Reconceptualising Labour Law for Informal Economic Activities
Supriya Routh's dissertation “Informal Workers in India: Reconceptualizing Labour Law to Promote Capabilities” seeks to develop a normative and conceptual basis of labour law that is attuned to the empirical reality of informal economic activities in the global south. Labour law, which is based on the juridical concept of employment relationship, is increasingly finding itself unable to cope with new realities of informal and atypical work, which are not always subject of an employment relationship. Accordingly, Supriya Routh invokes the capability approach envisaged by Amartya Sen and Martha Nussbaum in order to conceptualize a labour law framework that can work outside the logic of employment relationship. He conducts a case study in order to ascertain the efficacy of his proposed framework for specific categories of informal workers in India.
As a Rechtskulturen Fellow he seeks to broaden his frame of reference and will inquire if it is possible for an employment-relationship-neutral labour law framework to operate in diverse jurisdictions amongst heterogeneous informal workers. He also aims to develop a social justice-based theoretical concept of labour law.