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The absence of an Asian regional organisation that would address the need to strengthen the protection of workers’ rights and the promotion of their welfare was intensely felt by two noted Asian Labour Law scholars and practitioners. They were Professor Dr Shin-ichi Ago of Japan and Attorney Chih-Poung Liou of Taiwan, who participated in an International Conference hosted by the biggest Labour Law Association in the world. They found to their dismay that only the two of them with other Japanese delegates represented the entire Asian continent.

Then, in November 2008, the Asian Regional Conference was jointly hosted by the ILO and the International Islamic University of Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. The latter was mainly represented by Professor Dr Nik Ahmad Kamal Nik Mahmod who was later elected as the first President of the Asian Society of Labour Law (AsianSLL, for brevity). The two-day conference afforded the participants an opportunity to discuss issues and challenges that confronted the labour sector as well as the available mechanisms that have to be adjusted to address the problems that beset the works at that point in time.

Caught at the crossfire of the resulting 2009 global economic recession are the struggling workers the world over such that by 2010, high unemployment rates were among the top stories. It was thus fitting that at the 2010 AsianSLL Manila Biennial Conference, which was hosted by the University of the Philippines College of Law at this very same venue, the Main Theme was “International Labour Standards and the Need for Paradigm Shift.” The Conference underscored that “with the continuing globalization process, there will develop unique categories of workers that have not been dreamt about when our labour legislations were crafted. For now, they are still called atypical workers but they are increasingly becoming the new face of labour and their demands and needs will have to be adequately addressed and their rights sufficiently protected. The Conference highlighted that this is the challenge that will continue to be posed to governments and policy makers in the ensuing years. Simultaneously, however, we must also have to respond to the continuing discrimination and marginalization in the workplace, mainly caused by the absence of clear and normative standards that will inhibit discriminatory practices against sexual minorities, union members and children, among others.”