Title: ‘The ILO, Prison Labor, and the Private/Public Divide: A View From Israel ‘

The paper critically examines the normative landscape governing prison labor according to international labor law. The paper fleshes out the International Labour Organization’s dichotomous approach to prison labor: its hostility to private forced prisoner labor, on the one hand, and its grant of a carte blanche to public work providers, on the other. Next, taking Israel as a text-case, the paper presents the challenges arising from the application of the ILO's normative stance on the trying realities of modern-day prison labor. The in-depth study of Israeli prison labor practices reveals concrete and theoretical difficulties besetting the ILO, and ILO-like, private/public dichotomous regulation of prison labor. Unlike recent attempts made by leading industrial countries (such as the UK and Germany) to relax the ILO’s stringent position regarding private prison labor, the paper calls for a fundamental rethinking of prisoner employment – both private and public. As the paper’s normative and text-case analyses illustrate, there are ample reasons to protect laboring prisoners from both private – and not less so – public abusive employers.