International Labour Conference of the entire membership; the Governing Body, elected by the Conference, which meets thrice a year; and the Office, managed by the Director-General, who is elected by the Governing Body. The ILO’s first constitution was prepared by the Commission on International Labour Legislation of the Peace Conference in 1919 and created part of the treaty of Versailles. This was the very first effort to create universal organizations to deal with the social and economic problems faced by the world in the early 20th century. The Constitution laid the foundation for the Organization, spelled out its aims and purposes as well as its detailed design and also identified certain “methods and principles for regulating labour conditions which all industrial communities should endeavour to apply, so far as their special circumstances will permit” which are of “special and urgent importance”. This vision of the constitution was taken a step further in a powerful declaration which was approved by the Organization at a conference help in Philadelphia in 1944 and was incorporated in its constitution.
Today, by and large, the goal is devised as “decent work”, a notion which creates rights at work, employment and social protection into an overall vision, pursued through social dialogue, and which pays particular attention to the common reinforcement of action in different fields. The decent work goal is rooted in the most recent ILO Declaration, on Social Justice for Fair Globalization. In 1946, It became a Specialized Agency of the United Nations and was awarded a Nobel Peace Prize and in 1969 (Servais, 2005). 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).
