In a landmark opinion, the United Nations’s highest court on Thursday said workers and unions have a right to strike under the main international labour law treaty, in an advisory opinion that could influence labour laws around the world.

The 14-judge panel of the International Court of Justice, by 10 votes to four, said the right to strike is protected under the International Labour Organization’s 1948 Freedom of Association treaty signed by 158 countries.

The ILO, a U.N. agency that brings together governments, employers and workers to set labour standards around the world, asked for the advisory opinion in 2023. ICJ advisory opinions are not legally binding but many local courts accept them as authoritative legal decisions.

The case was only the second time in ILO history that a question concerning interpretation of an international labour convention had been referred, and the first such request to the ICJ since its creation in 1945.

At the heart of the dispute was whether the right to organize under Convention No. 87 includes the right of workers and their organizations to take strike action.

Employers’ groups stress that the convention contains no provision whose ordinary meaning implies such a right, and that the treaty’s drafting history showed no intention to include strike action.

Workers’ representatives, by contrast, argued that the right to strike is inherent in freedom of association and has long been recognized by ILO supervisory bodies.

The panel agreed. As...

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