Protection of labour rights within inter american system of human rights protection

Abstract

The study is devoted to the protection of labor rights within the Inter-American Human Rights Protection System established in the countries of North and South America, members of the Organization of American States. In the course of the study, the following tasks were set: to consider the main international documents proclaiming labor rights within the Inter-American System for the Protection of Human Rights; to analyze the practice of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights and the Inter-American Court of Human Rights on the consideration of individual complaints about violations of labor rights; to give a brief overview of the most important decisions of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights in relation to labor rights (Baena Ricardo and Others vs. Panama, Lagos del Campo vs. Peru and others). Despite the consolidation of labor rights in the main documents of the Inter-American Human Rights Protection System, for a long time labor rights haven`t received suffi cient attention in the practice of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights and the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (the period of "oblivion"). With the adoption in 2001 of the decision in the case of Baena Ricardo and оthers v. Panama, the situation has changed somewhat. The possibility of direct protection of labor rights was still not recognized, but in fact many violations of labor rights became the subject of consideration through the prism of civil and political rights enshrined in the American Convention on Human Rights of 1969. The decision in the case of Lagos del Campo v. Peru opened a new stage in the protection of labor rights, securing the possibility of direct protection of labor rights based on article 26 of the American Convention.