The International Society for Labour and Social Security Law is an international association whose purpose is to study labour and social security law at the national and international level, to promote the exchange of ideas and information from a comparative perspective, and to encourage the closest possible collaboration among academics, lawyers, and other experts within the fields of labour and social security law.
For many of those active in issues in the workplace, the internationalization of labor law and relations is becoming a reality. To highlight just a few areas in this field of growing attention to the global legal landscape, those in academia work on issues of comparative labor and employment law, union lawyers consider international aspects of comprehensive corporate campaigns in support of the objectives of their clients, and management attorneys are increasingly called upon to give advice on the international ramifications of the employment policies of their employer clients.
In support of this work, a number of legal organizations have an international focus. The ISLSSL is one of them. Founded in 1958, the ISLSSL is composed of national affiliates whose members are scholars, union and management lawyers, judges, government officials, arbitrators, industrial relations and human resources specialists, and others interested in promoting international exchange of ideas and information and in developing collaboration among experts in the fields of labor, employment and employee benefits law.
The ISLSSL conducts a World Congress every three years and Regional Congresses (open to registrants from all regions) during the interim years. These meetings allow members both to combine travel with expanded understanding of how labor and employment law operate elsewhere and explain their system to others. ISLSSL conferences also facilitate development of new personal contacts and promote important scholarship, education and training in the fields of comparative and international labor law, employment law, and related fields.
In recent years, ISLSSL World Congresses were convened in Jerusalem in 2000, in Montevideo in 2003, in Paris in 2006, and in Sydney, Australia in 2009. A World Congress will be hosted in Santiago, Chile in 2012 The ISLSSL maintains several regional branches. Recent Western Hemisphere Regional Congresses have been held in Lima, Peru; Querétaro, Mexico; and in the Dominican Republic. Recent Asian Regional Congresses were hosted in Manilla and Taipai, and recent European Regional Congresses were held in Stockholm and Bologna. In addition, the U.S. Branch sponsored a one day conferences in Chicago in May 2005 and in Philadelphia in 2012.
The U.S. Branch of the ISLSSL and the University of Illinois College of Law publish The Comparative Labor Law and Policy Journal, a quarterly law journal which publishes articles in the field of comparative and transnational labor and employment law. The journal publishes comparative analysis articles on labor law, employment policy, labor economics, worker migration, and social security issues. Many articles focus on legal systems in developing countries or post-colonial nations with emerging or new legal systems. The target audience for the journal is academics, practicing attorneys, policy makers, students, workers and labor movement officials and activists. The journal's stated policy is to make the publication readable and of practical value to officials in developing countries.
The U.S. branch maintains a website here. The current members of the Executive Committee are Steven L. Willborn (Chair),George Nicolau, Vice-Chair, and Alvin L. Goldman, Secretary-Treasurer. The ISLSSL can be contacted here.
Famous quotes containing the words society, labor, law, social and/or security:
“Our society distributes itself into Barbarians, Philistines and Populace; and America is just ourselves with the Barbarians quite left out, and the Populace nearly.”
—Matthew Arnold (1822–1888)
“In a virtuous government, and more especially in times like these, public offices are, what the should be, burthens to those appointed to them which it would be wrong to decline, though foreseen to bring with them intense labor and great private loss.”
—Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826)
“The law will never make a man free; it is men who have got to make the law free.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“This is no argument against teaching manners to the young. On the contrary, it is a fine old tradition that ought to be resurrected from its current mothballs and put to work...In fact, children are much more comfortable when they know the guide rules for handling the social amenities. It’s no more fun for a child to be introduced to a strange adult and have no idea what to say or do than it is for a grownup to go to a formal dinner and have no idea what fork to use.”
—Leontine Young (20th century)
“The contention that a standing army and navy is the best security of peace is about as logical as the claim that the most peaceful citizen is he who goes about heavily armed. The experience of every-day life fully proves that the armed individual is invariably anxious to try his strength. The same is historically true of governments. Really peaceful countries do not waste life and energy in war preparations, with the result that peace is maintained.”
—Emma Goldman (1869–1940)