On November 10, 2023, the International Labour Organization's Governing Body made a historic decision: they asked the International Court of Justice to settle a question that has divided the labor world for decades. Does the right to strike belong to workers under Convention No. 87, the 1948 treaty that protects freedom of association? Now, the ICJ has delivered its answer—an Advisory Opinion that brings clarity to one of the most contested interpretations in international labor law.
This matters because Convention No. 87 is foundational to how workers organize globally. Ratified by more than 160 countries, it enshrines the right of workers to form and join organizations of their own choosing. Yet since 1948, governments, employers, and labor advocates have disagreed on a crucial point: does the freedom to organize necessarily include the freedom to strike? Some nations argued no—that striking was a separate, distinct right not covered by the convention. Others insisted it was implicit in any meaningful freedom of association. That ambiguity has shaped labor disputes, policy debates, and workers' protections for three-quarters of a century.
The referral itself was extraordinary. The ILO Constitution allows the Governing Body to ask the ICJ for authoritative interpretations of international labor conventions, but this power is used so rarely that this was only the second such request in the organization's entire history. The first came in 1932, when the predecessor to the ICJ was asked to interpret the Night Work (Women) Convention of 1919. That's 91 years between requests. The decision to invoke this almost dormant mechanism signaled how urgent and intractable the question had become. The Workers' Group initiated the request, and 36 governments backed it—a broad coalition united by the need for clarity.
The Governing Body will now consider the ICJ's Advisory Opinion at its 358th session in November, where member states will decide how to respond and what follow-up steps might be necessary. That's when the real work begins: translating legal interpretation into practical change across labor systems worldwide. Different countries will likely react differently. Some may align their policies swiftly; others may resist. But what matters now is that the world's highest court has spoken on a question that has shadowed labor rights for generations.
The stakes extend far beyond legal semantics. Workers in countries where strikes are restricted or criminalized have been waiting for international affirmation that striking belongs under the umbrella of fundamental rights. Employers and conservative governments have argued for limitations. The ICJ's interpretation carries moral and legal weight—it doesn't bind member states immediately, but it carries the authority of international law and the legitimacy of the Court itself. For the ILO, an organization born from the conviction that labor rights are human rights, this opinion offers a chance to close a long-standing gap between aspiration and reality. The question now is whether nations will listen.