The conflict that can arise when rules on competition law and the right to bargain collectively intersect has been a live issue amongst those interested in employment relations in Ireland for more than two decades now, as a series of conflicts has arisen in this space. When collective bargaining rights and competition law clash, the parties involved have generally swerved the issue through a mixture of negotiated ‘solutions’, and, more recently, a controversial legislative measure. Increasingly, however the issue is becoming one that requires to be addressed head on. This chapter examines how the Irish ‘voluntarist’, common law, system of employment relations has responded when competition law and collective representation rights are at odds. It will focus, particularly, on some paradigmatic disputes and reflects on how Irish law generally views the restriction on ‘economic freedom’ inherent in collective representation rights.

The chapter focuses the attention, firstly, on the origins of the right to die and its intersections with the development of life-maintaining medical technologies. Then, the analysis goes on by distinguishing between a right to refusal (current or by an advance directive) medical supports, and the recognition of some form of active aid in suiciding, taking into account the principal elements of the American, Canadian, European and Chinese legal frameworks.

This chapter provides an overview of the application of competition law to workers in New Zealand. The chapter starts with a brief historical background to the relevant legislation regulating labour and competition, and then summarises the key provisions of the Commerce Act that apply to workers. It then specifically explores the application of competition law to collective action by independent contractors, focusing on the unusual legal position of film workers. New Zealand law in this area is currently in a state of transition. While the literature and case law is less developed than in other jurisdictions, there is draft legislation and a number of law reform proposals currently being considered by the Government. The chapter provides a brief survey of the proposed Screen Industry Workers Bill and the relevant law reform proposals being considered.

This chapter considers the relationship between antitrust law and the First Amendment as those topics relate to workers’ collective action. It asks why the US Supreme Court has remained unwilling to accept First Amendment defenses in cases involving potential antitrust liability for strikes and boycotts, even as it has expanded the scope of First Amendment protections available in analogous situations. The chapter begins by reviewing foundational cases regarding antitrust liability for strikes and boycotts. It then discusses subsequent developments in First Amendment doctrine related to commercial speech, free association, and civil-rights boycotts. Finally, the chapter turns to the 1990 US Supreme Court case, Federal Trade Commission v. Superior Court Trial Lawyers Association, showing how First Amendment principles that are uncontroversial in other contexts could have driven a different outcome. The chapter closes with observations about the modern Supreme Court’s views of the purposes of the First Amendment, and difficulties workers and unions are likely to encounter thereunder.

This chapter focusing on US law first sets out the underlying rule against horizontal price-fixing—and many other forms of horizontal economic coordination beyond firm boundaries—that most directly implicates collective action among workers and other small players in the economy. It then briefly sets out the legal landscape of the various antitrust exemptions that can nevertheless shield such collective action from scrutiny: the labor exemption (exploring the relationship between the law in this area and the contemporary ‘fissured workplace’), the state action exemption, the various agricultural exemptions, and the lack of an exemption for small and medium-sized enterprises (despite sporadic movements toward such an exemption). While primarily descriptive, the chapter highlights the legal construction of economic coordination and competition from the ground-up—rather than preexisting ‘market competition’ regulated by law—and the largely invisible background role of firm-based coordination as the most significant antitrust exception of them all.

This paper delves into the ways in which EU competition law affects the right of workers to organize and combine with each other and act, collectively, in the furtherance of their rights and interests at work, in particular by means of collective agreements concluded with one or more employers. It begins by opposing the limited ‘labour exemption’ contained in the recent competition caselaw and contrasts that with a more traditional ‘labour law’ approach, that would typically see collective bargaining as a fundamental, and universal, labour rights to be enjoyed by all workers, or in the alternative will have to integrate the asymmetry of bargaining power between labour and digital monopsonies. We put forward a more nuanced and balanced approach, by reference to the concept of ‘predominantly personal work’, that could act as the new watershed concept around which labour rights and competition law could define their respective fields of operation and which may already inspire the recent Commission’s proposals enabling self-employed without employees (“solo self-employed”) to access the right to bargain collectively on a number of issues with digital platforms.

This chapter analyses the evolution of International Labour Organization (ILO) standards governing who is entitled to claim collective labour rights. It argues that the personal scope of such rights extends beyond ‘the standard employment relationship’, with implications for the scope of competition law. The first part analyses treatment of freedom of association and collective bargaining in constitutional and other declaratory ILO instruments, identifying the broad protectorate of these entitlements, reflecting the desire to promote equality and resist commodification of labour. These constitutional norms have been further reinforced by proposals for a universal labour guarantee and acknowledgement of the role of collective voice in promoting sustainability. The second part examines fundamental ILO Conventions Nos 87 and 98 on the right to organise and collective bargaining, Recommendation No. 198 on the employment relationship and the findings of ILO supervisory bodies which apply these standards in a manner consistent with established constitutional norms. While supervisory bodies encourage states to consult with social partners to modify existing collective bargaining systems to reflect the needs of ‘self-employed workers’, this should be understood less as a concession to managerial prerogative, but more as promotion of reform protecting the vulnerable in a changing world of work.

While dealing with the issue at the heart of this paper a fundamental question has to be tackled in greater depth: is the right to access to the Internet a human right (or a fundamental right: below is my attempt to introduce a terminological clarification in this regard) which enjoys a semantic, conceptual and constitutional autonomy? In other words, is access to the Internet an autonomous right or only a precondition for enjoying, among others, freedom of expression? Why does the classification as a free-standing or derived right matter? Does it carry normative implications or is it primarily a rhetorical tool? In trying to answer those questions, it may perhaps be beneficial to resist the temptation to rely on a “rhetoric” of fundamental rights and human rights, which is widespread throughout the various debates concerning the relationship between law and technology after the rise of the Internet. The language of rights (especially new rights) in Internet law is more than (rhetorically) appealing.

Neurorights are novel human rights that specify areas of protection from potential abuses of neurotechnologies. They protect mental privacy, mental freedom and fair access to neuroenhancement. We discuss neurorights research and advocacy, including the Chilean constitutional amendment and neuroprotection bill of law, which explicitly protect neurorights and adopt a medical model for the regulation of all neurotechnologies, defining them as medical devices. These Chilean bills could serve as a model for legislation elsewhere.