The Procedure for the Adoption of Conventions and Recommendations Conference

The decision to include the adoption of a Convention or a Recommendation as an item on the agenda of the International Labour Conference is taken, as a rule, by the Governing Body of the ILO in the light of proposals submitted by the Director-General of the International Labour Office. In making such proposals the Director-General places before the Governing Body a brief survey of the legislation in force in the various countries and of the main methods of its application, as regards the various questions among which a choice has to be made. The Conference may also decide itself by a majority of two-thirds to place an item on the agenda of the next Session. In settling the agenda of the Conference, the Governing Body has also to consider suggestions made by governments or by representative organizations of employers and workers or by any public international organization. In past years, some important Conventions were adopted as a result of requests addressed to the ILO by the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations. During the review of ILO standards in 1984-1987, the Working Party appointed by the Governing Body felt that the following considerations, without being exhaustive, could provide useful guidance in reaching a decision concerning the agenda of the Conference:

1. the number of workers affected;

2. the importance of the subject for all parties of the world;

3. the importance of the subject for workers at lower economic levels, as well as for unorganized and unprotected workers;

4. the relative regency of existing instruments on the subject proposed;

5. the degree of severity of the problem;

6. the extent to which the topic would advance the basic rights of workers. It was also stressed that the scope of the new instruments should cover as many activities as possible, and that standards relating to a particular sector or occupational category should be envisaged only in special cases.

The Governing Body appointed a list of possible subjects for new standards, superseding the one which had been adopted in the previous review of standards. In the first of these cases, the Council acted following a request from the World Federation of Trade Unions and the American Federation of Labour The Government of any member State may object to the inclusion of any item in the agenda of the Conference, and the Conference itself must then decide, by a two-thirds majority, whether the item shall remain on the agenda.

In some cases, especially when questions are of a technical nature, the Governing Body refers a matter to a preparatory technical Conference, which normally is of tripartite composition. In the case of maritime questions, they are considered in the first place by a joint Maritime Commission (comprising representatives of ship-owners and seafarers) and subsequently by a preparatory technical Conference (recently replaced by a tripartite meeting on standards).

Дата добавления: 2014-01-11