On May 30 a number of internationally well known researcher and activists came to Norrköping for the conference 'Labour Rights as Human Rights? - Labour Market Restructuring and the Role of Civil Society in Global Governance', organised by REMESO and INMD (International Network for Migration and Development), under the auspices of UNESCO-MOST. Keynote lectures were given by Saskia Sassen, Columbia University, Ronaldo Munck, Dublin City University, Guy Standing, University of Bath,  Stephen Castles, University of Sydney and Raul Delgado Wise.

 

Recent decades have seen remoulded or new transnational migration systems across the globe. Inter- and intra-regional migration have been propelled by major political and economic changes in Eastern Europe, massive growth of industrial and service economies such as China and India and increasing conflict- and climate driven refugee movements. This is accompanied by an unprecedented mobility of capital, restructuring of economies and flexibilisation of labour markets. Hence, the new political economy of migration is linked to profound changes in working life in terms of informalisation and precarisation of work with re-enforced ethnic, racial and gender segmentations, as well as deteriorating social rights.

 

On this background major international organisations have seeked to establish global normative frameworks for human and labour rights and fair rules for cross-border movement. Among them is the UN initiative for ‘fair globalization’. Another is the ILO’s ‘decent work agenda’. In addition, a range of civil society movements are engaged in redefining issues of migration and global governance in the nexus of human rights, social rights and labour rights.

 

This global scenario of structural change is the context for the Labour Rights as Human Rights? conference in Norrköping, Sweden, between May 30th to June 1st, 2012, organised by REMESO (Institute for Research on Migration, Ethnicity, and Society) at Linköping University in collaboration with the INMD (International Network for Migration and Development), under the auspices of UNESCO-MOST.

 

Go to Conference web page for keynotelectures, reviews, abstracts and videos.