of World War II. The ILO differs from other intergovernmental organizations in two ways, the first is Tripartism, i.e, the participation of employers representatives, the employee representatives and government delegates. The second is the particular ways in which international labour standards are adopted, ratified and supervised. Tripartism is based on the article 3 of the ILO constitution which states that “The … General Conference … shall be composed of four representatives of each of the Members, of whom two shall be Government delegates and the two others shall be delegates representing respectively the employers and the workpeople of each of the Members.” (Servais, 2005).
International labour standards are legal devices which are created by the ILOs constituents (governments, employers and workers) to outline basic principles and rights for workers. They are either in the form of conventions, which are legally binding treaties that may be ratified by members, or recommendations, which are non-binding guidelines. In many cases, a convention
In many cases, a convention lays down the basic principles to be implemented by ratifying countries, while a related recommendation supplements the convention by providing more detailed guidelines on how it could be applied. Recommendations can also be autonomous, i.e. not linked to any convention.
