Safety and health at work as fundamental rights: A comparative‐historical study of the ILO's strategy of realistic vigilance

Abstract

This article is a comparative‐historical study of ILO action on safety and health as fundamental rights. In the two decades after the adoption of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, the ILO used a realist lens and prioritized the idea that safety and health were dependent upon economic preconditions for their protection. Given the new complex of global health uncertainty and the addition of safety and health to the framework of fundamental principles and rights at work, this history is revisited. Implications are discussed for the ILO supervision of coherence in national occupational safety and health policy.