In a historic decision late last week, the court issued an advisory opinion that the right to strike was protected by a United Nations treaty, the International Labour Organization’s Freedom of Association and Protection of the Right to Organise Convention, also known as Convention No. 87.

The new court decision does not mean we’ll suddenly see outbreaks of strike action across the globe. However, it does matter around the world, particularly in 158 countries that have ratified Convention No. 87, including Australia, Canada, Indonesia and the United Kingdom.

The ILO is unique among UN agencies because of its tripartite membership, comprising representatives from member states, trade unions and employer groups.

In 1948, the ILO adopted Convention No. 87. All countries that have since formally adopted the convention committed to protecting freedom of association and the right to organize in national laws.

The convention makes no explicit reference to the right to strike. Yet for decades, the ILO’s supervisory bodies, which oversee the implementation of convention obligations, have said the convention does protect the right to strike.

Why? That view is based on the wording of the convention, which states that workers have the right to form their own associations and organize their own programs and activities. Strike action is interpreted as one of those protected activities.

But in 2012, the ILO’s employer representatives decided that this long-standing interpretation was wrong, so they staged a strike of their own.

For the past 14 years, the employer representatives have refused to cooperate with ILO supervisory processes considering if countries were complying with Convention No. 87 when the right to strike was involved. Since 2023, that stalemate has been before the International Court of Justice, which has the power to interpret ILO conventions.

Last week, the court’s judges voted 10 to four in favor of the unions’ argument, concluding that “the right to strike of workers and their organizations is protected” under the convention.

While countries aren’t legally bound to follow ICJ advisory decisions like this one, they still carry significant legal and political weight worldwide.

The ILO is the only place in international law where trade unions can make formal complaints if a country is not respecting its obligations to protect the right to strike.

All of that was at risk if the ICJ had made a different decision. A ruling that went the other way, in favor of employers, would have weakened the right to strike worldwide. Last week’s court decision was thus a huge win for the international trade union movement.

The court’s advisory opinion is particularly significant for the 158 nations that have ratified Convention No. 87.

For example, Australia used to be thought of as a country with high rates of strike action. However, that has stopped being true since the country legislated for a right to strike in 1993.

In fact, over recent decades, strike action in Australia has stayed as low as it has ever been. Strike rates in Australia are so low partially because it is harder than people realize to take lawful strike action here.

Since 1993, when the legislated right to strike was introduced, the laws that say when you can strike legally have gotten tighter and tighter and the hurdles unions have to jump have gotten higher and higher. Even when unions can satisfy the rules around when they can strike, it is easy to get this wrong. When that happens, they can lose the right to strike altogether.

That may sound like a good thing, especially if you’ve ever been caught in a train worker strike or had to keep children home during a teachers’ strike. But not being able to strike significantly weakens the bargaining power of all workers. When the cost of living rises and wages don’t keep up, employees end up financially worse off than before.

Like a lot of other nations, Australia won’t see any instant impacts of the ICJ’s new advisory opinion. However, this does mean the ILO is no longer stuck in a deadlock, and that ILO supervisory bodies can start scrutinizing Australia’s strike laws again. It also means Australian unions have a better chance of bringing complaints about our laws to the ILO, and being successful.

That potential for increased international scrutiny may help shift the dial on Australia’s highly restrictive strike laws. This is a good thing for workers, as a healthy industrial relations system needs a well-protected, accessible right to strike.

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The writer is a professor of labor law at The University of Sydney. This article is republished under a Creative Commons license.