The paper outlines the possibility of protecting workers' rights under the existing Alien Tort Statute (ATS) in US federal law. The background to the comments on the ATS is the Nestle, Inc. v. Doe decision in 2021, which has been described as "closing the window of hope" that had been attached to the possibility of bringing claims against transnational corporations for failing to respect fundamental rights at work. Undoubtedly, the ruling itself was a major disappointment for many human rights and labour rights campaigners and activists. However, the judgment (mainly because of its complex reasoning and dissenting opinions) has provoked a reaction in the form of proposals for new legislative solutions, and it is possible that it will become the seed from which a new, useful tool for the realisation of human rights at work will grow. The paper addresses the question of which work-related rules can be considered part of 'customary international law'.

The paper deals with the work of immigrants in detention centers in the US and the possibility of qualifying this work as forced labor. The main issues addressed in the paper are the amount of wages received by detainees in the centers, the question of whether this labor is voluntary, the conditions under which it is performed and, finally, whether detainees in detention centers are entitled to labor-related collective rights, that is, the right to organize and effectively negotiate working conditions and wages. The idea is to present the ongoing discussion in the US on whether detainees in immigration detention centers fall under two fundamental federal regulations: The Fair Labor Standard Act (FLSA), which includes a federal minimum wage guarantee, and the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA), which includes a guarantee of the right to organize and a prohibition on discrimination based on workers' organizing or union activity.