International Social Protection Association-Asociación Internacional de Protección Social
International Social Protection Association-Asociación Internacional de Protección Social
The ILO (International Labour Organisation) states that “Social Protection is a right of all human beings. It guarantees medical attention and a minimum income for all”. It adds that “Social Protection includes a series of policies and programs designed to mitigate and avoid situations of poverty and vulnerability in our lives. Social Protection offers: child and family benefits. Maternity protection. Unemployment benefits. Occupational accident benefits. Sickness benefits. Health protection. Old-age pension. Disability pension. Survivor’s pension" (in ILO 100, Geneva 2019, chapter 5, Social Protection).
For its part, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, article 25.1, determines that "every person has the right to an adequate standard of living which ensures him, as well as his family, health and well-being, in particular food, clothing, housing, medical assistance and necessary social services. He is also entitled to insurance in the event of unemployment, sickness, invalidity, widowhood, dependency, old age or other loss of means of subsistence due to circumstances independent of his will". It also mentions the objective of "equal Social Protection".
Such a broad synchronous vision of Social Protection actually contemplates more of a dream than a reality when we examine its circumstances in the whole of the countries of the planet, where there is a majority that does not recognize even a minimum set of rights mentioned in these Declarations. On the other hand, even where they are recognized, the structure often lacks a systematic one, or is assigned to only a part of the population or, finally, offers a meagre coverage. ISPA-AIPS was born with the desire to understand and, through this understanding, improve the set of actions that protect citizens from the so-called social risk in its various variants. The national organizations that are members of it have a double objective of introspection towards their own risks and measures, and of comparison with the other national associations that are members of ISPA-AIPS in order to know and discuss other possible risks and solutions, with a view to improving the overall situation.
From a diachronic perspective, the need to set in motion the watchtower that is presented here pointed already from the second half of the last century. The indications that globalization was beginning to affect Social Security in the various countries where it existed were coming to fruition very quickly, mainly due to the large displacements of people that wars, economic insecurity, or ease of transport impelled everyone. Unemployment, emigration and the rights of the needy affected, in the broadest sense, both social security and social assistance, and made urgent a link of coordination and equivalence between the systems of each country and the others. And if in some continents this coordination has been carried out successfully, in others it is hardly a utopia for whose needs suffer many people who are forced to make displacements and migrations. On the other hand, the national social security systems themselves are implicitly confronted by the global economy, assuming a profile of economic factor of fundamental importance, which is considered in the transfers and migrations of large companies, so scholars and practitioners of each national legal regulation should be well aware of the currents and trends existing elsewhere in the world geography. Finally, the study of the different national problems raises concerns that converge with those of the other countries, such as the delimitation of contingencies or the thresholds for coverage and cessation of benefits, as well as the creation of some of them in the wake of new situations of need.
In the creation of an international organization of this sign operates nevertheless the concern regarding other organizations of greater antiquity that had undertaken the unitary path of the Law of the Labor and the Social Security, and that they have seen with some degree of concern what they fear could be the breakup of some of the national organizations initially within them, which also affected some international organizations of the same hybrid range. In this sense, there had been some organic displacements a few years earlier, with a massive linguistic reorganization around a specific project, which could now be reiterated in the initiative undertaken by those who sign this document. But nothing is further from the thoughts of the signatories, because the organizations they represent have been born outside the initial ones and intend with distancing to give the Social Security the central role it deserves in the exclusive field of social risks. Neither have they arisen from a break-up of an old dual organization, nor do they intend to supplant it in one way or another, but rather consider it as a natural ally to support and from which to receive the treatment of friend.
Finally, we are aware of the great differences in the national Social Protection systems between each other, and we aim with our union to learn from each other, as well as to identify the reasons for the differences and the possibilities not only of coordination -but also of approximation and composition of differences between them. Globalization obliges, and if an initiative such as this has not taken place before, it is because the matter has usually been considered as strictly national, ignoring the sirens that growing emigration and displacement provoked in the very internal structure of national systems.
We can certainly say that the time has come to proceed to the foundation of an international association organization dedicated to the debate and coordination of existing national associations and academies in the world, a task in which we have already been preceded by more general associations and others whose subjective scope is focused on the managing bodies and administrations of Social Security, so the assignment that we are now giving way to is somehow guided by the precedents. From a material point of view, however, we feel it is necessary to recall both the synergies we currently have and the difficulties that hinder our work.
Starting with the material reasons or arguments in favor of the creation of this International Association, we must mention the following:
A) Social Protection on the international scene may differ greatly from one country to another, despite the existence of international declarations where the general structure of benefits was established, and that numerous Conventions and Recommendations of the International Labour Organization have to some extent detailed their content. These international instruments may or may not have been ratified by individual countries, and even if they have been ratified, they may have been implemented in different ways. Regional instruments such as the European Union Regulations on Social Security, the European Social Security Convention of the Council of Europe or, finally, the Ibero-American Multilateral Convention on Social Security, detail, through coordination between national systems, conflict content and situations, but they are applied to a few countries. In other cases, such as the Mercosur Treaty or the North American NAFTA Trade Agreement and its annexes, references are more sporadic and their scope is even more restricted. In practice, a distinction can be made between countries that give precedence to a National System of State or public type, with private supplementary pension plans, and countries with prevalence of private pension plans, with a national system of assistance or subsidiary type. The differences between the two models, beyond their main differences, are widely unknown, and therefore constitute an undertaking of primary importance for this Association. Likewise, the way of relating between countries of one model and other requires a structure or support in bilateral and multilateral international conventions of necessary analysis, multiplied to infinity to reach all the possibilities of interconnection, and perhaps with a proposal for an international regulatory standard of the kind that already exists for other tasks, for example, the New York Convention for the Enforcement of Judgments in Third Countries.
B) The coverage of the population can be broad or strict, so that it is usually aimed at the working population, where workers and employers finance a large part of its cost, while the trend shows a widespread, and in some countries is total of the entire population, in which case the financing is directed towards the public authorities, with a significant burden on the budgets, and possible open avenues for a problem that grows every year.
C) Within each national system, contingencies or situations of misfortune vary in number and content, although there is a certain homogeneity in the main ones. It is also possible to find an evolution in them, when a new contingency is detected, or a different emphasis is given to an existing one, as for example happened in the European Union with early retirement or early retirement.
D) Social assistance and its benefits cannot be excluded from the scope of the Association’s study, even if it is the result of widely public sources of funding, without the involvement of the contributions of the persons concerned, due to the same or similar causes of action, to protect against social needs, in humble layers of society that in recent times began to merge to a certain extent with the working classes, as is the case of the so-called "poor worker". The number of variables reaches broad nuances when we try to understand the various categories within Social Assistance or Non-contributory Social Security, where we can even find allocations for housing.
E) The Administration of the Social Protection System in each country may be entrusted to the control and guidelines emanating from a central state entity, or may entrust supervision to supervisory bodies for each management entity, private or public, or, in other words, delegated to judicial control. How one system can coordinate with another has wide influence on the rest of the subject, and even though it is considered as a main theme by the large International Associations of managing entities, for example, by the Ibero-American Society of Social Security, our entity must also cover its study and debate for the relevance it offers in the entire insurance field.
F) Workers based in one country can work for another or for the whole world, since teleworking or transnational teleworking has spread with computer achievements. Its peculiarities in insurance matters are largely unknown to us, even though the principle of territoriality impels us to consider the rules of the country of residence applicable. In a similar way, the international carrier, whether by sea, air, rail or road, also finds peculiarities where the international interferes, and not only in accidents at work.
G) From a very broad point of view, globalization has intensified the mass displacement of people among all countries of the world, due to the ease of transportation, the explosion of the media, and tragedies in various parts of the world. Less visibly, but equally powerfully, the economy has become transnational, as has culture, and today the logos of large food or fashion companies can be seen in all countries, as a sign of the emergence of a global culture and economy. The same worker may transit through different countries on behalf of the same undertaking, with supervisory, technical and supervisory functions, etc., and working conditions which may in principle be governed by the place of conclusion of the contract, perhaps totally anachronistic. In other cases, it is the worker himself who wanders across borders accompanied by his computer, perhaps to better attend to his duties, and his conditions of insurance may be conditioned by working time and place. The "digital nomads" do not need a workplace, but they do need insurance against misfortune, and although an agreement can be found with the company in this regard, their conditions deserve supervision.
H) In the field of employment, it is important to highlight the massive and permanent emigration flows to which workers from one country move for a long time and which generate insurance rights whose recognition generates a delicate problem, especially in the area of pensions, second to the fact that there is a rule of coordination between the destination and the host country. Moreover, since migration can take place between countries at long distances and with a large number of people affected, the necessary coordination affects not only the rights themselves but also their administration by the managing bodies.
I) Transport facilities have now increased the number of workers who have hitherto not been very busy, such as the temporary travel of company staff to carry out a work or service in another country, with a set time of execution and without losing the employment relationship with the original company. The posted worker retains his or her contractual link with the original undertaking, as well as his or her social security scheme, but the very concept of posting and its conditions may vary from country to country, may lead to social dumping due to low employment conditions which, on the one hand, enable the home company to obtain public works contracts in the destination countries thanks to the low salaries of its employees, while on the other hand it makes it necessary to react to countries of temporary destination to require wage conditions more in line with their higher cost of living, and also to try to cover insurance gaps in areas such as health care, accidents at work, etc. Similarly, cross-border workers have increased in number due to transport facilities, and have also expanded their concept according to the countries, because if the basic fact is that their place of work and habitual residence are in different countries, returning to the latter for daily rest, the laws expand the concept of rest as transport and new types of employment allow daily return even over long distances: the connection and coordination of neighbouring insurance systems has intensified to an extent little known to such cross-border workers, depending on the similarities and differences between the two countries.
J) Transnational supply chains, in the contractual relationship between large multinational companies and local subcontractors in other countries, often ignore social security problems, but they are gradually beginning to establish some form of monitoring of human rights in the workplaces of the latter, in response to international public awareness of widespread abuses and disasters. What legal instruments, and on what aspects of social security, are involved in such control, are left to periodic inspections, where they exist, and contractual and pre-contractual commitments. There is, therefore, an upward convergence in the area of labour and insurance rights, even though the "rush to the bottom" (rush to the bottom) in the industrialized countries has also been commented on by relevant workers, driven by competition from developing countries and their lower standards.
k) Less well known but of similar current importance is the legal relationship between parent companies and subsidiaries of the same brand abroad. Although aspects such as uniformity in the product offered and in clothing appear with some reiteration in some sectors, social security matters are at the mercy of local laws and the principle of territoriality, to which is added the personal responsibility of each legal company. Gradually, however, the liability of the parent company for certain defaults of its foreign affiliates begins to be demanded before local courts, as well as the defaults and misfortunes produced by the parent abroad when not even a subsidiary exists there to answer for the wrongful or harmful act.
l) State actions in the economic sphere of other countries, in some cases driven by policies of influence and dominance, have now gone beyond the scope of flag companies or sovereign wealth funds to make way for a state policy of strategic investments which in some cases cover the entire world geography, and may involve alliances where working and safety conditions are allowed below the permissible limits. Their knowledge, as well as the measures adopted to eradicate such strategic variants contrary to international standards, is fully part of the objectives of this Association.
M) At the same time, the growing number of workers employed in non-governmental organisations (NGOs) operating in third countries with a wide lack of knowledge of the conditions of employment and safety applicable. Although the purpose of these NGOs can be regarded as humanitarian or generally commendable, their freedom of action in many cases can result in conditions unacceptable to their own employees.
a) There are currently two billion workers in the informal economy, according to the ILO, with all that this means in terms of finding even minimal coverage for themselves and their families. As the ILO also points out, their primary needs are access to medical benefits and unemployment, but in the long term the horizon of pensions, and especially of retirement, appears to be difficult to access. Such a high number of irregular employees poses serious problems not only for those affected, but also for states as the first guarantors of adequate, even minimal, protection. But also, according to the same Organization, the percentage of the world’s population covered by "at least one contingency" of Social Security does not reach 50 per cent. In other words, the ideal coverage, with all contingencies covered, is a very small minority even if we only know that they exist for the law, regardless of their actual amount. Above all, this means a race to the bottom for countries at the top, which can be reversed or at least mitigated by measures of solidarity and strengthening of institutions.
b) The very subject of Social Protection, which includes social security, is subject to constant tensions and fluctuations that lead to the fungibility of regulatory legal norms. We are faced with a "liquid" matter in each member country, which may explain the resistance of jurists to maintain a vocation on this specialty. However, this difficulty also has its appeal when one thinks that a large part of it is due to the obsession to adapt as much as possible to the various situations of the protected population.
c) The fluctuations and impacts of Social Protection as a result of natural events such as the ageing of the population in recent years, natural disasters such as the covid pandemic and the erratic evolution of the economy, produces a generalized ignorance of the normative situation of each moment, so that it is necessary to spend much of the time to update the data before undertaking the debate in itself of any segment of the subject.
d) The regions of the world provide us with some guidance as to the blocs of affinity between countries, notwithstanding the fact that they belong to one of them, or to an association of countries in those geographical blocs, do not necessarily imply a certain harmony and convergence in their structures and becoming. If, for example, the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) has some precision on the harmonization of the social security of its three countries, Mercosur has some more, but perhaps inefficient, whereas, for example, the countries of the Association of South-East Asia (ASEAN) do not seem to be interested in the matter, whereas the European Union has detailed regulations and directives, as well as extensive case-law of the European Court of Justice in relation to it.
e) From the organizational point of view, IASP-AIPS has had to overcome some misgivings about our intention, easily overcome thanks to the willingness of the other organizations and their friendship as colleagues. IASP-AIPS did not seek in any way to remove from the larger and older organisations a part of its national affiliates, but was born by convergence of the existing national social security associations, and this has been understood by the general associations of labour law and social security. On the other hand, we try to coordinate with both general and international bodies specialized in Social Security from the side of the managing entities and administrations in charge of it, such as the Ibero-American Social Security Association.
The International Social Protection Association, in view of the impulses that are emerging in our time and the shortcomings observed in the various parts of the world, considers the following as its objectives:
a) To elucidate the composition in the different countries of the fundamental right to social protection, both in the contributory subsystem and in the non-contributory and assistance subsystem.
b) Compare the type of management prevalent in the whole system, whether public or private, and determine the points of connection between both.
c) Determine the sources of financing, their administration and management, and their distribution among the various contingencies.
d) Analyze compliance with the principle of equality between men and women, adults and children, working age and retired, and determine the existence of causes of discrimination between categories at risk, by race, color, sexual tendency, etc.
e) Compare the profiles of the different contingencies in terms of time limits, subjective and objective requirements, financial and/or contribution requirements, etc.
f) Compare the requirements for insurance coverage of categories and border situations, both migratory, displaced and border.
g) Analyse financial solvency guarantee institutions such as guarantee funds, reserve funds and reinsurance.
h) Detect emerging and diminishing protections, or in other words, of new creation or of the elimination of protected contingencies.