Reception of International Labour, Refugee, Humanitarian and Criminal Laws

• Author: Mark Freeman, Gibran Van Ert
• Pages: 330-338

330

The many rights and groups of rights described in Chapter Ten are the

pre-eminent rights enjoyed by human beings at international law. They

are not, however, the only international laws relating to human rights.

As we saw in Chapter Seven, the fields of international labour, refugee

protection, humanitarian and criminal law are closely related to human

rights. In this chapter we briefly consider Canada’s laws concerning

these related fields.

A. International Labour Law

As explained in Chapter One, international labour law is at once a pre-

cursor to and a subset of general international human rights law. The

international labour regime, elaborated principally by the ILO, is a vast

area of law in which Canada has participated in fairly limited ways.

Canada is a party to only 30 of the over 180 ILO conventions. Of the

ILO’s eight “fundamental conventions,” Canada is a party to only five.1

RECEPTION OF

INTERNATIONAL

LABOUR, REFUGEE,

HUMANITARIAN AND

CRIMINAL LAWS

chapter 11

1 Canada is not a party to ILO Conventions Nos. 29 (forced labour), 98 (collec-

tive bargaining), and 138 (minimum age). On fundamental conventions, see the

discussion of international labour law in Chapter Seven.