ABSTRACT
The International Labour Organization (ILO) was founded in 1919 under the Treaty of Versailles and became the first specialized agency of the UN in 1946. Today, there are 19 specialized agencies in the UN system. Many of these agencies make substantial and important contributions to the UN human rights system. While not all of these agencies are mentioned in this volume, several reasons exist for according the ILO a more extended treatment. The ILO is not only one of the oldest continuously existing international organizations, but since its founding it has operated according to a rights-based approach. Even though the ILO only explicitly conceptualized its work as human rights promotion in 1998, the ILO has set detailed, widely accepted standards on workers’ rights and created an unusual highly participatory system of enforcement since its inception. The standard-setting work of the ILO has long been related to the UN human rights system. Many of the rights enshrined in the early ILO conventions provided language for the ICESCR and ICCPR, and the later conventions have likewise been elaborated upon through recent ILO conventions. Growing concern over the impact of globalization and debates on
trade and labor have drawn greater attention to the ILO in recent years. Protests over the launching of a Millennium round of trade talks of the World Trade Organization in 1999 drew significant media attention to a debate that had been brewing for over a century, but which had become especially heated throughout the previous decade. The debate concerned whether or not to more closely regulate the social dimensions of the exponential growth in trade, that is whether to link labor standards to trade. By the end of the decade, the task of harmonizing labor standards was placed squarely in the hands of the ILO. To this end, the ILO has established universal minimum labor standards and created elaborate enforcement mechanisms to protect the human Nonetheless, been
left to private voluntary standard-setting by corporations themselves and monitoring by international non-governmental organizations (NGOs). This has prompted many to call for still greater institutional enforcement mechanisms. Although the ILO remains a relevant and appropriate institution for that task, its compliance mechanisms are significantly underutilized. Highlighting the human rights mechanisms of the ILO encourages their use and, in the very least, invites continued study as to why their potential remains untapped. This chapter’s consideration of human rights in the ILO system begins with a general introduction to the ILO and moves on to an illustration of that role through the campaign for the elimination of child labor. The second part of this chapter examines what may be considered one of the contemporary challengers or supporters of the ILO framework for labor standards-the Global Compact, a voluntary measure for urging business compliance with international human rights standards. The Global Compact has quickly become the main regulatory response by the UN to the problem of transnational corporations on human rights.
