Decolonizing Equality—The Legacies of Anti-Colonial Struggles at International Labour Conferences, 1920–1940

Abstract

The article focuses on the critical moment when the idea of equality entered international law. The article argues that a political claim to equality of all human beings surfaced at the international level already in the 1920s and 1930s, long before human rights were discussed at the United Nations. The International Labour Organisation (ILO), established in 1919, provided the venue for delegates from non-European countries or territories—most of them confronting some form of colonialism—to raise their voices against the exploitation of labour in India, China and other places under the domination of colonial powers. The delegates’ idea of equality was present in arguments attacking racial hierarchies and in arguments criticizing unequal treatment in ‘native labour’ relations. The universalistic idea of the equal worth of all human beings and the idea of equal treatment was advanced to de-legitimize narrow concepts of equality based on race.