Labour law (also called labor law or employment law) is the body of laws, administrative rulings, and precedents which address the legal rights of, and restrictions on, working people and their organizations. As such, it mediates many aspects of the relationship between trade unions, employers and employees. In Canada, employment laws related to unionized workplaces are differentiated from those relating to particular individuals. In most countries however, no such distinction is made. However, there are two broad categories of labour law. First, collective labour law relates to the tripartite relationship between employee, employer and union. Second, individual labour law concerns employees' rights at work and through the contract for work. The labour movement has been instrumental in the enacting of laws protecting labour rights in the 19th and 20th centuries. Labour rights have been integral to the social and economic development since the Industrial Revolution. Employment standards are social norms (in some cases also technical standards) for the minimum socially acceptable conditions under which employees or contractors will work. Government agencies (such as the former U.S. Employment Standards Administration) enforce employment standards codified by labour law (legislative, regulatory, or judicial).

Keith D. Ewing is Professor of Public Law at King's College London and co-author of two of Britain's leading textbooks in constitutional and administrative law, and labour law.

Ewing was educated at Edinburgh University and worked at Cambridge University in England, Monash University in Australia, Osgoode Hall in Canada, before joining the King's College London law school in 1992.

Ewing is recognised as a leading scholar in public law and labour law. His most recent work relates to reforming labour law to strengthen trade union freedom, constitutional reform, relating to public participation in the political process and the status of social and economic rights.