The HELP course on “Labour Rights” covers in an interactive way the key concepts, the European system of protection of labor rights (stemming from the Council of Europe and the EU), the case-law of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR), and the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) as well as decisions of the European Committee of Social Rights (the ECSR). The latter is an independent body of a quasi-judicial nature that oversees the situation in the contracting states and develops case law.
This course deals both with individual and collective labor rights, primarily on the basis of the ESC and the relevant articles of the ECHR. The course also makes comparisons and synergies with the EU Charter and presents the relevant EU labor law. It also considers the key ILO conventions.
It is important to emphasize the indivisibility of all human rights, be they civil, political, economic, social or cultural, and that there can be no human rights society without full respect of social human rights, including labour rights.
The HELP online course on Labour Rights offers a detailed and comprehensive curriculum which covers the key concepts, the legal framework of the CoE and the EU (directly applicable at national level), the case law of the ECtHR, the CJEU and the ECSR as well as specific areas of labour law.
The course was initially developed under the “HELP in 28” Project. It was updated in 2021 under the EU-CoE “HELP in the EU II” project to contain the most recent developments. The update process was coordinated by the HELP Secretariat and involved several representatives of relevant CoE services: Secretariat of the European Social Charter, Secretariat of the Council of Europe Convention on Action against Trafficking in Human Beings, as well as from the Registry of the European Court of Human Rights.The course is freely available in self-learning format. The overall length of the online course is approximatively thirteen hours and those who complete it online can obtain an electronic ‘Statement of accomplishment’.
