CROSS-BORDER SOCIAL DIALOGUE AND AGREEMENTS: An ...

Cross-border social dialogue and agreements
towards more sophisticated (redistributive or integrative) forms of
collective bargaining, similar to those experienced in certain national
settings or in the maritime sector at cross-border level, once the context
is mature enough. In that sense, IFAs can be said to constitute a key
building block towards the consolidation of a global industrial relations
system.
Law
The maritime sector’s collective agreement demonstrates the importance
of a legal and institutional framework in providing a platform for
and buttressing negotiations. The significance of such a framework is
demonstrated by the fact that IFAs make reference to numerous ILO
instruments (see the appendix).
Because IFAs do not have any institutional backup or attachment
to a particular legal order, a classical legal perspective would have difficulty
in accommodating their legal dimension (see Sobczak, this volume).
So far, only a sociological understanding of international law, known as
“sociological objectivism”, allows us to grasp the legal dimension of IFAs
because this theory sees law not so much as a form of top-down state regulation
but rather as a means to address a need for social organization in
the context of increased cross-border activity generated by globalization.
According to George Scelle — the main proponent of this approach —
the aim of the law, including private agreements, is to satisfy the social
needs of individuals and their groups, and in particular to organize social
relations, including labour relations, in the context of a global society
(société internationale globale ou œcuménique) generated by the interpenetration
of peoples through international trade (l’interpénétration des peuples
par le commerce international) in which individuals, rather than States,
lie at the centre of the international legal order (Scelle, 1932; 1934).
The innovative function performed by IFAs as instruments serving
the purposes of opening spaces for dialogue and organizing interaction
between actors (such as global unions and MNEs) matches Scelle’s vision
in several respects. Indeed, Scelle would view IFAs as a “suprastate phenomenon”
deriving from a social need to organize global interactions
between the MNE management and its global work force in an era of
globalization. IFAs would reflect the outcome of interaction between
individuals (and groups of individuals) needing to organize their own
dealings and indeed, constructing their own “legal framework” at crossborder
level, following the dynamics created by international trade and
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