Labour rights as human rights in the Jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights

The chapter examines how the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) has protected labour‑related interests by interpreting certain provisions of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) in a “labour‑friendly” way. 1 The starting point is the tension between, on the one hand, constitutional systems (such as the Italian one) that already recognise labour as a foundational value and protect many workers’ rights directly in the Constitution, and, on the other hand, the trend to “upgrade” labour rights into the category of universal, inviolable human rights in order to shield them from economic and market‑oriented balancin