Globalisation and Labour Law

Globalisation and Labour Law is a deeply engaged volume, in which fifteen leading scholars from nine countries explore the transformative forces reshaping labour law and regulation. They examine how European and North American legal systems respond to global value chains, digitalisation, regional labour markets, and a shifting geopolitical landscape. In a world where a globalised economy and technological change disrupt established modes of production and employment, the foundational promises of labour law are increasingly tested. While revisiting core commitments of labour law to fairness, personal autonomy, and collective representation, the chapters highlight tensions between local regulation and global forces, innovation in rights discourses, and change versus tradition.

Based on the academic contributions of the Fourth Conference in Commemoration of Roger Blanpain, held at KU Leuven in November 2025, this book engages with the future of work by asking how labour law can remain both responsive and principled in the face of global transformations. Approaching the complex questions that arise as interlocking issues, the contributors collectively address the following and more:

• political, economic, and institutional frameworks shaping labour regulation;
• pressing issues such as human rights due diligence, privacy, autonomy, collective representation, labour–trade linkages, and artificial intelligence;
• cross-border mobility and trade unionism;
• role of international standards and transnational governance;
• telework and platform work;
• need for new forms of genuinely transnational worker representation; and
• persistent struggles over the right to strike and its scope, limits, and enforcement.

The volume presents a rich constellation of contributions that collectively map the evolving architecture of labour law; the authors do not merely analyse; they question and interrogate. The book will prove an essential resource for scholars, practitioners, and policymakers seeking to understand and critically engage with the evolving architecture of labour law in a globalised and digital world.