong governmental support for its adoption. Three of the ratifications were submitted in 2012.

97 The International Domestic Workers’ Network took a leading role. See C189: Domestic Workers Are Workers (n.d.), at http://www.idwn.info/campaign/cl89-domestic-workers-are-workers/; see also Christine Bonner, Domes tic Workers Around the World: Organizing for Empowerment (2010), at http://wiego.org/publications/domestic-workers-around-world-organising-empowerment.

98 Two key regional examples are the Committee on Asian Women and the Latin American and Caribbean Confederation of Domestic Workers.

99 Standing Orders of the International Labour Conference, Art. 56, para. 9, at http://www.ilo.org/public/english/standards/relm/ilc/ilc-so.htm.

100 In a number of member states of the global South, regulatory innovation on domestic work has been dynamic and ongoing, and the resulting law and practice was used extensively in the preparatory work for Convention No. 189 and Recommendation No. 201. While the regulatory frameworks in some industrialized nations, such as France, are among the most original in the world, in other countries the laws are outdated and even regressive. Close study is needed of the implementation and enforcement of labor laws in many of the countries highlighted by the ILO. In this context the ILO will need to exercise caution in choosing comparative law examples to guide future law reform. See ILO, Effective Protection of Domestic Workers: A Guide to Designing Labour Laws (2012), at http://www.ilo.org/travail/areasofwork/domestic-workers/Wcms_173365/lang—en/index.htm; see also Macdonald, Roderick A. & Kong, Hoi L., Patchwork Law Reform: Your Idea Is Good in Practice, but It Won’t Work in Theory, 44 Osgoode Hall L.J. 11 (2006)Google Scholar.

101 See de Sousa Santos & Rodriguez-Garavito, supra note 6, at 17 (outlining a “sociology of re-emergence” that seeks to move beyond hyper-deconstructive critique toward a new legal “common sense”); see also Hilary Charles-worth & David Kennedy, Afterward: and ForwardThere Remains So Much We Do Not Know, in International Law and Its Others, supra note 6, at 401, 408 (calling for international lawyers to confront the responsibility of being “active participants in intensely political and negotiable contexts. . . without sheltering behind the illusion of an impartial, objective, legal order”).