Worker Empowerment, Collective Labour Rights and Article 11 of the European Convention on Human Rights

This article proposes a normative, moral justification for the protection of collective labour rights as aspects of the right to freedom of association under Article 11 European Convention on Human Rights. A justification of this kind has so far been largely absent from the reasoning of the European Court of Human Rights , which has referred more frequently to international labour rights instruments in respect of some of the developments in its case-law on collective labour rights. The article argues that Article 11 should be interpreted also by reference to a particular theoretical account of the right to freedom of association as a moral right, which emphasises the role of freedom of association in enabling individuals to meet on more equal terms the power of those whose decisions affect them, and thus to participate in determining the circumstances of their life. According to this account, certain collective labour rights necessarily derive from the right to freedom of association.