Employers' Handbook on ILO Standards-related Activities

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EMPLOYERS’ HANDBOOK ON ILO STANDARDS-RELATED ACTIVITIES
which will report its findings and recommendations on the case. If the parties involved
do not accept these recommendations, they may bring the matter to the International
Court of Justice (ICJ). If the government concerned fails to carry out the
recommendations of the Commission of Inquiry or the ICJ, the GB may refer the
case to the ILC for further action.
Compared with representations under article 24, only rare use has been made of
this special procedure. Nevertheless, complaints under article 26 can have a significant
impact in mobilizing international public pressure. A case in point is the complaint
made in 1996 against Myanmar regarding non-compliance with Convention No. 29 on
Forced Labour. A Commission of Inquiry set up in 1998 found that there were still
“widespread and systematic” violations of the Convention in the country. Because of
the government’s continued failure, the ILC – for the first time – adopted measures
under article 33 of the ILO Constitution in June 2000. Article 33 allows the ILC to take
“such action as it may deem wise and expedient” to secure the implementation of
recommendations of a Commission of Inquiry.
Interpretation of Conventions
and Recommendations
Interpretation of the scope and meaning of Conventions and Recommendations is
an indispensable part of the legal assessment to be made in both the application and the
supervision of ILS. In this respect, the ILO Constitution (art. 37, para. 1) clearly states
that the only body competent to give authoritative interpretations of Conventions is the
International Court of Justice (ICJ). So far, however, the ICJ has never been invoked; a
single appeal was made to its predecessor on one occasion in 1932.
Non-authoritative interpretations and explanations of ILS are provided in the reports
of the Committee of Experts and the Applications Committee. Moreover, upon
request, the ILO secretariat gives informal opinions on the meaning of ILS which are
published in the Official Bulletin in the form of a “Memorandum by the International
Labour Office” if they are of general interest. Nevertheless, it must be emphasized
once again that neither the ILO supervisory organs nor the secretariat are competent to
interpret Conventions in an authoritative and binding manner.
In interpreting ILS, the constitutional rules of the ILO must be observed. For instance,
it follows from art. 19, para. 3 of the ILO Constitution that provisions of ILO
Conventions must be interpreted in a uniform manner. It is, therefore, not possible to
give diverging interpretations for different countries, e. g. to interpret the requirements
of a Convention for developing countries less strictly than for industrialized countries.
In the absence of other ILO interpretation rules, the employers in the Applications
Committee have consistently taken the view that interpretations and explanations
given by ILO supervisory organs have to be in line with the provisions of the Vienna
Convention on the Law of Treaties. This Convention “applies to … any treaty adopted
within an international organization …” (Art. 5, Vienna Convention). The Committee
of Experts explicitly confirmed the applicability of the Vienna Convention in its “Gen-