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Mr. Michel Hansenne, Director-General of the ILO, gave a press conference on 15 January 1997 in Geneva's Palais des Nations. His presentation and the great majority of the questions raised by international correspondents focused on the outcome of the Ministerial Conference of the World Trade Organization held on 9-13 December 1996, in Singapore. Excerpts:
* On his absence in Singapore
I do not know what induced certain countries to decide that it was preferable that I should not attend and that the invitation I had previously received should be withdrawn, but my immediate feeling is that I should thank them for doing so, as my staying away has meant that there has never been quite so much talk about the social dimension of the liberalization of trade. In fact, the speech that I did not deliver provoked what I described as "a deafening silence". It is interesting to note that most of the people who took the floor in Singapore felt it necessary to refer to these social aspects of the globalization of trade. It thus seems more and more obvious that this represents an inescapable dimension of the process.
* On the ILO and the debate on the social dimension of international trade
It is now clear that States have opted for the ILO as the forum where this question is to be debated. The final Declaration of Singapore contains a very significant statement: "We renew our commitment to the observance of internationally recognized core labour standards. The International Labour Organization (ILO) is the competent body to set and deal with these standards, and we affirm our support for its work in promoting them". So the ball is now in our court, and we are very much aware of the responsibility this entails. I can assure you that we have no intention simply to hang on to the ball; we are going to play it. ... Far from resting on our laurels, we are going to act immediately on the developments in Singapore and get down to work.
* On the ILO's strategy
We are going to do two things. First, we are going to pursue the campaign we started in 1995 in favour of the ratification of the seven ILO Conventions that have been recognized as fundamental, both within the ILO and at the Social Summit in Copenhagen (March 1995).
This campaign has already brought 22 ratifications, and it will be interesting to see after all that has been said in Singapore whether or not this process accelerates. At the end of the year I shall prepare a kind of overview of the situation. The coming months will provide us with a first opportunity to test the commitment undertaken by the various countries in Singapore. Will that commitment be followed up in practice? I hope that the fact of having cleared up the confusion as to the relations between the WTO and the ILO will help to speed up the process of ratification.
The second major issue has of course to do with the supervisory machinery. It is all very fine adopting a series of Conventions, but can their application be properly supervised?
As you know, we ave two types of supervisory machinery, and the one which generally applies to most Conventions comes into operation only if the States have ratified the Conventions. The big issue here is how the international community can supervise countries that are not playing the game, that have not ratified the Conventions. This whole question has been before our Governing Body for several months, and we held an important discussion on the subject last November. Some interesting proposals have been made by the employers' group to strengthen our supervisory machinery and thus enable the ILO to follow up the application of the core Conventions even if they have not been ratified. There was still some disagreement between the employers and the workers in November, but I hope that these difficulties will be overcome and that the March Session of the Governing Body will be a first step towards a consensus between them. Then the ball will be in the governments' court.
...One way of resolving the problem would be for our members to adopt a public and political declaration along the lines of the Declaration which was adopted in Philadelphia in 1944 and which is considered within the ILO as a kind of appendix to our Constitution. The challenge we are facing, then, is to reach agreement in 1997 on the preparation of a declaration for 1998 that would give us the fundamental basis to strengthen our supervisory machinery.
* On the need to establish fundamental "rules of the game"
If there are no rules, if there is no genuinely multilateral system to promote and enforce a number of fundamental rules of the game, then in the coming months or years we are liable in certain cases to see a return to all kinds of protectionist attitudes and schemes, such as boycotts and campaigns against certain products or against certain countries. For this reason we feel that it is more important than ever that there be an international forum and a system of multilaterally agreed and supervised rules.
...One thing I often say to developing countries - and you know how reluctant they sometimes are about strengthening the ILO - is that they will be the first to suffer from the absence of any effective machinery. If you come under attack tomorrow - and there have been a whole series of instances in recent months - how are you going to defend yourself? Especially if you do not even know whether those who are attacking you are being paid or supported behind the scenes by your main competitors. The economic war, or commercial war, is also going to take the social dimension as hostage.
...It is significant that the ILO is currently being approached by a series of enterprises, groups of enterprises and industrial sectors to help them devise codes of conduct - a "social label", so to speak. They are extremely concerned by the risk of having public opinion campaigns directed against them in certain countries because they are found to be using child labour, or to be employing people in unspeakable conditions, and so on. It is often said that the globalization of the economy entails a certain reduction in the power of the State. In some cases this is true, I think, but it seems pretty clear that the next five years are going to give rise to a series of movements of other social and economic actors on the international scene; this is why it is important that we try to create a multilateral system that is respected by one and all, so that the market place does not turn into a jungle.
...We must not imagine that in the years ahead the game is going to be played only between governments. That is what makes the International Labour Organization important, as we are not exclusively governmental but also composed of employers and workers. It is this that makes us feel that we are in a better position than anyone else to take these new movements, these changes, into consideration, and to ensure that a whole series of actors in the global economy are committed to observing a certain number of fundamental rules.
* On the future role of the ILO
We are today what we have always been. We are (1) a tripartite organization, (2) called upon to promote social justice, (3) by means of recognized international standards, (4) with an efficient system of supervision. This is what we have always been. What is new is that we have to play our role in a context that is rapidly changing with the creation of a global economy influenced by several factors, one of which is the liberalization of trade. Within this context it is increasingly important that the world trade partners accept to play the same game and to respect a number of rules.
Everything we have been doing at the ILO over the past two years has been aimed at distinguishing which rules are fundamental and which ones are not. The criteria have been whether or not the rules are liable to handicap developing countries in their development efforts, whether or not they are liable to prevent them using their comparative advantages. We have identified a number of Conventions that everyone agrees must be respected. This raises two questions: (1) If everyone agrees that they must be respected, why dont they all ratify them; (2) Can the ILO be given the means to enforce them? I do not believe that in doing this we are changing the objectives, the role or the image of the ILO; I am simply trying to see what the next stage must be if, given the new context, we are to continue to be what we have been for the past 80 years.
* On freedom of association and the Republic of Korea
It is not for me to comment on or judge the Korean Government's decisions regarding its labour legislation. What is clear is that the legislation has been judged in an extremely negative light by the trade union organizations, which feel that they cannot accept what they call social regression in order to improve South Korea's competitive capacity. A significant aspect of the situation today is the tremendous international response that it has provoked, and the fact that the major international trade union federations have been involved in the dispute. This is a clear indication that with the globalization of the economy there are going to be more and more global reactions to initiatives taken by individual countries. There will, of course, be implications at the national level, but tomorrow there may well be repercussions at the international level too. So this seems to me to be clear evidence of the importance of the social dimension in the whole process that is under way.
The second point is that, although it is not for me to judge and although I have no intention of commenting on South Korea's legislation, I have, at the request of the ICFTU - and if they had not made such a request I would have taken it upon myself - voiced my concern regarding freedom of association to the President of South Korea. It seems obvious to me that, once a country has decided to become a member of the ILO, freedom of association is one of the major commitments by which it is bound. That being so, it is obvious that there will be no solution to the current dispute in Korea unless freedom of association, which in my view is an integral part of the democratic process, is respected.