The ILO faces up to the COVID-19 pandemic

What is it about?

The article explores how this 187-Member international organization (the ILO) relied on experience and legal flexibility to address the disruption occasioned by the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. The ILO used old and new governance mechanisms, a range of international labour standards, and other tools to continue to carry out its social justice mandate. Also guiding this work was the ILO Centenary Declaration for the Future of Work (adopted in 2019), which seeks to strengthen the ILO's role in promoting human-centred multilateralism, as aspired to since the Declaration of Philadelphia. These inspired the 2021 Global Call to Action for a Human-Centred Recovery, advocating an inclusive, sustainable and resilient response. The article also touches on the impact of the pandemic on the functioning of the ILO Administrative Tribunal, which many international organizations use for resolving employment disputes.

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Why is it important?

The article takes a granular look at how an organization managed to pivot in the face of an extended emergency. It explores how the unique tripartite composition of the ILO - with representatives of employers and workers taking decisions alongside governments - created special challenges. It shows how an institution relied on its strengths, especially the normative ones flowing from international labour standards, and its statistical and labour market expertise, in the face of a pandemic. Yet it recalls the ILO's main challenge, in COVID-19 pandemic circumstances and beyond: to have various aspects of its social justice mandate taken more seriously by other international organizations.

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