ILO Declarations,
International
Labour Conventions
and Recommendations
The ILO was established by the Treaty of Versailles
in 1919 as an autonomous institution associated with the League
of Nations. In 1944, the International Labour Conference meeting
in Philadelphia, USA, adopted the Declaration
of Philadelphia, now an annex to the ILO
Constitution. The Declaration embodies the following principles:
- Labour is not a commodity.
- Freedom of expression and of association are essential to
sustained progress.
- Poverty anywhere constitutes a danger to prosperity everywhere.
- All human beings, irrespective of race, creed or sex, have
the right to pursue both their material well-being and their spiritual
development in conditions of freedom and dignity, of economic
security and equal opportunity.
In 1998, the International Labour Conference in
Geneva adopted a solemn ILO
Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work and its
Follow-up, reaffirming the commitment of the international community
"to respect, to promote and to realize in good faith"
the rights of workers and employers to freedom of association and
the effective right to collective bargaining, and to work towards
the elimination of all forms of forced or compulsory labour, the
effective abolition of child labour and the elimination of discrimination
in respect of employment and occupation. The Declaration underlines
that all member countries have an obligation to respect the fundamental
principles involved, whether or not they have ratified the relevant
Conventions.
One of the ILO's oldest and most important functions
is the adoption by the International Labour Conference of Conventions
and Recommendations which set international standards.
Through ratification by member States, Conventions create binding
obligations to implement their provisions. Recommendations provide
guidance on policy, legislation and practice. From 1919 to 2000,
183 Conventions and 191 Recommendations were adopted covering virtually
the whole range of issues in the world of work, including certain
basic human rights, labour administration, industrial relations,
employment policy, working conditions, social security, occupational
safety and health, employment of women, and employment of special
categories such as migrant workers and seafarers. Numbers of ratifications
of ILO Conventions have continued to increase. The ILO has established
a supervisory procedure to ensure their application in law and practice
which is the most advanced of all such international procedures.
Eight ILO Conventions have been identified by the ILO's Governing
Body as being fundamental to the rights of human beings at work,
irrespective of the levels of development of individual member States.
These rights are a precondition for all the others in that they
provide the necessary basis to strive freely for the improvement
of individual and collective conditions of work. The eight fundamental
ILO Conventions are the following:
- No.
29 - Forced Labour Convention (1930): Requires the suppression
of forced and compulsory labour in all its forms. Certain exceptions
are permitted, such as military service, convict labour properly
supervised, emergencies such as wars, fires, earthquakes...
- No.
105 - Abolition of Forced Labour Convention (1957): Prohibits
the use of any form of forced or compulsory labour as a means
of political coercion or education, punishment for the expression
of political or ideological views, workforce mobilization, labour
discipline, punishment for participation in strikes, or discrimination.
- No.
111 - Discrimination (Employment and Occupation) Convention
(1958): Calls for a national policy to eliminate discrimination
in access to employment, training and working conditions, on grounds
of race, colour, sex, religion, political opinion, national extraction
or social origin, and to promote equality of opportunity and treatment.
- No.
138 - Minimum Age Convention (1973): Aims at the abolition
of child labour, stipulating that the minimum age for admission
to employment shall not be less than the age of completion of
compulsory schooling.
- No.
182 - Worst Forms of Child Labour Convention (1999): In June
1999, the International Labour Conference unanimously adopted
the new ILO Convention, which also became the latest addition
to the fundamental Conventions, calling for immediate and effective
measures to secure the prohibition and elimination of the worst
forms of child labour as a matter of urgency.
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