Abstract
Projects financed by the World Bank have, on a number of occasions, attracted criticism for involving violations of workers’ rights. The revised World Bank safeguard policies, adopted in 2016, address some of these concerns by submitting projects financed by the Bank to specific labour standards requirements. The present chapter offers an in-depth analysis of the safeguard policies’ labour component. After providing some context, it examines the substantive labour standards requirements and looks at the procedural framework through which these requirements are to be implemented. The chapter also explores the safeguard policies’ potential to positively affect labour standards in practice and points to some general features which may limit their effectiveness.