Labour Rights and the Catholic Church: The International Labour Organisation, the Holy See and Catholic Social Teaching

ISBN-13: 9780367556433 / Angielski / Miękka / 2023 / 282 str.

Paul Beckett

Opis

This book explores the extent of parallelism and cross-influence between Catholic Social Teaching and the work of the world’s oldest human rights institution, the International Labour Organisation (ILO).

Sometimes there is a mutual attraction between seeming opposites who in fact share a common goal. This book is about just such an attraction between a secular organisation born of the political desire for peace and justice, and a metaphysical institution much older founded to bring peace and justice on earth. It examines the principles evident in the teachings of the Catholic Church and in the secular philosophy of the ILO; together with the theological basis of the relevant provisions of Catholic Social Teaching and of the socio-political origins and basis of the ILO. The spectrum of labour rights covered in the book extends from the right to press for rights, i.e., collective bargaining, to rights themselves – conditions in work – and on to post-employment rights in the form of social security and pensions. The extent of the parallelism and cross-influence is reviewed from the issue of the Papal Encyclical of Pope Leo XIII Rerum Novarum (1891) and from the founding of the ILO in 1919.

This book is intended to appeal to lay, professional and academic alike, and will be of interest to researchers and academics working in the areas of international human rights, theology, comparative philosophy, history and social and political studies.

On 4 January 2021 it was granted an Imprimatur by the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Liverpool, Malcolm P. McMahon O.P., meaning that the Catholic Church is satisfied that the book is free of doctrinal or moral error.

O autorze

Paul Beckett has 40 years’ experience both as an international commercial lawyer and as a human rights defender. He is a Visiting Research Fellow of Oxford Brookes University until 31 October 2024. He graduated from Worcester College, Oxford in 1978 with First Class honours in Jurisprudence. He also completed a Master of Studies in International Human Rights Law at New College, Oxford in 2014. Both a legal practitioner and an academic – a "pracademic" – he has been widely published and is often invited to take an active part in conferences, seminars and broadcasts.  Married, with two grown sons, he lives and works in the Isle of Man.