UCL - European and international social law

[DROP2143]

[30h] 5 credits

This course is taught in the 2d semester.

Teacher(s): Pascale Vielle

Language: French

Level: Second

Aims
Main themes

Aims

This course aims to examine in detail European and international issues in labour and social security law, including some aspects of social policies likely to have an influence on national law. The issues are examined in turn and principally from the positions adopted by the International Labour Organisation and the European Union.

This course is part of a cohesive option which comprises three courses. The lecturers for the courses in this option are a team; they cooperate on the content and methods for each course to ensure that they are complementary. The course makes use of participatory teaching methods (learning through projects or problems, comments on case-law or doctrines, debates with invited teachers, hands-on studies) to enable the student to make their own critical, searching and inventive observations. The student is encouraged to take an active part in the course and to involve him/herself with this learning experience which has an individual as well as collective aspect. To this end, the lecturers within the Faculty cooperate on the various options within the teaching programme implemented.

Main themes

First part : the origins and institutions for European and international social law.

Second part : the International Labour Organisation:
- tripartism
- legal instruments and their effectiveness
- specific policies and action programmes.

Third part : Law and European social policy:

- The sources of European social law (treaties and secondary legislation, social dialogue)
- Soft law and action programmes
- The areas of responsibility and for intervention by the European Union on social issues (free movement of workers, social security for migrant workers and equality for women and men, etc.)

Fourth part : matters common to European and international social law.

The content of this part may vary from one year to the next and may equally well cover the systematic comparison of instruments for dealing with similar problems, as the definition of related concepts (for instance, " quality employment " in the EU and " decent employment " in the ILO, or " flexicurité "), or even on common solutions to problems which both organisations are trying to solve (for instance, the social governance crisis - and increasing resort to soft law and basic social rights - or the globalisation of the economy).