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Innovative 
regulation
.
 
The subject of regulation
. Legal standards, especially those elaborated at the 
international level, are expected to embrace a substantial cohort of workers whose 
bargaining power is limited. This observation is substantiated by the historical 
preoccupations of the standard-setting process, in which, as the constituency of ILO 
member States expanded, the application of the international norms to countries at all 
levels of development was assumed (e.g. ILO, 1967). This understanding of the expansive 
scope of the international labour code has since been reinforced in more recent efforts to 
establish standards for certain of the precarious forms of work that are present in both 
industrialized and developing settings (see Vosko, 2006c; Section 5.2 below).
3
The ILO‘s efforts in this area suggest that the nature of the ―legal subject‖ has 
become a more compelling question in recent decades than during the reign of the SER, 
even for generally applicable legal norms. De-standardization and diversification demand a 
more precise delineation of the statutory image of the protected worker. In conjunction 
with the observations made above on the centrality of statutory norms and need for 
enhanced detail in legal texts, it can also be suggested that regulatory frameworks on 
working time in domestic work should be designed in line with a clearly delineated model 
of the workers they are intended to protect. Moreover, these legal subjects should be the 
most vulnerable workers: those with the lowest levels of bargaining power who are likely 
to be subject to the most intense pressure to undertake long, unhealthy or family-
jeopardizing working hours.
4
3
Part-time work: Part-Time Work Convention, 1994 (No. 175); temporary agency work: Private 
Employment Agencies Convention, 1997 (No. 181); home work: Home Work Convention, 1996 
(No. 177); semi-dependent, disguised and triangular employment relationships: Employment 
Relationship Recommendation, 2006 (No. 198). 
4
This approach builds on the objectives of the Employment Relationship Recommendation, 2006 
(No. 198). 

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Conditions of Work and Employment Series No. 27 
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