Present development of international cooperation in the field of human rights
protection and labour rights protection in particular, is characterised by a growing role
of regional intergovernmental entities and creation of regional systems for such
protection. In turn, universal international law contributes to the progress of regional
systems by sharing with them the experience of more developed regional systems and
that of universal system as a whole [4, p. 145]. European regional system of social and
economic rights protection is characterised by the existence of special legal framework
and special institutional mechanism of social and economic rights regulation
concerning people living within the territories of the regional states. Regional
standards proclaim a narrower list of rights compared to international, but a more
efficient mechanism for their implementation. For this reason, exercising of human
rights in the field of labour relations is much easier at the regional level. However,
despite the importance of regional human rights protection and general course of our
country towards the integration into the EU, a universal system seems to be more
uniform due to the fact that the adoption of regional standards, particularly in labour
area, is based on specific features determined by national, cultural and historical
traditions of the Union member states.
As it has already been indicated, the essence of the 1988 Declaration consists in
that the economic growth must be accompanied by social progress, and the
fundamental human rights in the field of labour relations must be respected regardless
the level of economic development in the countries. During the Declaration
development it was taken into account that the eight ILO conventions, which focus on
the aforementioned human rights, had been ratified by most countries. Accordingly,
the emphasis in the classification of the ILO acts adopted after 1998, was made on
distinguishing the acts related to the four "fundamental principles and rights at work".
The process of bringing domestic labour law in line with international labour
standards has already achieved certain results. Thus, the Ukrainian Constitution
contains reflection of the principal provisions of the fundamental acts in the field of
labour relations, improves legal mechanism for labour rights protection, enshrines
equal rights and freedoms guarantees, bans any restrictions on the grounds of social,
national, religious affiliation, provisions on equal rights and freedoms for men and
women, equal opportunities for their implementation etc. Regarding the reforming of
labour legislation, P A Bushchenko exploring the codification of Ukrainian labour
legislation notes that the draft Labour Code does not clearly define principles, which
are aimed at regulating social and labour relations in Ukraine and which should reflect
the essence of the Ukrainian Labour Code and its fundamental principles. They should
embody into social and labour relations the ideas of goodness, justice, freedom,
enshrined in the Constitution of Ukraine, reflect general orientation of the Ukrainian
legal system [5, p. 118-119].
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