The article discusses the limits of international law in ensuring refugees’ and asylum seekers’ prompt access to the labour market in host countries, detailing how, despite the provisions concerning the right to work in the 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, states retain a considerable margin of discretion to restrict the access to work of non-nationals. The piece further calls attention to the fact that barriers to refugees’ and asylum seekers’ access to work in Latin America are not mainly attributed to formal prohibitions of obtaining employment, but rather to practical difficulties these groups face, such as achieving social inclusion, revalidation of diplomas, and xenophobic attitudes from the society at large. Nevertheless, the Inter-American bodies, through a broad interpretation of the principle of non-discrimination and the right to equality before the law, have limited the scope of states’ discretion on this issue. As the article shows, the Inter-American Court, in particular, has required states to adopt positive measures to guarantee that marginalised groups have equal opportunities to access work, thereby reinforcing states’ obligations towards the achievement of substantive equality. The article explores how these standards laid down by Inter-American bodies can be used to further the access of refugees and asylum seekers to the labour market.

Abstract of the article

Refugees and asylum seekers face several obstacles in enjoying their right to work, including bars under host States’ domestic law and situations of substantive discrimination. Despite the existence of norms protecting the right to work under international refugee and human rights law, they are usually abstract and leave considerable discretion to States regarding the extent to which refugees and asylum seekers may access the labour market. Nevertheless, recent case-law of the Inter-American Commission and Court of Human Rights has set out more protective standards concerning the right to work and the principle that non-discrimination towards marginalised groups. This article aims to demonstrate that these standards can effectively be applied to refugees and asylum seekers, thus curtailing States’ discretion in limiting their access to the labour market and offering more concrete protection of the right to work. In so doing, the article will analyse the extent to which these groups’ right to work is protected under the Convention relating to the Status of Refugees, the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, and the American Convention on Human Rights, drawing from relevant statements and decisions of human rights bodies on how these instruments have been interpreted. Then it will delve deeper into the Inter-American case-law, showing the potential of the standards developed therein to the protection of refugees’ and asylum seekers’ right to work. It concludes that these standards can and ought to be taken into account more seriously when assessing States’ discretion to limit refugees’ and asylum seekers’ access to the labour market and can be used as a basis to require positive and proactive measures from States in furthering this access.

Read the full article here.