WWI and migrant workers' social rights: The case of italy, between bilateralism and multilateralism

This article analyzes the impact of the First World War on the writing and implementation of the bilateral labour treaties, through the examination of the drafting and the adoption of the Franco-Italian agreement of 30 September 1919. The bilateral agreements on immigration existed even before the conflict, but their feature deeply changed after the Peace in order to face the new social and political context. The war increased the need for a workforce in the Western European Countries to foster the economic and industrial recovery. Thus, a strong competition emerged between the labour importing Countries in order to secure a continuous inbound flow. The governments of the emigration Countries, in turn, tried to benefit from this competition by claiming a larger social protection for their workers. The social protection became therefore a leverage to orient and govern international migrations. At the same time, after the War the international diplomacy was challenged by the coexistence of bilateral and multilateral solutions (e.g. International Labour Organisation). In this article we try to show how the bilateral and the multilateral sphere represented a continuum of practices and strategies in which migration became a new battlefield for the international diplomacy.