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“Benefits and Limits to Labour-Related Corporate

Social Responsibility Codes”

AGO Shin-ichi*

Introduction

Standard-setting and supervision of international labour standards (ILS), through
ILO Conventions and Recommendations, have been the principal activities of the ILO

in the last one hundred years, and will also continue to be so in the next century ahead.
The ILO has transformed itself to be an international organization of multifaceted roles,

including the promotion of technical co-operation, in particular. The title of the Director
General’s report submitted to the 75 anniversary Conference in 1994 “Defending
th
values, promoting change – Social justice in a global economy: An ILO agenda” is as
1
applicable today as it was then. However, the international community has seen some

changes in the past decades and the ILO will have to adapt to recent trends, including
new approaches to its original mandate of standard-setting and supervision.

While the tripartite constituents of the ILO have continuously strived to achieve
social justice by adopting ILS and supervising their application, full attainment of the

goals has never been easy. One of the obstacles has been the unsatisfactory number of
ratifications of International Labour Conventions (ILO Conventions or Conventions).
The International Labour Recommendations (ILO Recommendations or

Recommendations) are more than mere non-binding legal instruments, because an
important amount of obligations are attached to them by Article 19 of the Constitution
of the ILO (Constitution). However, the obligations are not enforceable as such.

Therefore, ratifications of all the Conventions by all the member States are ideal.

* Ritsumeikan University, Kyoto, Japan
1 Report of the Director General (Part I), International Labour Conference, 81 Session, 1994.
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