BUSINESS AND HUMAN RIGHTS / Šturma, Mozetic (eds)

Although the first instrument is not to be assumed as a genuine convention or rule, it had an overarching impact on the UN Charter as well as on future human rights instruments 3 . The “Atlantic Charter” stemmed from 1941, issued as a declaration of intentions during the World War II. Altogether, it enunciated eight political principles as well as the so-called “four freedoms”. As far as social security is concerned, the fifth principle is pivotal to the meaning of “freedom from want”. Therefore, such kind of acknowledgement also provides an accurate picture to the centrality of social security as a main dimension of the meaning of freedom within a new era of capitalism jointly with universal human rights. Nonetheless, without a thoughtful contextualization such document sounds like a declaration straightly concerned with the destiny of only two nations. One particular passage might be highlighted so as to clarify this point. As long as The President of the United States and the Prime Minister, Mr. Churchill, representing H. M. Government in the United Kingdom, being met together, deem it right to make known certain common principles in the national policies of their respective countries… it appears to be obvious that the agreement do not encompass a universal envision. Even though such sort of approach to the introductory message of the Charter is likely to indicate that the Charter underpins principles of hope only for the future of United States alongside with Great Britain, as a matter of fact this is not the case. Such “Charter” had far wider political ambitions. In order to be effective, the agreement was to be adopted by those two countries’ allies throughout the world. Had them fail with that goal, the agreement would not have been adopted as a guide for basic rights to all the world 4 . That is the reason why the above mentioned fifth principle actually might be assumed as an ethical pillar that, into some extent, helped to pave the way to the promotion of social security, later on, to the status of a universal right within the UDHR. From that point onwards, it was all but uncontroversial that social security was to be admitted as a crucial mechanism to lead any democratic society to a new standard of living grounded on freedom of fear and necessity 5 . Whereas the Charter sets out particular worries with income security, mechanisms of social income security resounded as reasonable measures to be adopted jointly with rules on better conditions of work. Now, let see how this issue is concerned with labour market and labour law. Two international documents were issued soon after three years the so-called “Atlantic Charter” was published. These two documents were elaborated by the International Labour Organization (ILO). The first is the Recommendation 67, the second is the Recommendation 69, both from the same year of 1944. The first one – still in force – seeks to recognize the human right to income security, through compulsory social insurance as well as via social assistance mechanisms for all 3 HITCHCOCK, W. I. The Rise and Fall of Human Rights: Searching for a Narrative from the Cold War to the 9/11. Human Rights Quarterly, 37 , 2015, p. 88. 4 MOHNEY, S. The Great Power Origins of Human Rights. Michigan Journal of International Law , 35, 2014, p. 838. 5 This is the emblematic statement enshrined at the sixth principle.

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