The preventive role of civil liability in the protection of the fundamental right to a safe and healthy work environment:

decent work from the perspective of ILO conventions n. 155 and n. 187

Abstract

This article seeks to investigate how the principle of prevention enshrined in ILO Conventions n. 155 and n. 187 dialogues with the fundamental right to “decent work” and its corollaries, such as the right to health, to reduction of risks inherent to work and to appropriate environment, affirmed in the Federal Constitution, in order to impose on state authorities the duty of setting measures in the way to combat all labor-environmental risks and to impose on private actors the duty of setting actions to anticipate and control the labor-environmental risks inherent to its activities. In the end, it will be demonstrated that the above-mentioned guidelines reach the statements of the legal systems concerning liability and tort law, in order to add to them a very specific “preventive function”, which should operate through mechanisms of anticipatory control of labor-environmental risks, such as, for example, injunctions and deterrence.