The International Court of Justice has ended a protracted dispute inside the International Labour Organization by ruling that its 1952 freedom of association convention protects the right to strike.

The International Court of Justice (ICJ) has ruled that the right to strike is protected under the International Labour Organization (ILO)’s Freedom of Association and Protection of the Right to Organise Convention, 1948 (No. 87), in an advisory opinion that resolves a long-running dispute inside the ILO and hands unions around the world a major symbolic and legal victory. Handing down its opinion in The Hague on 21 May, the court answered “in the affirmative” the question referred to it by the ILO’s governing body: whether the right to strike of workers and their organisations is protected under Convention No. 87. The judges found that, although the convention does not expressly mention strikes, the protection afforded to workers’ organisations and their right to organise their “activities” and “programmes” naturally encompasses strike action.

The proceedings arose from a long-running battle within the ILO itself between employer representatives and workers’ groups over whether Convention No. 87 protects strike action and whether the organisation’s supervisory bodies had authority to interpret the treaty in that way. The referral to the ICJ was ultimately driven by the workers’ group within the ILO after years of deadlock with employer representatives over the status of...

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