Employers' Handbook on ILO Standards-related Activities

METHODS OF RENEWING ILS
Denunciations of ILO Conventions
l By July 2001, 582 denunciations of ILO Conventions have been registered.
l Out of the 582 denunciations, 102 have not been accompanied by ratification
of a revising Convention.
l The instrument which has received the highest number (15) of denunciations
not accompanied by ratification of a revising Convention is the Night
Work (Women) Convention No. 89 (Revised), 1948.
the problems encountered and the measures to be taken to resolve them. Employers,
too, can propose the denunciation of a ratified Convention to their government, if they
feel that it no longer meets the needs of the country or of the employers in the country.
Although it may be generally desirable that denunciations of ILO Conventions are
accompanied by the ratification of a revising Convention (see box above), “pure” denunciations
should not necessarily always be seen as negative:
l There may be understandable reasons for denunciating an outdated Convention
without ratifying the revising one. For instance, a country may not be in a position
to implement all provisions of the new instrument immediately.
l Where a revising Convention does not (yet) exist, the concurrence of “pure” denunciations
by several countries may indicate the need to revise a Convention and
thus help keep the body of ILS up to date and relevant. A case in point is the
denunciation by a number of governments of the Night Work (Women) Convention
(Revised) No. 89, 1948. This induced the adoption of a Protocol in 1990,
partly revising the Convention, as well as the adoption of the Night Work Convention
No. 171, 1990. In order to make this “indicator” function even more effectively,
it would be desirable to modify the existing restrictions on denunciations.
For more detail, see:
l ILO: <strong>Handbook</strong> of procedures relating to international labour Conventions and
Recommendations, Rev. 2 (Geneva, 1998).
l ILO: Information note on the progress of work and decisions taken regarding the
revision of standards, GB.LILS/WP/PRS/ (Geneva, presented to the GB at each
March and November session).
l ILO: Methods of revision: Preliminary discussion, GB.276/LILS/WP/PRS/2
(Geneva, 1999).
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