In June 2022, the International Labour Organization (ILO) decided to amend the 1998 Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work in order to include the right to a safe and healthy working environment among the core labour rights to which member States are committed by virtue of their membership. The amendment marks the successful completion of three years of negotiations initiated in response to the 2019 Centenary Declaration by which the ILO's tripartite constituency recognized that safe and healthy working conditions were fundamental to decent work. Adding occupational safety and health as a fifth pillar to the 1998 Declaration was generally welcomed as a commendable development although critics may still assert that as a soft law instrument the amended Declaration may not have decisive impact on workplace safety and health globally. Despite broad agreement about the timeliness and importance of recognizing occupational safety and health as a fundamental workers’ right—especially in light of the pandemic experience—concerns were raised about the possible implications of the amended Declaration on existing trade agreements, and in particular whether it would create, directly or indirectly, new obligations for member States. This article looks into the origins and negotiating history of the amendment to the 1998 Declaration and addresses the scope and legal effect of a saving clause by which the Conference sought to ensure that the amended Declaration would not impact obligations and commitments of States set out in labour provisions of free trade agreements currently in force and would not be subject to dynamic interpretation in the context of a trade dispute.

This article discusses the role that statistical classifications play in creating gendered boundaries in the world of work. The term ‘family worker’ first became a statistical category in various Western national statistics around 1900. After 1945, it was established as a category of the International Labour Organization (ILO) labour force concept, and since then it has been extended to the wider world by way of the UN System of National Accounts. By investigating the term ‘family worker’ from the perspective of internationally comparable statistical classification, this article offers an empirical insight into how and why particular concepts of work become ‘globalized’. We argue that the statistical term ‘economically active people’ was extended to unpaid family workers, whereas the distinction between family work and housework was increasingly based on scientific evidence. This reclassification of work is an indication of its growing comparability within an economic observation scheme. The ILO generated and authorized that global discourse, and, as such, attested to an increasingly global form of knowledge and communication about the status of gender and work.

This article examines why Western programmes of social security became a topic of interest for Chinese Nationalist (Guomindang) policy-makers during the early 1940s. It traces a generation of sociologists and civil servants, often trained abroad, who used wartime exigencies to make the case for New Deal-style reforms. While offering a route to professional advancement, social insurance was primarily intended to serve the needs of the government. Embedded in, and dependent on, the Anglo-American alliance, Nationalist party planners embraced the internationalist social agenda of the Atlantic Charter – advanced by institutions such as the International Labour Organization and the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration – to solidify their nation's status as an aspiring great power, and to legitimize to foreign sponsors their hold on the state. In this regard, fascination with the likes of the Beveridge Report and the Social Security Act was a performance, intended to show how China was in keeping with the spirit of the age.

As the Second World War unfolded and became global, intellectuals of various backgrounds turned their minds to the problems of peace. Internal persecution bred external aggression, some believed. States had to be tamed. Such reasoning led the American Law Institute (ALI) to try to draft a globally acceptable bill of rights. Although originating in the USA, the project was essentially a transnational one. The ‘Statement of essential human rights’ became the most elaborate code created up to that point, in both scope and detail. Completed in the early winter of 1944, it was promoted by the Panamanian delegation to the 1945 San Francisco Conference, and used extensively by the UN Commission on Human Rights. Refuting suggestions that human rights originated in the 1970s, the ALI project reveals the great depth of the transnational conversation on human rights during the early 1940s, and even before.

This article considers Asianism in the Indian trade union movement, against the backdrop of increasing international cooperation between Asian trade union movements in the interwar period, which culminated in the short-lived Asiatic Labour Congress (1934–37). It demonstrates how Asianist enthusiasm both propelled and hampered Indian workers’ representation at the International Labour Organization and other international bodies. Finally, it considers Asianism as a crucial characteristic of Indian trade unionism in the interwar period, by showing how the All-India Trade Union Congress, once the hope of Indian labour as an organized force, split into rival federations over the issue of its Asian affiliations.

Treaties — Special kinds of — International Labour Conventions — Compliance with — Procedure for investigation of complaint of non-compliance by Member State with obligations under such Conventions — I.L.O. Constitution, Article 26 — Abolition of Forced Labour Convention, 1957 — Complaint regarding application of Convention by Portugal in certain African territories.

Disputes — Miscellaneous — Procedure under Constitution of International Labour Organization, Articles 26 to 34 — Investigation of complaint of non — compliance by Member State with obligations under International Labour Conventions — Abolition of Forced Labour Convention, 1957 — Complaint regarding application of Convention by Portugal in certain Mrican territories.

International Labour Organization — Procedure under Constitution of I.L.O. for investigation of complaint of non-compliance by Member State with obligations under International Labour Conventions — Constitution, Articles 26 to 34 — Commission of Inquiry — Judicial function of — Nature of recommendations — Complaint regarding application of Abolition of Forced Labour Convention, 1957, by Portugal in certain African territories — Procedure followed by Commission — Relevance of evidence of position in those territories prior to entry into force of Convention for Portugal — Whether Commission limited to information submitted by parties — Requests for information from Governments not parties to complaint (Article 27) — Requests for information from non-governmental organizations — Examination of witnesses — Witnesses called by Commission — Visits to territories concerned — Whether necessary for Commission to visit other African territorie — Responsibility of Commission to ascertain that obligations under Convention fulfilled in fact and in law — Competence to make general recommendations on related matters such as labour inspection — Recommendations involving continuing action by Portuguese authorities — Recommendation that Portugal report action taken to International Labour Office.

International Labour Organization — Conventions Adopted by Conference and Ratified by States — Necessity of Municipal Legislation.

Treaties — Operation of — Necessity of Municipal Legislation — International Labour Conventions — The Law of Argentina.