Trade and Labour: Friends, Foes, or Frenemies?

By Maria Mexi & Andrew Silva – Exceptional events, like the Covid-19 pandemic, and broader trends, like the acceleration of new technologies and growth of trade in services, are raising further questions about the relationship between trade and labour. This piece revisits our understanding of and the possible institutional mechanisms to forge positive linkages between trade and labour.

Mobility in crisis: can global governance get the world moving again?

By Christopher Szabla – The outbreak of Covid-19 has closed borders around the world, appearing to have deepened a crisis in globalization that has challenged the mobility of people, goods, and services between countries and even within them. Can global governance norms and institutions play a role in restoring or even improving movement in a post-Covid world given an ongoing hostility to them? History provides an indication that such a crisis may be as much of an opportunity to rearticulate an international regime as it is a potential hazard for it.

Where is the ILO going with the Centenary Declaration?

By Velibor Jakovleski – The ILO’s Centenary Declaration seeks a reinvigorated role for the organization in the global governance of work. But it could end up as just another example of compromised adaptation to rapidly changing circumstances.