International Labour Organisation (ILO)

What is the ILO?

The ILO was created by the Treaty of Versailles in 1919 and is unique among the United Nation's (UN) specialised agencies for three reasons:

• As the only surviving body of the League of Nations, it is not only older than all the other agencies, but is older than the UN itself;
• Since its conception it has had a tripartite structure. Its governing body has employer and worker members as well as government representatives, and its annual conference is the only regular international forum where employers and workers have full voting rights alongside governments;
• It is the only international organisation whose constitution gives it the supervisory power to require Member countries to report regularly, fully and publicly on the way(s) in which they implement the Conventions they have ratified.

New Zealand is a founding member of the ILO. The accredited channel of communication between the organisation and the government is the Department of Labour. However, in dealing with ILO matters the Department consults widely with other government departments as well as with employer and worker organisations.

International Labour Code

When the International Labour Organisation was established in 1919, its prime function as laid down in its constitution was to establish international standards across the wide range of issues related to labour. The standards that it has set over the years are collectively called the International Labour Code, and consist mainly of Conventions and Recommendations adopted by the ILO's annual general conference. From the legal perspective there is a fundamental difference between these two kinds of instruments:

Conventions

An international labour Convention is a treaty which is designed to be ratified by Members.

In ratifying a Convention, a Member State undertakes to comply with all its provisions and to report regularly to the ILO on how it does so. These reports are examined by an independent committee of eminent jurists, the Committee of Experts on the Application of Conventions and Recommendations.

The Committee of Experts publishes its main findings in a report that becomes the basis of discussions at the annual conference, between the governments concerned and a tripartite committee of representatives of governments, employers and workers.

This booklet lists a number of shelved Conventions. Although ratification is no longer encouraged; publication of the Convention in documents, studies and research papers is to be discontinued; and detailed reports on the application of these Conventions is no longer requested, shelving has no impact on the status of this Convention in the legal system of the Member States that have ratified them. As a result, the Government can be subject to the possibility of complaints and representations by an industrial association of employers or of workers or Members of the ILO, concerning failure to observe their provisions. However, the ILO does not proactively request Members to observe a shelved Convention.

An ILO campaign is currently underway to encourage ratification of the 1997 Instrument for the Amendment of the Constitution of the ILO. When enough ratifications of this constitutional amendment are received, the ILO's annual conference will be able to terminate obsolete conventions. New Zealand has ratified this Constitutional Amendment.

Recommendations

An international labour Recommendation sets out a number of standards that are guidelines that governments may choose to follow. It is not a treaty and has no legal force in international law.

Within 12 to 18 months of the annual conference, the full text of every Convention and Recommendation adopted by the conference is published, along with a statement of the action the New Zealand Government proposes to take on it, as an appendix to Parliamentary Paper A.7, the Report of the New Zealand Government Delegates to the International Labour Conference. This paper is printed in the Appendices to the Journal of the House of Representatives and is available in reference libraries or from the Department of Labour.

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