Van Daele (2008)

IRSH 53 (2008), pp. 485–511 doi:10.
1017/S0020859008003568
r 2008 Internationaal Instituut voor Sociale Geschiedenis
SURVEY
The International Labour Organization (ILO)

in Past and Present Research
J A S M I E N VA N D A E L E *
SUMMARY : This article addresses from a multidisciplinary perspective key questions,

trends, and debates that have determined how the history of the International Labour
Organization (ILO) has been conceived over the past ninety years. ILO historio-
graphy has to be understood in relation to the historical development of the ILO as
an institution; the international political, economic, and social context; and the
developments within the scientific discipline, especially the fields of (a globalizing)
labour history and international relations/organizations. A starting point for this
survey essay is the central hypothesis that the scientific interest in the history of
international organizations is very much related to the general importance attached to
multilateral structures and the belief in the effectiveness of international cooperation.
Based on this analysis of the past trends and the current state of the field, I conclude
with comments on lacunae and possible paths for future research on ILO history.
Studying the history of the International Labour Organization (ILO) is

desirable for several reasons. Firstly, the ILO has been a trendsetter
among international organizations in standard-setting (creating labour
standards by means of conventions and recommendations) as well as in
technical cooperation and international expertise on labour matters. By
means of its operational activities in the field as part of this three-pronged
action the ILO has tried to improve the daily working life of people
worldwide. Secondly, the organization was (and still is) unique in its
tripartite structure. Whereas all other international organizations (like the
United Nations) consist exclusively of representatives of national states, the
ILO brings together governments, employers and trade unions at all levels
* Research Officer ‘‘ILO Century Project’’, International Institute for Labour Studies-ILO,
Geneva. The views expressed in this paper are solely those of the author and do not necessarily
reflect any position of the ILO. I am grateful to Marcel van der Linden, Gerry Rodgers, and
Dirk Luyten for their careful reading and useful suggestions.
486 Jasmien Van Daele
of decision-making. This combined structure of governmental and non-

governmental constituents has proved to be very stable as it has remained
unchanged up to the present day. Thirdly, the ILO is the oldest international
organization of the twentieth century. Founded in 1919, the ILO will be
ninety years old in 2009. The organization was established as the first
specialized agency within the League of Nations. But unlike the League, the
ILO survived World War II and became part of the succeeding United
Nations (UN) system.1 Since it is one of the very few international organ-
izations with a lengthy and unbroken history, the ILO is an interesting
research topic for historians.
So far, comprehensive academic reviews of the literature on ILO
history have not yet been undertaken. This essay will try to fill this void.2
I will review the literature in order to trace the general evolution and
the particular contours of ILO historiography. Since the early days a
considerable body of literature has accumulated in many languages and
I do not claim exhaustiveness here. This survey article is based on what
I consider to be the most relevant and representative literature that has
addressed key questions and reflects trends, debates, and developments
that determine how the ILO has been conceived over the past ninety
years and that help explain the current state of ILO history.
The conjunctures and (shifts in) analytical foci in ILO historiography
have to be understood in relation to three broader aspects: the historical
development of the ILO as an institution; the international political,
economic, and social context; and developments within the scientific
discipline, especially the fields of labour history and international relations/
organizations. A starting point for this survey essay is the central hypothesis,
as stated by Louis Sohn, that scientific interest in the history of international
organizations is very much related to the general importance attached to
multilateral structures and belief in the effectiveness of international
cooperation.3 In the case of the ILO, however, this hypothesis has proved
not to be completely true, as I will show. And in the light of the recent
1. For a brief introduction to the ILO in the international organizations system, see J. McMahon,
‘‘The International Labour Organization’’, in E. Luard (ed.), The Evolution of International
Organizations (London, 1966), pp. 177–199; idem, ‘‘International Labour Organization (ILO)’’,
in G. Schiavone, International Organizations: A Dictionary and Directory (Basingstoke, 2005),
pp. 193–196; E. Prügl, ‘‘International Labor Organization (ILO)’’, in M. Griffiths (ed.), Encyclopedia
of International Relations and Global Politics (New York [etc.], 2005), pp. 422–425.
2. An earlier version of this article was presented at the conference ‘‘The International Labour
Organization: Past and Present’’, Brussels, 5–6 October 2007, a joint initiative of the Inter-
national Institute of Social History (Amsterdam), the Institute of Social History (AMSAB–ISG,
Ghent), Ghent University, and the Free University Brussels.
3. L. Sohn, ‘‘The Growth of the Science of International Organizations’’, in K. Deutsch and
S. Hoffmann (eds), The Relevance of International Law: Essays in Honor of Leo Gross
(New York, 1971), p. 334.
The ILO in Past and Present Research 487
globalizing trends in labour history, it is also inevitable to ask the question

how ‘‘global’’ past and present research on the ILO has been. After all,
the ILO is an international organization aimed at promoting labour rights
worldwide and fighting poverty and social inequality, especially in the
developing world. Consequently there is a highly interesting research
potential for authors interested in labour topics related to the non-
Western world, i.e. Latin America, Africa, and Asia. This essay will show
that ILO literature, however, is not as global as it could and should be.
THE SPECIFICITY OF ILO HISTORIOGRAPHY

Looking at the wide range of available studies on ILO history, there
are two essential characteristics. First of all, ILO history is definitely not
a field that has been exclusively occupied by historians. International
and industrial relations specialists, sociologists, lawyers, and labour
economists have also been interested, from different perspectives and
posing different research questions, in ILO history. The scope of this
review article will therefore be multidisciplinary. I have included all
studies that pay attention to the external-environmental and internal-
organizational dimensions of the ILO and are therefore relevant for a
better understanding of the organization’s history.
Secondly, the ILO has been the object of research from two angles.
What I call ‘‘inside studies’’ are produced by the International Labour
Office, the Secretariat of the International Labour Organization in
Geneva, and/or by (former) ILO officials. The organization itself has
produced considerable literature about its origins, evolution, functioning,
and performance, often for commemorative purposes. Sengenberger and
Campbell refer to ‘‘the good tradition of the ILO to use important
anniversary years for review, reflection and assessment, for looking
backwards and forwards’’.4 In their view, 1944 represents the ILO’s Silver
Jubilee, 1969 its Golden Anniversary (when the organization was also
awarded the Nobel Peace Prize) and 1994, after seventy-five years, its
Diamond Age. In many cases this ‘‘self-promotion’’ has been undertaken
by officials, who have been personally involved in one way or another in the
work of the ILO. The authors write about the ILO on the basis of their
ILO engagement. This does not mean that the works discussed may not be
critical, coherent, or scientifically composed, but most of these studies were
specially written to expound and justify the ILO’s work and self-image.
‘‘Outside studies’’ have been produced by academics who have an
independent scientific position. The publications are not shaped by a
personal link to the organization, but by scientific interest, based on
4. W. Sengenberger and D. Campbell (eds), International Labour Standards and Economic

Interdependence (Geneva, 1994), p. v.
theoretical questions and frames of reference, and an historical approach

that goes beyond the institution and its own sources. This group of
authors approach the institution from a more critical perspective. In a few
cases, these groups cannot be strictly differentiated. A former official,
Robert Cox, for instance, left the organization after a career of twenty-
five years and became an eminent Professor of International Relations
with a highly critical perspective on the ILO. In what follows, I will take
the ‘‘inside’’ as well as the ‘‘outside’’ studies into account since both are
essential and substantial to drawing general conclusions on the state of
the field.
A reading of the literature reveals roughly five periods of ILO histor-
iography with different characteristics and analytical foci. Based on this
analysis of the past trends and the current state of the field, I will conclude
this survey article with comments on lacunae and possible paths for future
research.
T H E F I R S T D E C A D E : ‘‘ T H E C A P R I C I O U S A N D
F A N TA S T I C P L AY O F C O N S T I T U T I O N A L T E X T S A N D
S O C I A L R E A L I T I E S ’’ 5
Studies about the ILO and its history are well available from the very
beginning. ILO historiography has its origins in the ‘‘insider literature’’ of
the 1920s. The ‘‘first-generation’’ producers of ILO histories were not
professional historians, but often ILO leaders, labour law experts (e.g.
Ernest Mahaim6), or representatives of governments (George Barnes,7
5. A. Thomas, ‘‘The International Labour Organization: Its Origins, Development and

Future’’, International Labour Review [hereafter ILR], 1 (1921); this article was reprinted in
ILR, 135 (1996), pp. 261–276, 263.
6. Ernest Mahaim (1865–1938), a Law professor of the University of Liège, one of the founding
fathers of the International Association of Labour Legislation in 1900 and the ILO in 1919, and
the representative of the Belgian government in the ILO Governing Body and the International
Labour Conferences in Geneva. See also J. Van Daele, ‘‘Engineering Social Peace: Networks,
Ideas, and the Founding of the International Labour Organization’’, International Review of
Social History [hereafter IRSH], 50 (2005), pp. 435–466. E.g. E. Mahaim, ‘‘Some Legal Ques-
tions Relating to International Labour Conventions ‘‘, ILR, 20 (1929), pp. 765–796; idem, ‘‘Les
principes de la législation internationale du travail’’, Bulletin de la Classe des Lettres et des
Sciences Morales et Politiques, 13 (1927), pp. 204–233; idem, L’Organisation du travail de la
Société des Nations et la Conférence de Washington (Brussels, 1920); idem, ‘‘International
Labour Law’’, ILR, 1 (1921), pp. 283–286 (repr. in ‘‘75 Years of the International Labour
Review: A Retrospective’’, ILR, 135 (1996)); idem, ‘‘Histoire de la convention de Washington
sur la durée de travail’’, Revue Economique Internationale, 4 (1928), pp. 513–545.
7. George Nicoll Barnes (1859–1940), former trade-union Secretary, member of the Labour
Party, and leader of the British delegation at the Paris Peace Conference in 1919; G.N. Barnes,
History of the International Labour Office (London, 1926). See also his autobiography: idem,
From Workshop to War Cabinet (London, 1923).
Max Lazard8) and trade unions (Léon Jouhaux,9 Jan Oudegeest10),

who were personally involved in the founding and/or decision-making
structures of the organization.11 In the first decades it was also the
International Labour Office itself that analysed and published the history
of the organization,12 for instance in 1929, on the occasion of the tenth
anniversary.13 From the beginning, academics too were interested in the
ILO, especially legal scholars and political scientists. They studied the
organization as a new phenomenon within the broader framework of
international relations and the development of public international law.14
A remarkable detail is that a considerable proportion of the academic
literature was prefaced by (or addressed to) the first director of the ILO,
Albert Thomas.
8. Max Lazard (1875–1953), a French sociologist, unemployment expert, and delegate of

the French government at the Peace Conference of Versailles; M. Lazard, L’Organisation
permanente du travail (Paris, 1922).
9. Léon Jouhaux (1879–1954), leader of the French Confédération Générale du Travail (CGT),
member of the Commission on International Labour Legislation in 1919 and workers’
representative in the ILO Governing Body and International Labour Conferences;
L. Jouhaux, L’Organisation internationale du Travail (Paris, 1921).
10. J. Oudegeest, ‘‘The International Trade Union Movement and the Labour Office’’, ILR, 1
(1921), pp. 41–44. In this article the Dutch trade-union leader and representative to the
International Labour Conferences Jan Oudegeest (1870–1950) reviewed the role of the inter-
national trade union movement in, and independent of, the ILO.
11. E.g. E.J. Solano (ed.), Labour as an International Problem (London, 1920) is a collection of
essays by ILO founding fathers, George Barnes, Emile Vandervelde, Harold Butler, Sophy
Sanger, Arthur Fontaine, Minoru Oka, James Shotwell, etc.
12. L’Organisation internationale du Travail et la première année de son activité (Geneva,
1921); The International Labour Office as a World Centre of Information (Geneva, 1927).
13. The First Decade of the International Labour Organization (Geneva, 1930); The Inter-
national Labour Organization 1919–1929 (Geneva, 1930); J. Delbecq, Dix ans du BIT à vol
d’oiseau (Annemasse, 1930).
14. J. Godart, Les clauses du travail dans le Traité de Versailles (Paris, 1920); M. Guerreau,
L’Organisation internationale du Travail. Une nouvelle institution du droit des gens (Paris,
1923); P. Devinat, L’Organisation internationale du Travail (Paris, 1923); J. Chateau, De la
compétence de l’Organisation internationale du Travail en matière de travail agricole (Paris,
1924); R. Tremelloni, L’Organizzazione internationale de lavoro (Milan, 1924); A. Vabre, Le
droit international du travail (Paris, 1925); A. Chisholm, Labour’s Magna Charta: A Critical
Study of the Labour Clauses of the Peace Treaty and of the Draft Conventions and Recom-
mendations of the Washington International Labour Conference (London, 1925); M. Drechsel,
Le traité de Versailles et le méchanisme, des conventions internationales du travail (Brussels,
1926); P. Périgord, The ILO: A Study of Labor and Capital in Cooperation (New York, 1926);
H. Van Zanten, L’influence de la Partie XIII du traité de Versailles sur le développement du
droit international public et sur le droit interne des états (Leiden, 1927); L. Wolscht, Die
internationale Regelung des Arbeitsrechts auf Grund des Versailler Friedensvertrages unter
besonderer Berücksichtigung der seitherigen Entwicklung (Wolfenbüttel, 1927); E. Hiltonen, La
compétence de l’Organisation internationale du Travail. I. Compétence de fond (Paris, 1929);
G. Scelle, L’Organisation internationale du Travail et le BIT (Paris, 1930); C. Argentier,
Résultats acquis par l’Organisation permanente du travail de 1919 à 1929 (Paris, 1930).
During the first years this ‘‘outsider’’ literature remains close to the
insiders’ perspective: a very descriptive history with a formal institu-
tional focus on the general aspects of the organization. The frame of
reference is the constitutional mandate and the actual operation of the
organization with its methods and means to approach international labour
legislation, often in close relation to the role of the member-states.15
Consequently, these early writings on ILO history are rather old-
fashioned from a methodological point of view. They contain in
many cases a table of ratifications of conventions and the full text of
Part XIII of the Paris Peace Treaty, the constitutional text of the ILO,
in an appendix. A significant fact is that these first publications
largely pay attention to the ideological and institutional roots of the
organization during the nineteenth century as a way of emphasizing its
‘‘long’’ history.16
It is not coincidental that the tone of all those publications is very
optimistic. Authors in the first phase shared a strong belief in the success
of the ILO as part of a new multilateral system hosted in Geneva, a city of
flourishing international intellectual and operational activities. They tried
to explain how a peaceful world could be created and what contribution
the ILO could (or should) make towards that. G.A. Johnston, an ILO
official, had already written in 1924 that:
[y] the passage of time has brought a gradually deepening conviction that this
Organization, founded in a spirit of generous enthusiasm, is destined, amid all
the sombre difficulties of the post-war world, to fulfil a function of gradually
increasing importance in the maintenance of that international peace which is
based on social justice.17
After all, the ILO was a new institution that had to prove itself and the
purpose of this first phase in ILO historiography was mainly to explain
what the institution was doing and how it came into being.
15. See e.g. H. Fehlinger, ‘‘Deutschland und die Internationale Arbeitsorganization’’, Zeitschrift
für Volkerrecht, 14 (1927), pp. 23–29; H. Crommelin Van Wickevoort, Wereldwetgevers.
De Internationale Arbeidsorganisatie aan het werk (The Hague, 1931); J. Puchades
Monton, Organizacion internacional del trabajo de la sociedad de las naciones (Valencia,
1931).
16. E.g. A. de Maday, Charte internationale du travail (Paris, 1921); F. Podmore, Robert Owen:
A Biography (London, 1923); A. Thomas, ‘‘Quelques notes sur Robert Owen et la législation
internationale du travail’’, in Mélanges offerts à Charles Andler (Strasbourg, 1924), pp. 323–333;
R. Weiss, Un précurseur de la législation internationale du travail, Daniel Legrand (1783–1859),
son oeuvre sociale et internationale (Paris, 1926); A. Millerand, ‘‘Origines françaises du BIT’’,
Revue des Deux Mondes, 102 (1932), pp. 589–601; A. de Maday, ‘‘Necker, précurseur du
pacifisme et de la protection ouvrière’’, Revue de l’Institut de Sociologie Solvay, 15 (1935),
pp. 39–52.
17. G.A. Johnston, International Social Progress: The Work of the International Labour
Organization of the League of Nations (London, 1924), p. 5.
Not surprisingly the literature remained still very Europe-centred, as

the ILO was itself. Although several important Asian and Latin American
countries had already joined the organization in the early years (such as
India, China, Japan, Argentina, Brazil, and Chile), the ILO still remained
largely dominated by ‘‘a club of like-minded states’’,18 mostly the major
industrialized countries within Europe that – despite early protests from
non-European members – occupied the crucial positions in decision-
making (e.g. in the ILO Governing Body). This Eurocentrism is clearly
reflected in the bulk of the early writings. The Latin American countries
that were represented in the ILO from the beginning, such as Argentina
and Chile, produced some interesting studies with a specific focus on
regional problems (for instance, international migration policies).19
However, the most significant exception to the early Eurocentrism is
India. It is significant that studies on the relations between the ILO
and India were published early on.20 India, a dominion of the United
Kingdom, joined the ILO as one of the very first non-European members
and participated actively in the organization. But overall, non-European
studies were rare.21
All these early works are characterized by a very legitimizing concept
of the institutional roots, the structure, the tasks, the raison d’être, and the
mission of the organization, as well as the position and the identity of the
ILO in the broader international system, in particular in its relationship
with the League of Nations. Therefore, historical writing in the 1920s can
be defined as an instrument of self-justification. An important pioneer in
this ‘‘scholarship of legitimation’’ was the first Director of the ILO, the
French socialist, Albert Thomas (1878–1932). As a historian himself,
Thomas realized that historical knowledge was an important tool for a
better understanding of the present, and an essential foundation for the
18. K.N. Dahl, ‘‘The Role of ILO Standards Policy in the Global Integration Process’’, Journal
of Peace Research, 5 (1968), p. 321.
19. E.g. C. Saavedra Lamas, Tratados internacionales de tipo social (Buenos Aires, 1922); La
República Argentina en la Organización Internacional del Trabajo (Buenos Aires, 1925);
T. Romero Hodges, La Organización Internacional del Trabajo y la Legislación Social de Chile
(Santiago, 1930); F. Walker Linares, La sociedad de las Naciones y sus Organismos del Trabajo
(Santiago, 1930).
20. India and the International Labour Organization (Geneva, 1924); P.P. Pillai, India and the
International Labour Organization (Patna, 1931); L. Sundaram, India and the ILO (London,
1931) (repr. from Asiatic Review, 27 October 1931); L.N. Birla and P.P. Pillai, India and the
ILO (Bombay, 1946).
21. Other examples: F. Wilson, ‘‘The Pacific and the International Labor Organization’’, Pacific
Affairs, 5:6 (1932), pp. 497–511 (on the ILO’s contribution to specific problems in the Pacific
area, such as native labour and migration); Much more descriptive (rather a detailed description
of the participation of the Pacific delegations in the Conference of 1930 than an historical
analysis) is E. Green, ‘‘The Pacific and the International Labour Conference’’, Pacific Affairs,
3 (1930), pp. 845–853.
ILO’s future effectiveness. In one of his earliest articles as Director of the

ILO, in the International Labour Review (the flagship journal of the ILO
on all aspects of the world of work) in 1921, Thomas stated that it was a
crucial task for the ILO ‘‘to make known the need for and utility of the
Organization, to arouse in all countries and in all circles the sympathy and
faith which it requires. Where are we? What future is open to the ILO?
How far will its work be effective?’’.22 That is why ILO historiography
was, in the first years, so important for ILO protagonists.
T H E C R I S I S O F T H E 1 9 3 0 S A N D W O R L D WA R I I :
‘‘ T O WA R D S B E T T E R T H I N G S ’’ 23
In this period, ILO historiography followed more or less the pattern of the
previous decade, but against a different international background. During
the turbulent time of the 1930s serious criticisms of the international system
were heard. The worldwide economic crisis, mass unemployzment, and the
rise of dictatorship in Europe and Latin America could not be remedied
or halted by the League of Nations and the ILO. In a context of economic
and political nationalism European member-states also ratified sig-
nificantly less ILO conventions. The ILO and individual ILO officials
responded by some écritures de defense, explaining what the organization
was meant for and why and how it should continue working.24 A com-
bination of legitimacy and defence can also be found in the first books on
the ILO Director Albert Thomas. His unexpected death in 1932, when he
was still actively in charge, gave rise to the first influx of biographical
literature on his life and ideas, produced by the ILO25 as well as by
outsiders.26
While legal and political science scholars continued writing on general
aspects of the organization,27 there was growing attention in the literature
22. Thomas, ‘‘International Labour Organization’’, p. 5.

23. N. Hewett, Towards Better Things: The Story of the International Labour Organization
(London, 1936).
24. E.g. H. Butler, ‘‘The Past, Present and Future of the ILO’’, in Geneva Institute of
International Relations, Problems of Peace (London, 1931), pp. 29–43; La Organización
Internacional del Trabajo. ‘Laboratorio de Paz Social’ (Ginebra, 1934); L’Organization
internationale du Travail. Ce qu’elle est, ce qu’elle a fait (Geneva, 1936); E. Phelan, ‘‘The ILO
and the Future of the Collective System’’, in Geneva Institute of International Relations,
Problems of Peace (London, 1937), pp. 127–144.
25. E. Mahaim e.a., Albert Thomas, 1878–1932 (Annemasse, 1932); E.J. Phelan, Yes and Albert
Thomas (London, 1936). Also translated in French as Albert Thomas et la creation du BIT
(Paris, 1936).
26. E. Poisson, Le coopérateur Albert Thomas. Un quart de siècle de vie militante (Paris, 1933).
27. A.S. Cheyney, The International Labor Organization (Philadelphia, PA, 1933); A. Berenstein,
Les organisations ouvrières. Leurs compétences et leur rôle dans la Société des Nations (Brussels,
1936); J. Zarras, Le controle de l’application des conventions internationales du travail
towards the economic role of the ILO. It was no coincidence that the
debate on the efforts of the ILO to play a more active part in shaping
economic conditions took off during the crisis of the 1930s. In the first
years the ILO had dealt with the social effects rather than with the causes
of existing economic conditions. During the Great Depression, when it
faced the challenge of excessive unemployment due to cyclical crises in
capitalism, the ILO started advocating measures of monetary and credit
policy, international trade, and public works, all with the purpose of
stimulating economic recovery.28
It was also no coincidence that just before and in the immediate
aftermath of the long-expected entry of the United States into the ILO in
1934 the literature on the relations between Geneva and Washington grew.
In the international polemic on ILO membership different arguments
were highlighted. On the one hand, there were the American opponents,
who often used the critique that the ILO was ‘‘a League of Nations
instrument’’ as it was financially dependent on the League, which the
Americans would never join.29 For the American Federation of Labour
(AFL), the ILO, with its double government representation, was nothing
more than ‘‘a state machine’’.30 Traditionally rooted in a very pragmatic
and voluntarist ethos, the AFL favoured not laws but privately negotiated
contractual agreements between unions and employers without any
government interference. On the other hand, the advocates of the ILO
defended the decision of President Roosevelt and his labour administra-
tion to join the ILO. In the context of the New Deal social reforms it was
generally thought that the ILO would be a useful instrument for the US.31
(Paris, 1937); F. Wilson, Labor in the League System: A Study of the International Labor
Organization in Relation to International Administration (Stanford, CA, 1937); A.N. Molenaar,
De naleving van arbeidsconventies. Rede aan de Rijksuniversiteit te Leiden op 11 februari 1938
(’s Gravenhage, 1938).
28. L. Chaudouard, Le rôle de l’Organisation internationale du Travail dans l’activité
économique (Paris, 1933); L.E. Lorwin, ‘‘The ILO and World Economic Policy’’, ILR, 33
(1936), pp. 457–467; C.W. Jenks, ‘‘L’Organisation internationale du Travail face au problème de
l’organisation de l’économie’’, Annales de l’économie collective, 29 (1937), pp. 111–247.
29. The ILO received the contributions of its member-states through the Fourth Committee of
the League of Nations General Assembly; P.G. Steinbicker, ‘‘Is the International Labor
Organization Really Autonomous?’’, American Political Science Review, 29 (1935), pp. 866–870.
30. M. Woll, ‘‘The International Labour Office: A Criticism’’, Current History, 31 (1930),
pp. 683–689. Matthew Woll was vice-president of the AFL.
31. S. Miller, What the International Labor Organization Means to America (foreword by
John G. Winant) (New York, 1936); E. Phelan, ‘‘The United States and the ILO’’, Political
Science Quarterly, 50 (1935), pp. 107–121; E.J. Phelan, M.O. Hudson and J.T. Shotwell, ‘‘The
International Labour Organization: Membership of the United States and its Possibilities’’,
International Conciliation, 309 (1935), pp. 105–151; B.E. Lowe, International Protection of
Labor: International Labor Organization, History and Law (New York, 1935); W.L. Tayler,
Federal States and Labor Treaties: Relations of Federal States to the International Labor
An important protagonist in the American campaign for ILO

membership was James Shotwell, a Professor of History at Columbia
University and an eminent promoter of international cooperation.32
Shotwell had attended the Versailles Peace Conference in 1919 as a
member of the American delegation and later chaired the American
Committee on International Intellectual Cooperation of the League of
Nations. In 1934 he published his two major volumes on the origins of the
ILO with the explicit motive of pushing the US government to join the
organization.33 Rather than an in-depth historical analysis, Shotwell’s
volumes provide valuable source materials as they bring together an
important collection of chapters written by ILO people involved in the
founding process, accompanied by a rich and detailed collection of
archives documents and texts (e.g. the original minutes of the Commis-
sion on International Labour Legislation that prepared the foundation of
the ILO in 1919) that are useful for historians interested in the origins and
early years of the ILO. One consequence of this upsurge in the literature
on the new American membership was that from the 1930s onwards ILO
historiography became gradually less Europe-centred.
World War II was a period of deep transition for the ILO.34 Like the
League of Nations, its existence was put into question, but the ILO
managed to survive the war and find a place within the new multilateral
system as a specialized agency of the United Nations. This period of
reorientation of its role and position, programmatic rethinking, and
Organization (with a foreword by Samuel McCune Lindsay) (New York, 1935); M. Hudson,
‘‘The Membership of the United States in the ILO’’, American Journal of International Law, 28
(1934), pp. 669–684; ‘‘The International Labor Organization’’, special issue Annals of the
American Academy of Political and Social Sciences, 166 (1933); U. Hubbard, ‘‘The Cooperation
of the United States with the League of Nations and the ILO’’, International Conciliation, 274
(1931), pp. 675–825.
32. On Shotwell, see H. Josephson, James T. Shotwell and the Rise of Internationalism in
America (Rutherford, NJ [etc.], 1975); C. Debenedetti, ‘‘James T. Shotwell and the Science of
International Politics’’, Political Science Quarterly, 89 (1974), pp. 379–395; idem, ‘‘Peace was his
Profession’’, in F. Merli (ed.), Makers of American Diplomacy: From Benjamin Franklin to
Henry Kissinger (New York, 1974), pp. 385–406.
33. ‘‘Justified by its history, freed from entanglements with the Peace Treaties, safeguarded by
its Constitution from any tendencies to interfere with domestic legislation, the ILO offers
countries like the United States an instrument which can be used greatly to its advantage and
which in no conceivable way can be used against it. [y] It would be a happy although not
calculated consequence of this documentary history if it should lessen the blindness of prejudice
which has hitherto deprived the US of an avenue of helpful international cooperation in the
field that bears the marks of the worst ravages of the industrial depression, that which has to do
with the conditions of daily life of the common man’’; J.T. Shotwell, The Origins of the
International Labour Organization (New York, 1934), 2 vols, pp. xxix–xxx.
34. On the eve of World War II the ILO had made concrete plans to publish an overview
volume, looking back at its first twenty years. Due to the outbreak of the war, the volume
remained unpublished. (With thanks to Remo Becci, ILO archivist, for this information.)
adaptation to the postwar international system led to a revival in the

literature, focusing explicitly on the ILO’s intention to preserve its
independence and uniqueness. Looking back on the past decades, taking
stock of the challenges by positioning itself at the side of the United States
and Great Britain, the leading powers of that time, and looking forward to
its future under the new umbrella of the UN is the main characteristic of
all these publications. The analyses of both ‘‘insiders’’35 and ‘‘outsiders’’36
were still mainly institutional, focusing on the general, legal, and political
consequences of the international problems of war and peace.
T H E F I R S T D E C A D E S O F T H E C O L D WA R ( L AT E
1 9 4 0 S – M I D 1 9 7 0 S ) : P R O F E S S I O N A L I Z AT I O N
A N D D I V E R S I F I C AT I O N
From an academic point of view, ILO historiography becomes more

interesting and diversified from the 1950s onwards. This is remarkable.
While the Cold War polarized and more or less paralysed international
relations, and international organizations lost a large part of their inde-
pendence, one would expect that this would lead to diminishing research
interest of scholars in international organizations. But this is certainly not
the case for the ILO.
35. C.W. Jenks, ‘‘The Contribution of the ILO to the Development of Procedures of Peaceful
Change’’, World Affairs, 4 (1939), pp. 361–379; J. Winant, ‘‘Twenty Years of the ILO
(1919–1939)’’, Annals of Collective Economy, (1939), pp. 611–625; J. Godart, The Future of the
ILO (Montreal, 1943); C. Goodrich, ‘‘The International Labor Organization’’, in Pioneers in
World Order (New York, 1944), pp. 87–106; C. Riegelman, ‘‘Labor’s Bridgehead: the ILO’’,
Political Science Quarterly, 60 (1945), pp. 205–221; C.W. Jenks, ‘‘Revision of the Constitution of
the International Labour Organization’’, BYIL, 23 (1946), pp. 303–317; E.J. Phelan, The ILO
and the United Nations/L’OIT et les Nations Unies (Montreal, 1946); idem, ‘‘The Contribution
of the ILO to Peace’’, ILR, 59 (1949), pp. 607–632.
36. S. Trocmé, L’Organisation internationale du Travail et la guerre (Aix-en-Provence, 1942);
K. Pribram, ‘‘The ILO: Present Functions and Future Tasks’’, Foreign Affairs, 21 (1942),
pp. 158–167; C. Dechamp, ‘‘L’avenir de l’Organisation Internationale du Travail et ses possi-
bilités d’évolution’’, Revue syndicale suisse, 34 (1942), pp. 345–362; M. Starr, ‘‘Labor Issues at
San Francisco’’, Current History, 8 (1945), pp. 517–521; J. Price, ‘‘The International Labour
Organization’’, International Affairs, 21 (1945), pp. 30–39; G. Brand, ‘‘International Labor
Organization in Transition’’, World Affairs, 12 (1946), pp. 81–89; G. Fischer, Les rapports entre
l’Organisation internationale du Travail et la Cour Permanente de Justice Internationale.
Contribution à l’étude du problème de la séparation des pouvoirs dans le domaine international
(Berne, 1946); E.S. Hediger, ‘‘The International Labor Organization and the United Nations’’,
Foreign Policy Reports (New York), 22:6 (1946), pp. 71–79; R.J.P. Mortished, World Parliament
of Labour: A Study of the ILO, its Past Achievements and Potentialities for the Future, and
Proposals for its Reorganization (London, 1946); J. Fried, ‘‘Relations between the UN and
the ILO’’, American Political Science Review, 41 (1947), pp. 963–977; J. Sulkowski, ‘‘The
Competence of the International Labor Organization under the United Nations System’’,
American Journal of International Law, 45 (1951), pp. 286–313.
On the one hand the stream of ‘‘self-promotion’’ continued, that is to

say, the ILO’s literature of ‘‘self-identity’’ in the context of the organi-
zation’s tradition of contributing to its own image, albeit in the new
context of postwar international relations. Former ILO officials published
memoirs and autobiographies in which they shed light on personal
experiences and turning points, such as the war.37 How the ILO ‘‘turned
the corner’’ after World War II was a popular topic,38 as was the evolution
of internal structures, e.g. on the occasion of the 100th session of the
Governing Body in 1946.39 A good deal of ‘‘inside’’ publication on the
ILO history was brought out on the occasion of anniversaries, again ideal
moments for reflection on past, present, and future achievements. In 1949
the ILO celebrated its thirty years of existence, but it was not long after
the war and the move from Montreal back to Geneva was only three years
earlier, so the festivities were kept quite small with a few booklets and
articles in the International Labour Review.40 In 1959 mainly outsiders
published an ILO history.41
The organization’s 50th anniversary ten years later in 1969, when the
ILO received the Nobel Peace Prize, led to a veritable ‘‘explosion’’ of
historical reviews,42 to which former high-level ILO officials and
Directors-General not surprisingly made a significant contribution.43 It is
37. J.G. Winant, Letter from Grosvenor Square: An Account of a Stewardship (London, 1947);
H. Butler, The Lost Peace: A Personal Impression (London, 1950); H. Butler, Confident
Morning (London, 1950).
38. ‘‘The International Labour Organization Since the War’’, ILR, 67 (1953), pp. 109–155;
E. Phelan, ‘‘Some Reminiscences of the ILO’’, Studies: An Irish Critical Quarterly, 44 (1954),
171, pp. 241–270; idem, ‘‘The ILO Sets Up its Wartime Center in Canada’’, Studies, 44 (1955),
174, pp. 152–170; idem, ‘‘The ILO Turns the Corner’’, Studies, 45 (1956), 178, pp. 160–186;
idem, ‘‘After Pearl Harbour: ILO Problems’’, Studies, 45 (1957), 182, pp. 193–206.
39. ‘‘One Hundred Sessions of the Governing Body of the International Labour Office’’, ILR,
55 (1947), pp. 201–226; ‘‘The Composition of the Governing Body of the International Labour
Office’’, ILR, 70 (1954), pp. 496–525.
40. E.g. 30 Years of Struggle for Social Justice (Geneva, 1949); ‘‘The Thirtieth Anniversary of the
Foundation of the ILO: 1919–1949’’, ILR, 60 (1949), pp. 559–571.
41. G. de Lusignan, L’Organisation internationale du Travail (1919–1959) (préface de Jean
Morellet) (Paris, 1959); M. Montceau, L’Organisation internationale du Travail (1919–1959)
(Paris, 1959).
42. J. Price, ILO: 50 Years On (London, 1969); ‘‘Cinquantenaire de l’OIT, 1919–1969’’, Revue
française des Affaires sociales, 23 (1969), pp. 1–226; G. Lefranc, ‘‘L’Organisation internationale
du Travail à 50 ans’’, Revue de Défense Nationale, 25 (1969), pp. 1764–1776; J.A. Tijerino-Medrano,
‘‘ILO: Fifty Years of Labor’’, Américas, 21:7 (1969), pp. 16–22; I. Maxim, ‘‘L’Organisation inter-
nationale du Travail à son demi-centenaire’’, Revue Roumaine d’Etudes Internationales, 2:6 (1969),
pp. 104–112; J. Collins, ‘‘Fifty Years of the International Labour Organization’’, Pakistan Horizon,
23 (1970), pp. 51–61.
43. D. Morse, The Origin and Evolution of the ILO and its Role in the World Community
(Ithaca, NY, 1969); C.W. Jenks, Social Justice in the Law of Nations: The ILO Impact after Fifty
Years (New York, 1970); idem, Universality and Ideology in the ILO (address at the Graduate
also no coincidence that several books and articles on the relations

between the ILO and its member-states were published on this occasion,
quite often by the government departments (social affairs, labour
administration, foreign affairs) directly involved in the ILO.44 However,
the very classical institutional history was still the predominant format,
as in the publications of G.A. Johnston,45 former Assistant Director-
General, and Anthony Alcock,46 an external researcher employed by the
ILO for a history book project on the occasion of fifty years of the ILO.
While Johnston is very descriptive and sticks to the official account of the
organizational development and a summing-up of the major working
fields, Alcock was the first to write a comprehensive study of ILO history
from its origins until 1970. Despite its shortcomings (this is in the first
place a chronological review and lacks, on a certain level, analytical
scope), Alcock is still a valuable source of information, simply because he
places the ILO and its different actors in a broader historical and inter-
national context, from the early decades to the problems of the Cold War.
On the other hand, ILO historiography after World War II went
beyond the traditional institutional story. The second half of the twentieth
century was characterized by a significant trend towards a more academic
historiography, with a diversification in scope, research questions, and
subjects. In comparison to the interwar period, studies on the ILO from
the 1950s became less descriptive, but more critical and analytical. The
1950s, and especially the 1960s, can be regarded as the real take-off of in-
depth scientific research on ILO history. There are two significant trends.
Firstly, there is a trend towards professionalization in historical
research on the ILO. Professional historians discovered the ILO as a field
of study that was, until then, almost exclusively occupied by legal scholars
and political scientists specialized in international relations. This was a
consequence of the changes in the field of labour history, that in itself
became integrated into professional historiography after World War II.47
Institute of International Studies, Geneva, 27 October 1969); idem, 1919–1969: 50 Years in

the Service of Social Progress (Geneva, 1969); N. Valticos, ‘‘Fifty Years of Standard-Setting
Activities by the International Labour Organization’’, ILR, 100 (1969), pp. 201–237;
J. Rens, L’histoire de 50 années (Geneva, 1969).
44. E.g. N. Valticos, ‘‘The International Labour Organization and National Parliaments’’,
Interparliamentary Bulletin (Geneva), 1969, pp. 16–31; M. Stewart, Britain and the ILO: The
Story of Fifty Years (London, 1969); N.K. Kakkar, India and the ILO: The Story of Fifty Years
(Delhi, 1970); Portugal e a Organizacao internacional do trabalho (Lisbon, 1970).
45. G.A. Johnston, The International Labour Organization: Its Work for Social and Economic
Progress (London, 1970).
46. A. Alcock, History of the International Labour Organization (London, 1971).
47. M. van der Linden and L. Heerma van Voss, ‘‘Introduction’’, in L. Heerma van Voss and
M. van der Linden (eds), Class and Other Identities: Gender, Religion and Ethnicity in the
Writing of European Labour History (New York [etc.], 2002), pp. 11–12.
A typical example of this historical professionalization is the biography

of Albert Thomas by Bertus Schaper in 1953,48 as a doctoral disserta-
tion from the History Department of the University of Leiden, one
of the first scientific and independent studies on the ILO’s first
Director and therefore different from the ongoing stream of official
and more hagiographic studies on Thomas.49 This kind of professionali-
zation not only implied the production of historical biographies (on
e.g. ILO pioneers and Directors-General50), but also more attention
for the ILO’s constituents from a critical-historical perspective,51
and a reconsideration of the origins and early decades by academic
researchers.52
Secondly, research shifted from the general institutional aspects of the
ILO as a whole to the analysis of actual decision-making processes within
the organization. This trend was clearly influenced by new research
within the field of international relations theory. There, the study of
the formal arrangements of international organizations (constitutional
texts, organization structures, etc.) was gradually abandoned for the
analysis of patterns of influence shaping organizational outcomes.53
Scholars opened up the ‘‘black box’’ of the ILO and focused explicitly on
particular problems and issues such as leadership and the role of the ILO
Director-General,54 the international supervision of international labour
48. B.W. Schaper, Albert Thomas. Dertig jaar sociaal reformisme (Leiden, 1953) [trans. in
French as Albert Thomas. Trente ans de réformisme social (Paris [etc.], 1959)].
49. A. Thomas, International Social Policy (Geneva, 1948), composed of passages of Thomas’s
speeches, reports, and articles; by the French ILO official and Thomas’s personal friend, Marius
Viple, Albert Thomas vivant. Un grand citoyen du monde (Genève, 1957).
50. E.g. A.M. Allen, Sophy Sanger: A Pioneer in Internationalism (Glasgow, 1958); A. Knepper,
John Gilbert Winant and International Social Justice (unpublished doctoral dissertation, New
York University, 1963); B. Bellush, He Walked Alone: A Biography of John Gilbert Winant (The
Hague, 1968); B. Georges and D. Tintant, Léon Jouhaux. Cinquante ans de syndicalisme (Paris,
1962); B. Georges, D. Tintant, and M.-A. Renauld, Léon Jouhaux dans le mouvement syndical
français (Paris, 1979).
51. B. Béguin, The ILO and the Tripartite System (New York, 1959); A. Salah-Bey,
L’Organisation internationale du Travail et le syndicalisme mondial (1945–1960) (Ambilly
[etc.], 1963); J.P. Windmuller, ‘‘Soviet Employers in the ILO: the Experience of the 1930s’’,
IRSH, 6 (1961), pp. 353–374.
52. E.g. J.W. Follows, Antecedents of the International Labour Organization (Oxford, 1951);
P.D. Moynihan, ‘‘The United States and the International Labor Organization 1889–1934’’
(unpublished doctoral dissertation, Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, 1960); idem, ‘‘The
Washington Conference of the International Labor Organization’’, Labor History, 3 (1962),
pp. 307–334; V. Coussirat-Coustère, Les origines et la naissance de l’Organisation internationale
du Travail (Paris, 1970).
53. F. Kratochwil and J. Ruggie, ‘‘International Organization: A State of the Art on an Art of
the State’’, International Organization, 40 (1986), p. 755.
54. J.S. Gillespie, The Role of the Director in the Development of the International Labour
Organization (New York, 1956).
standards,55 the formation and functioning of the group system,56 and

bureaucratic policies.57 Particularly relevant in this period were two
studies on ILO decision-making by Ernst Haas and Robert Cox.
In Beyond the Nation-State Ernst Haas applied a neo-functionalist
organization theory to the functioning and outcomes of the ILO. Neo-
functionalists assigned a major role to international organizations and the
role of international technocrats, not simply as passive recipients of new
tasks and authority but as active agents of task expansion. They were
given this role as a consequence of the failure of national states to solve
substantive problems ‘‘beyond the nation-state’’. With an historical
overview since 1919, Haas shows the ILO as a species of institutionalized
interest politics resulting from an interaction of organizational dynamics
and typical actor concerns.58
A few years later, in 1973, Robert Cox also explained the ILO’s
evolution by changes in its environment, notably world politics setting
the framework for (non-)action. Cox applied a ‘‘taxonomical’’ approach
by analysing the ILO as a political system, divided into sub-systems, and
developing a framework of analysis by using four variables: environ-
ment, actors, patterns of influence, and structure. Subscribing to the
realist school in international relations, Cox believed that the interests
of the main political powers in world politics were the most crucial
determinants of the ILO’s autonomy. He concluded that the ILO was a
‘‘limited monarchy’’, identifying the ILO as an organization of ‘‘low
politics’’ (in contrast to ‘‘high politics’’ organizations such as the IMF and
GATT), but with considerable autonomy from the member-states and a
strong leadership.59
What Haas and Cox have in common is that they cut the ILO open
and dissected its anatomy in order to unravel decision-making patterns
and, ultimately, to determine institutional autonomy. Although their
theoretical frameworks can be criticized substantially – because of positivist
55. E.A. Landy, The Effectiveness of International Supervision: Thirty Years of ILO Experience
(London [etc.], 1966); idem, ‘‘The Effectiveness of International Labour Standards: Possibilities
and Performance’’, ILR, 101 (1970), pp. 555–604.
56. T. Landelius, Workers, Employers and Governments: A Comparative Study of
Delegations and Groups at the International Labour Conference, 1919–1964 (Stockholm, 1965);
A. Suviranta, The Role of the Member State in the Unification Work of the International Labour
Organization (Helsinki, 1966).
57. N.F. Dufty, ‘‘Organizational Growth and Goal Structure: The Case of the ILO’’,
International Organization, 26 (1972), pp. 479–498.
58. E. Haas, Beyond the Nation-State: Functionalism and International Organization
(Stanford, CA, 1964).
59. R. Cox, ‘‘ILO: Limited Monarchy’’, in R. Cox, H. Jacobson, and G. Curzon (eds), The
Anatomy of Influence: Decision Making in International Organization (New Haven, CT [etc.],
1973), pp. 102–138.
determinism – these studies are still very valuable for their massive
empirical research. A remarkable detail is that the studies of both Haas
and Cox have been completely overlooked by the ILO itself. The
International Labour Review, for instance, has never devoted a single
book review to one of these academic studies. In Cox’s case, this is not
surprising, since he left the ILO, as the Director of the International
Institute for Labour Studies, after a dispute with the organization and the
then Director-General, Wilfred Jenks, on the autonomy of the Institute
and its publications.
Overall, all these new directions in ILO research were evoked by the
observation of increasing discrepancies between the original constitu-
tional designs and daily organizational practices, in a context of political
tensions during the Cold War. This was also the general environment that
led to a growing research interest in the power and prestige of individual
states within international organizations. It will come as no surprise
that, against the background of the Cold War, the United States60 and
the USSR61 especially were popular research topics. Although these
were definitely not the member-states that scored highly in terms of
compliance in national legislation with international labour standards, the
peculiar relationships between Washington and Moscow as well as with
international organizations such as the ILO were interesting cases for
historical analysis. The multitude of this kind of literature explains the
still predominantly North-Atlantic bias in this period.
The slowly growing scholarly attention towards the non-Western
world could not overcome this. A wave of decolonization that led to a
massive increase in ILO membership during the 1950s and 1960s put new
issues on the ILO’s political agenda and consequently also on the agenda
of ILO researchers. A new line of research began concentrating on the
impact on ILO work of developing countries’ membership with regard to
tripartism, decision-making organs, and the orientation and content of the
60. R. Hislop, The United States and the Soviet Union in the ILO (Ann Arbor, MI, 1961);
Moynihan, ‘‘The United States and the ILO’’; J. Tipton, Participation of the United States
in the ILO (University of Illinois, Institute of Labor and Industrial Relations, 1959);
J. Johnson e.a., ‘‘The US and the ILO’’, Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social
Sciences, 310 (1957), pp. 182–195; A. French, A Problem of International Cooperation: A Study
of the Evolution of the ILO with Particular Reference to US Participation (Yale University,
1954).
61. C. Osakwe, The Participation of the Soviet Union in Universal International Organiza-
tions: A Political and Legal Analysis of Soviet Strategies and Aspirations inside the ILO,
UNESCO and WHO (Leiden, 1972); M. Downs, Study of Soviet Participation in the ILO with
Emphasis on the Period 1960–1964 (Notre Dame University, IN, 1971); Hislop, United States
and the Soviet Union in the ILO; H. Jacobson, ‘‘The USSR and the ILO’’, International
Organization, 14 (1960), pp. 402–428; K. Tidmarsh, The Soviet Union and the ILO (Oxford,
1957).
ILO’s work. Against the background of a growing North–South divide,

parallel to the traditional East–West conflict in the heyday of the Cold
War, there was a growing interest in the role of the ILO in the broad
multilateral effort to establish universal human rights. The focus was,
of course, on rights at work, including the formulation of several
major standards (on freedom of association, social security, and non-
discrimination).62 At the core of the debate was the supposed dichotomy
between universalism and diversity, or the problems of reconciling a wide
international membership with the specific needs for the regions (Latin
America, Asia, and Africa).63 An important protagonist of this strand in
the literature was Wilfred Jenks. As a leading official and the Director-
General of the ILO between 1970 and 1973 he was directly concerned
with these problems.64
Within this cluster of literature, the issue of technical cooperation
received specific attention. This third pillar of the main activities of the
ILO, which was developed after World War II in parallel with standard-
setting and international expertise, was conceived as an instrument of
development aid.65 But in comparison to the standard-setting tasks and
legal procedures of the ILO, technical cooperation was seriously under-
researched in this period. The purely legal literature still set the tone.66
The International Labour Review, for instance, published a series of
articles on the compliance of national legislation in the member-states
with international labour standards.67
62. E.g. W.P. Gormley, ‘‘The Emerging Protection of Human Rights by the International
Labour Organization’’, Albany Law Review, 30 (1966), pp. 13–51; E. Haas, Human Rights and
International Action: The Case of Freedom of Association (Stanford, CA, 1970).
63. J. Monat, L’Organisation internationale du Travail et le régionalisme (unpublished doctoral
dissertation, University of Lyon, 1955); P.F. Gonidec, ‘‘L’OIT et l’Afrique Noire. Universalisme
et régionalisme’’, Recueil Penant, 70 (1960), 679, pp. 273–290.
64. C.W. Jenks, Human Rights and International Labour Standards (London [etc.], 1960);
idem, Human Rights, Social Justice and Peace: The Broader Significance of the ILO Experience
(Symposium on the International Protection of Human Rights, Norwegian Nobel Institute,
1967); idem, ‘‘Universality and Ideology in the ILO’’, Annals of International Studies, 1 (1970),
pp. 45–64.
65. J. Chapelle, La collaboration de l’Organisation internationale du Travail et des Nations
Unies en matière d’assistance technique (unpublished master’s thesis, Liège University, 1956);
J. Rens, ‘‘The ILO and International Technical Cooperation’’, ILR, 83 (1961), pp. 413–435;
N.F. Dufty, ‘‘Technical Assistance and the ILO’’, Journal of Industrial Relations, 9 (1967),
pp. 245–257; J. Rens, Le programme andin. Contribution de l0 OIT a un projet-pilote de
coopération technique multilatérale (Brussels, 1987).
66. L.-E. Troclet, Législation sociale internationale (préface de Georges Scelle) (Brussels, 1952);
E. Vogel-Polsky, Du tripartisme à l’Organisation internationale du Travail (Brussels, 1966);
Dahl, ‘‘Role of ILO Standards’’, pp. 309–351; N. Valticos, Droit international du travail
(Paris, 1970).
67. These are only a few examples to illustrate the format (for more case studies per country,
see the ILR): G.A. Johnston, ‘‘The Influence of International Labour Standards on Legislation
FROM THE MID 1970S UNTIL THE END OF THE COLD

WA R : P O L I T I C I Z AT I O N A N D S TA G N AT I O N
The 1970s were a decade of strong politicization and weakened autonomy
of the ILO as a consequence of the deepening polarization during the
Cold War in combination with quick changes in Directors-General. In
1977 the US withdrew from the ILO for a number of interconnected
reasons, denouncing the ‘‘erosion of tripartism’’ and the selective concern
of the ILO for human rights. The immediate cause was the condemnation
of Israel on the grounds of racial discrimination and violation of trade-
union rights in the occupied territories and the admission of the Palestine
Liberation Organization (PLO) as an observer at the International
Labour Conference. The ILO suffered after the US withdrawal as it saw
its budget severely reduced.
In the 1980s the Keynesian model was replaced by the so-called
neo-liberal ‘‘Washington consensus’’: instruments of social dialogue
were questioned and social security and welfare expenditures were cut in
a phase of liberalization and deregulation of the dominating global
economy. In this context the ILO lost ground. It could not play a very
active role because of the political divisions among its members. Not
only the East–West division, but also the North–South conflict paralysed
the ILO. This is clearly reflected in the state of historical research,
characterized by a general disinterest in the organization’s role in world
society. Some reference works were published, but they were generally
characterized by a ‘‘return’’ to the institutional format of the earlier
days.68
Robert Cox’s Labor and Hegemony, published in 1977, the year the US
withdrew from the ILO, was much more analytical and critical. Cox had
left the realist school in international relations by then and shifted to a
neo-Gramscian approach. He participated in the so-called ‘‘American
hegemony debate’’ by explaining international organizations in terms
of hegemonic power relations. As such, Cox defined the ILO as an
and Practice in the United Kingdom’’, ILR, 97 (1968), pp. 465–487; V. Ayissi Mvodo and R. Le
Faou, ‘‘The Influence of International Labour Standards on the Legislation of Cameroon’’, ILR,
108 (1973), pp. 163–185.
68. V.-Y. Ghebali, Organisation internationale et guerre mondiale: le cas de la Société des
Nations et de l’Organisation internationale du Travail pendant la seconde guerre mondiale
(unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Grenoble, 1975); M. Tortora, Institution
spécialisée et organisation mondiale: étude des relations de l’OIT avec la SDN et l’ONU
(Brussels, 1980); A.K. Tikriti, Tripartism and the International Labour Organization: A Study
of the Legal Concept, its Origins, Function and Evolution in the Law of Nations (Stockholm,
1982); E. Osieke, Constitutional Law and Practice in the International Labour Organization
(Dordrecht [etc.], 1985); V.-Y. Ghebali, The International Labour Organization: A Case Study
on the Evolution of UN Specialised Agencies (Dordrecht, 1989).
international vehicle through which global power in production relations

could be enhanced.69
Self-evidently the US withdrawal in 1977 and its re-entry in 1981 gave rise
to a remarkable flood of literature.70 At the same time, there was also a
renewed attention towards the American participation in the ILO in earlier
decades.71 Relations with other member-states were a classic topic for
research, fairly descriptive and along the lines of traditional institutional
history.72 On the side of non-governmental actors, women and employers
began to be explored as separate subjects of analysis. For instance, the ILO
convention of 1951 on equal pay for men and women was at stake in the ever
ongoing debate on the special protection and equal treatment of women by
the ILO.73 There was less debate on the role of employers in the ILO that
has been poorly researched in comparison to that of the trade unions,. The
few studies that came out were written by employers and were therefore
rather personal reflections than in-depth historical analyses.74
S I N C E T H E 1 9 9 0 S : T O WA R D S A ‘‘ G L O B A L’’ I L O H I S T O RY ?
There has been a renewed lively research interest in diverse aspects of
the ILO since the 1990s. I see two reasons for this. Firstly, after the end
69. R. Cox, ‘‘Labor and Hegemony’’, International Organization, 31 (1977), pp. 385–424.
70. M. Imber, The USA, ILO, UNESCO and IAEA: Politization and Withdrawal in
the Specialized Agencies (London, 1989); S. Schlossberg, ‘‘United States’ Participation in
the International Labour Organization: Redefining the Role’’, Comparative Labor Law
Journal (Philadelphia), 11 (1989), pp. 48–80; M. Senn, Retrait des Etats-Unis de l’OIT et leur
retour au sein de l’organisation: motifs et consequences (unpublished thesis, Hochschule fur
Wirtschafts- und Sozialwissenschaften, St Gallen, 1986); W. Galenson, The International Labor
Organization: An American View (Madison, WI, 1981); J. Joyce, ‘‘Will the USA Quit the
ILO?’’, Contemporary Review, 228 (1976), pp. 169–174.
71. G. Ostrower, ‘‘The American Decision to Join the International Labor Organization’’,
Labor History, 16 (1975), pp. 495–504; G. Kruglak, Politics of United States Decision Making in
United Nations Specialized Agencies: The Case of the ILO (Washington DC, 1980) about
American decision-making and ILO policy-formation between 1954 and 1971.
72. V.-Y. Ghebali, La France en guerre et les organisations internationales, 1939–1945 (Paris,
1969); E. Harari, The Politics of Labor Legislation in Japan: National-International Interaction
(Berkeley, CA, 1973); V.D. Pedersen, Danmark og De internationale arbejdskonventioner
(Arhus, 1974); Sverige och ILO, 1927–1977 (Stockholm, 1977); J. Mainwaring, International
Labour Organization: A Canadian View (Ottawa, 1986); F. Blanchard, ‘‘La Belgique, les Belges
et l’O.I.T.’’, in P. Van der Vorst (ed.), Cent ans de droit social belge (Brussels, 1988), pp. 857–881;
F. de Felice, Sapere e Politica. L0 Organizzazione Internazionale di Lavoro tra le due Guerre
1919–1939 (Milan, 1988).
73. M. Budiner, Droit de la femme à l’égalité de salaire et la convention nr. 100 de
l’Organisation internationale du Travail (Paris, 1975).
74. P. Waline, Un patron au Bureau International du Travail (Paris, 1976); P. Dimitrijevic,
L’Organisation internationale du Travail. Histoire de la représentation patronale (Geneva,
1972).
of the Cold War and in a new era of globalization nation-states began

taking more interest in international policy coordination by multilateral
structures. At the same time, the important changes in international
society and the global political order revitalized the role of international
organizations. These circumstances stimulated the interest of academics in
international organizations, given the debate in the literature on the ILO
and the social dimension of globalization, the role of international labour
standards in the world trade regime, and the creation of core labour
standards – these are only a few of today’s hot topics.75
Secondly, growing research interest in the ILO was also a consequence of
the transnationalization of labour history as a field of study. For a long time
in the twentieth century labour historians did not look much further than
national frames of reference, not paying much explicit attention to inter-
national connections, comparisons, and communities. In this scenario they
tended to overlook the role of international organizations such as the ILO.
But the recent trend towards globalization and the increasing importance of
transnational organizations and multinational enterprises broadened labour
historians’ scope to a transnational or global research level. Studying an
organization that was explicitly created to transnationally regulate labour
standards and relations automatically opens up the national frameworks of
analysis that have traditionally been predominant. The result has been a
remarkable boost in the literature. ILO history is now studied from dif-
ferent disciplines and with a wide variety of perspectives and themes related
to its long history: for instance women’s rights and, more broadly, gender
from a constructivist approach,76 decolonization, human rights, indigenous
and forced labour,77 the role of epistemic communities, intellectuals and
75. The literature is huge – here is just one example that also provides a good historical
perspective (and is written by an author from the South): M. Nieves Roldan-Confesor, ‘‘Labour
Relations and the ILO Core Labour Standards’’, in M. van der Linden and T. Koh (eds), Labour
Relations in Asia and Europe (Singapore, 2000), pp. 19–52.
76. E.g. B. Reinalda and N. Verhaaren, Vrouwenbeweging en internationale organisaties
1868–1986: een vergeten hoofdstuk uit de geschiedenis van de internationale betrekkingen (De
Knipe, 1989); C. Riegelman Lubin and A. Winslow, Social Justice for Women: The International
Labor Organization and Women (Durham, NC, 1990); S. Whitworth, ‘‘Gender, International
Relations and the Case of the ILO’’, Review of International Studies, 20 (1994), pp. 389–405; N.
Berkovitch, From Motherhood to Citizenship: Women’s Rights and International Organizations
(Baltimore, MD, 1999); E. Prügl, The Global Construction of Gender: Home-Based Work in the
Political Economy of the 20th Century (New York, 1999).
77. V. Leary, ‘‘Lessons from the Experience of the International Labour Organization’’, in
P. Alston (ed.), The United Nations and Human Rights: A Critical Appraisal (Oxford, 1992),
pp. 580–620; H.G. Bartolomei de la Cruz, G. Von Potobsky, and L. Swepston, The International
Labor Organization: The International Standards System and Basic Human Rights (Boulder, CO,
1996); L. Rodriguez-Piñero, Indigenous Peoples, Postcolonialism, and International Law: The
ILO Regime (1919–1989) (Oxford, 2005); D. Maul, Menschenrechte, Sozialpolitik und
Dekolonisation. Die Internationale Arbeitsorganisation 1940–1970 (Essen, 2007); idem, ‘‘The
international expertise,78 social security and the construction of welfare state

regimes,79 child labour,80 and transnational networks of non-governmental
actors and interest group processes,81 in many cases looking back to the
ideological and political origins82 and the early phases (the interwar period
for instance) of ILO history.83
In order to understand the impact on nation-states of the interplay
between state and non-state actors on the international level, some studies
have focused on the relations between the ILO and one of its member
countries. After all, the ILO is no supranational parliament totally
International Labour Organization and the Struggle against Forced Labour from 1919 to the
Present’’, Labor History, 48 (2007), pp. 477–500; S. Kott, ‘‘Arbeit. Ein transnationales Objekt?
Die Frage der Zwangsarbeit im ‘Jahrzehnt der Menschenrechte’’’, in C. Benninghaus et al. (eds),
Unterwegs in Europa. Beiträge zu einer pluralen europäischen Geschichte (Frankfurt, 2008,
forthcoming).
78. E.g. A. Endres and G. Fleming, International Organizations and the Analysis of Economic
Policy, 1919–1950 (Cambridge, 2002); Van Daele, ‘‘Engineering Social Peace’’, pp. 435–466;
S. Kott, ‘‘Une ‘communauté épistémique’ du social? Experts de l’OIT et internationalisation des
politiques sociales dans l’entre-deux-guerres’’, Genèses. Sciences sociales et histoire, 71 (2008),
pp. 26–46.
79. D. Strang and P. Chang, ‘‘The International Labor Organization and the Welfare State:
Institutional Effects on National Welfare Spending’’, International Organization, 47 (1993), pp.
235–262; C. Guinand, Die Internationale Arbeitsorganisation (ILO) und die soziale Sicherheit
in Europa (1942–1969) (Berne, 2003); I. Liebeskind, L’Organisation internationale du Travail
face au chômage: compétences normatives et contribution à l’évolution de la pensée économique,
1919–1939 (unpublished doctoral dissertation, Geneva University, 2005); D. Maul, ‘‘Der
transnationale Blick. Die Internationale Arbeitsorganisation und die sozialpolitischen Krisen
Europas im 20. Jahrhundert’’, Archiv für Sozialgeschichte, 47 (2007), pp. 349–369.
80. M. Dahlén, The Negotiable Child: The ILO Child Labour Campaign 1919–1973 (Uppsala,
2007).
81. E. Lorenz, Defining Global Justice: The History of US International Labor Standards Policy
(Notre Dame, IN, 2001).
82. Van Daele, ‘‘Engineering Social Peace’’; R. Tosstorff, ‘‘The International Trade-Union
Movement and the Founding of the International Labour Organization’’, IRSH, 50 (2005), pp.
399–433; M. Rodriguez Garcia, ‘‘Early Views on Internationalism: Marxist Socialists versus
Liberals’’, Labour Internationalism: Different Times, Different Faces (special issue Revue belge
de Philologie et d’Histoire), 84 (2006), pp. 1049–1073.
83. L. Heerma van Voss, ‘‘The International Federation of Trade Unions and the Attempt to
Maintain the Eight-Hour Working Day (1919–1929)’’, in F. van Holthoon and M. van der
Linden (eds), Internationalism in the Labour Movement, 1830–1940 (Leiden, 1988), pp.
518–542; S. Grabherr, Das Washingtoner Arbeitszeitübereinkommen von 1919. Versuch einer
internationalen Regelung der Arbeitszeit in Europa (Berlin, 1992); J. Heitmann, ‘‘The ILO and
the Regulation of White Lead in Britain during the Interwar Years: An Examination of
International and National Campaigns in Occupational Health’’, Labour History Review, 69
(2004), pp. 267–284; T. Cayet, Organiser le travail, organiser le monde. Etude d’un milieu
international d’organisateurs-rationalisateurs durant l’entre-deux-guerres (unpublished
doctoral dissertation, European University Institute, 2005); P.-A. Rosenthal, ‘‘Géopolitique et
Etat-providence. Le BIT et la politique mondiale des migrations dans l’entre-deux-guerres’’,
Annales HSS, 61 (2006), pp. 99–134.
independent from the nation-states. National governments finance the

activities of the ILO and are supposed to implement its international
labour standards. A few external researchers, often financed by their
national governments, took the occasion of the ILO’s seventy-fifth
anniversary in 1994 to undertake national case studies of the ILO from a
historical perspective.84 What these studies have in common is that they
are mainly based on national archives. By not systematically exploring the
international archives in Geneva they do not unravel the complexity of
the context of the ILO as an international organization. Other studies
have tried to overcome these shortcomings. They consider nation-states
not as dominant units in world politics, but use national case studies for
the analysis of the development and the real impact of the ILO as creator
or disseminator of ideas and policies.85
Drawing general conclusions based on all these studies would do harm to
this wide range of multifaceted scholarship, but if there is one common
thread that can be detected, then it is the broader contextual frame of
reference in which the ILO is analysed. The deterministic and structuralist
approach of political scientists in the 1960s and 1970s, who studied the ILO
as a rather closed political system that left no room for agency and social
change, was abandoned. In recent research the ILO is no longer solely
regarded as a decision-making arena for nation-states, but rather as a
potentially dynamic intellectual actor where long-term social change is or
could be effected: in other words, as an international organization for the
conceptualization, diffusion, and transmission of ideas and policies on labour
issues in a broader transnational network of diverse actors, governmental and
non-governmental, policy-makers, technical experts, and interest groups
acting beyond the nation-state.
The wide variety of subjects, as well as the perspective of the ILO as
creator or disseminator of ideas and policies, were clearly reflected in the
‘‘ILO: Past and Present’’ conference, organized in Brussels in October 2007.
84. K. Ewing, Britain and the ILO (London, 1994); H. Heldal, Norge i ILO 1919–1939:
Norske statsmyndigheters, arbeidsgiveres og fagforeningers holdning til den internasjonale
arbeidsorganisasjon (Oslo, 1994); a summary in English appeared as H. Heldal, ‘‘Norway in the
International Labour Organization, 1919–1939’’, Scandinavian Journal of History, 21 (1996),
pp. 255–283; J. Cuesta Bustillo, Una esperanza para los trabajadores. Las relaciones entre
España y la Organización Internacional del Trabajo (1919–1939) (Madrid, 1994).
85. S. Hughes, New Zealand and the ILO: Current Debates and Future Direction (Auckland,
1995); K. Boonstra, The International Labour Organization and the Netherlands: Different
Views concerning Government Influence on the Relationship between Workers and Employers
(Leiden, 1996); M. Ruotsila, ‘‘The Great Charter for the Liberty of the Workingman: Labour,
Liberals and the Creation of the ILO’’, Labour History Review, 67 (2002), pp. 29–47; J. Van
Daele, ‘‘Engineering Social Peace: The ILO as a Laboratory for the Transnational Transfer of
Ideas and the Influence on Social Politics in Belgium 1919–1944’’ (in Dutch) (unpublished
doctoral dissertation, Ghent University, Department of Contemporary History, 2007).
This was the first international academic forum ever organized that was
entirely devoted to ILO history. The ILO’s origins and past and present
achievements, failures, objectives, and future potential were assessed from a
multidisciplinary perspective, albeit largely dominated by social historians.
The papers presented at the conference both revisited old terrains (for
instance the role of the socialist International Federation of Trade Unions,
World War II, the economic depression and unemployment, and the role of
the ILO’s Directors-General) and provided new facts on ILO history (for
instance on the ILO’s response to political authoritarianism in Latin America
and eastern Europe). Other papers dealt with topics as varied as metropolitan
and non-metropolitan labour, decolonization, child labour, and explored
issues that have often been neglected in traditional ILO literature: for
instance, the efforts of internationally organized women and of intellectual
workers to find a place within the ILO.86 The broad scope of the conference
also made it possible to evaluate the ILO’s challenges from the global poli-
tical economy of the last decades. Jeffrey Harrod, for example, critically
assessed the ILO’s tripartite model of labour relations that, dating back to
1919, has only represented the formal trade-union organizations and leaves
no room for the growing informal sector. However, despite the wide variety
of topics, the Brussels conference suffered from the same old shortcomings.
Except for two contributions on Latin America and a few others on non-
metropolitan labour, welfare reform in the South, and the already mentioned
informal sector, the majority of the contributions focused entirely on the
industrialized world. Unfortunately, one has thus to conclude that ILO
history is still not ‘‘global history’’.
It is clear from this overview that academic and, more specifically,
historical scholarship has taken over the leading role from the ‘‘insider’’
literature of the early decades. This does not mean that historical studies
produced by the ILO itself have completely disappeared. The seventy-fifth
anniversary in 1994 was once more an occasion to look at the organization’s
past,87 including some good reviews of the Declaration of Philadelphia in
1944.88
86. See also M. Rodriguez Garcia, ‘‘Conference Report ‘The International Labor Organization:
Past and Present’’’, International Labor and Working-Class History, (2008) (forthcoming).
A book with a selection of the papers is under preparation for publication in 2009.
87. ‘‘75th anniversary issue’’, ILR, 133 (1994), pp. 431–522; Visions of the Future of Social
Justice: Essays on the Occasion of the ILO’s 75th Anniversary (Geneva, 1994); ‘‘International
Labor Organization’s 75th Anniversary’’, Monthly Labor Review, 117:9 (1994), pp. 3–58;
B. Brett, International Labour in the 21st Century: The International Labour Organization,
Monument to the Past or Beacon for the Future? (London, 1994).
88. E. Lee, ‘‘The Declaration of Philadelphia: Retrospect and Prospect’’, ILR, 133 (1994),
pp. 467–484; J.D. French, ‘‘The Declaration of Philadelphia and the Global Social Charter
of the United Nations, 1944/45’’, in Sengenberger and Campbell, International Labour
Standards, pp. 19–27.
LONG-TERM SHIFTS AND FUTURE CHALLENGES

ILO history as a field of study has had its ups and downs over the past
ninety years. Different shifts and general characteristics help to explain
the current state of the field. Firstly, the relationship between ‘‘inside’’ and
‘‘outside’’ literature on ILO history has changed significantly over the
course of time. Originally, ILO staff paved the way, which resulted in
the classical institutional history, an official account of organizational
development and a summing-up of the major working fields, often for
commemorative purposes. Legal scholars and political scientists gradually
took over for a long period, before professional historians came into
the picture, stimulated by a trend towards a more academic (since the
1950s and 1960s) and globalizing labour history (since the 1990s). This
professionalization in ILO history broadened as well as deepened ILO
historiography. The focus shifted away from the ‘‘architecture’’ of the
ILO and its procedures towards the broader transnational context and the
networks of actors in which the ILO was functioning.
Consequently the gap between in-house and scholarly attention to
the ILO has widened over the course of time. This is a second
shift. Whereas in the early decades it was not at all unusual that books
written on the ILO by academics were prefaced by the ILO’s Director,
the ILO’s knowledge of its own past (as well as knowledge of academic
developments regarding the history of the ILO) has become gradually
limited in more recent decades. The classic studies of Ernst Haas
and Robert Cox exemplify this evolution. Bridging the gap between
in-house and academic attention towards the ILO is therefore a real
challenge for the recently launched ILO Century Project, involving
both ILO staff and academic scholars.89 Not surprisingly, this project also
has a strong commemorative dimension, looking forward to the centenary
in 2019. A first stage in this project will commemorate the ninetieth
anniversary in 2009, focusing on the impact of ILO ideas on social
development.
Scientific research into an international organization such as the ILO
cannot be undertaken in a vacuum, but has to take into account the
international context at the time. Thirdly, the assumption that ‘‘the fate of
the field reflects the fate of the world’’ is, in the case of the ILO, certainly
true for the period up to World War II (an explosion of work after 1919,
followed by a period of more cautious reassessment approaching the
1930s) and for recent decades, but definitely not for the postwar period
until the late 1960s. The heyday of the Cold War, in an international
context of East–West tension, stimulated a more critical and analytical
approach to research on the ILO.
89. For more information on this project see http://www.ilocentury.org.

The fourth conclusion is that ILO historiography suffers from ‘‘geo-

graphical narrowness’’. Although the ILO is an international organization
that explicitly aims to promote minimum labour standards worldwide,
ILO historiography has been, until now, largely dominated by scholars
from the the North Atlantic and the developed world. This is, of course,
no coincidence. Between the two world wars, the ILO was largely
dominated by European countries and in this period the literature definitely
is a reflection of this ‘‘old boys’ network’’ of European founding fathers.
While a lot of attention was paid to the United States and the Soviet
Union, related to the problems of universal membership and the case of
freedom of association in the context of the Cold War, there was for a
long time no comparable interest in the regions in the South, although the
ILO significantly expanded its membership to a large group of developing
countries after decolonization. India is to a certain extent an exception,
but here too, the field was largely dominated by people personally related
to the work and world of the ILO. Overall, the ILO’s role and regional
activities in the non-Western world still need a lot of further in-depth
research. Here the problem of the availability and accessibility of sources
comes into the picture. In my opinion, written sources, only to a certain
extent available in ILO regional offices, should be combined with oral
sources. In recent years, oral history has become popular for research into
the southern hemisphere, with the encouragement of the International
Institute of Social History, for example.
Turning to new research paths in ILO history, one topic could be an
investigation into the impact of ILO regional offices on the regions, as well
as on headquarters policy in Geneva. In South Africa this could be tested for
the case of apartheid, in which the ILO took on the protection of black
workers. South Africa was forced out of the ILO in 1963 after a period
of moves by African delegates to condemn the country for its ongoing
apartheid. In connection with this, an interesting enquiry could be into
what ways events within the ILO contributed to the UN launching the
convention on the elimination of racial discrimination in 1965. This leads
on to the question of relations between the ILO and other international
organizations, governmental as well as non-governmental, at the global level.
In this perspective, a history of the ILO and global migration, by integrating
the story of the International Migration Organization,90 would be a challenge
90. The International Organization for Migration was established in 1951 as the Provisional
Intergovernmental Committee for the Movement of Migrants from Europe (PICMME) to help
resettle displaced people in the chaos after World War II. Based in Geneva, it is now
the principal intergovernmental agency promoting the humane management of migration and
protecting migrants’ rights by international cooperation and facilitating and regulating inter-
national migration; M. Ducasse-Rogier, The International Organization for Migration
1951–2001 (Geneva, 2001).
for labour historians. And within the realm of development studies, a history
of the ILO and global development strategies in the long run opens up other
interesting research paths (e.g. from the ILO Andean programme of the
late 1940s through the World Employment Program in the early 1970s to
the recent Decent Work Agenda). In this case the emphasis would be on
technical cooperation, strongly under-researched in comparison with the
ILO as as a standard-setting organization.91
There are, of course, a lot of other missing pieces in the puzzle of ILO
history. Looking at the unequal treatment of the ILO tripartite constituents,
there is definitely an urgent need for in-depth academic research on the
employers’ side that has been far less studied than the role of trade unions. It
is significant that in recent years only one overview – rather a coffee-table
book on the institutional development of the International Organization of
Employers than a thorough historical analysis – was brought out by an old
President of the OIE.92 Consequently, it will come as no surprise that the
ILO and multinational corporations is a blank research field.
Within the broader network of transnational actors a lot has been said
about labour and to a lesser extent liberal internationalism. On the side of
Catholic social organizations, research on the ILO and the Christian
working class is far less popular.93 One reason is the dominance of the
socialist International Federation of Trade Unions in the ILO’s Workers’
Group in the first half of the twentieth century. In this light it would be
interesting to know more about the (development of the) relationship
between the ILO and the Catholic Church, after all both universal-
international organizations. Formal relations with the Vatican were
established initially by the ILO’s first Director, Albert Thomas, in the
early 1920s.94 Of the ILO and other world religions (and the quite
powerful freemasonry in international circles) virtually nothing is known.
Given the evident problems with common sources, here again oral
history would be very helpful, as it would be for analysis of electoral
politics in the ILO (and international organizations in general). The
campaigns led by candidates running for Director-General, for instance,
91. J.M. Bonvin, L’Organisation internationale du Travail. Etude sur une agence productrice de
normes (Paris, 1998); K. Basu (ed.), International Labor Standards: History, Theory, and Policy
Options (Malden, MA, 2003).
92. J.J. Oechslin, The International Organization of Employers: Three-Quarters of a Century
in the Service of the Enterprise (1920–1998) (Geneva, 2001).
93. An exception is P. Pasture, Histoire du syndicalisme chrétien international. La difficile
recherche d’une troisième voie (Paris, 1999).
94. G. Thélin, ‘y Pratique la justice’. Le christianisme social et l’Organisation internationale du
Travail (Paris, 1939); A. Arnou, Organisation internationale du Travail et les catholiques (Paris,
1933); A. Le Roy, Catholicisme social et Organisation internationale du Travail (Paris, 1937),
trans. in English as A. Le Roy, Catholics and the International Labor Organization (New York,
1939).
leave practically no traces in the archives. It is here that memoirs

and (auto)biographies of (former) ILO officials and Directors-General
could be useful.95 The biographical genre especially offers an interesting
insight into organizations.96 Representatives of national governments,
trade-unionists, employers and – even more – officials in international
bureaucracy are very often represented as invisible and anonymous actors
promoting social change. Biographies give these actors a ‘‘human face’’ by
throwing light on the people struggling with their idea(l)s and minor
shortcomings within an international context. Albert Thomas has always
been a rewarding subject for biographers.97 Currently a biography on
David Morse, ILO Director-General between 1948 and 1970, is being
completed.98 Morse’s successor, Wilfred Jenks, is, however, still waiting
for an academic biographer. Although very briefly in charge (as Director-
General between 1970 and 1973), he had a life-long career in the ILO,
producing a long series of interesting writings, not only on the ILO but
with a much wider and theoretical perspective on international relations
that deserves more attention from historians and other researchers
interested in the history of the ILO.99
Overall, in writing the history of the ILO, it is crucial never to lose
sight of the organization’s main subject, working people themselves.
Ignoring in our research the basic question of what the ILO ultimately
meant for the working conditions and lives of millions of men, women,
and children worldwide results in a dry institutional historiography
devoid of its human link to the real world of work.
95. E.g. A.A. Agard Evans, My Life as an International Civil Servant in the International
Labour Organization (Geneva, 1995) (covers historical aspects of the ILO from 1929 to 1966);
M. Hansenne, Un garde-fou pour la mondialisation. Le BIT dans l’après-guerre froide
(Gerpinnes [etc.], 1999); F. Blanchard, L’Organisation internationale du Travail. De la guerre
froide à un nouvel ordre mondial (Paris, 2004).
96. J. Van Daele, Van Gent tot Genève. Louis Varlez. Een biografie (Ghent, 2002); Female
officials are, of course, even less the subject of research. Françoise Thébaud (University of
Avignon) is currently working on a biography of Marguerite Thibert, an ILO official in the
1920s as an expert on women’s labour.
97. Other than the already cited literature: M. Fine, ‘‘Albert Thomas: A Reformer’s Vision of
Modernization’’, Journal of Contemporary History, 12 (1977), pp. 545–564; D. Guerin, Albert
Thomas au BIT: de l’internationalisme à l’Europe (Geneva, 1996).
98. D. Maul, Modernization, Democracy and Social Justice in the American Century: The Life
of David A. Morse, 1907–1990 (in preparation).
99. E.g. C.W. Jenks, The World Beyond the Charter in Historical Perspective (London, 1969);
idem, Social Policy in a Changing World: The ILO Response (Geneva, 1976).

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IRSH 53 (2008), pp. 485–511 doi:10.

The International Labour Organization (ILO)

SUMMARY : This article addresses from a multidisciplinary perspective key questions,

Studying the history of the International Labour Organization (ILO) is

of decision-making. This combined structure of governmental and non-

globalizing trends in labour history, it is also inevitable to ask the question

THE SPECIFICITY OF ILO HISTORIOGRAPHY

4. W. Sengenberger and D. Campbell (eds), International Labour Standards and Economic

theoretical questions and frames of reference, and an historical approach

5. A. Thomas, ‘‘The International Labour Organization: Its Origins, Development and

Max Lazard8) and trade unions (Léon Jouhaux,9 Jan Oudegeest10),

8. Max Lazard (1875–1953), a French sociologist, unemployment expert, and delegate of

Not surprisingly the literature remained still very Europe-centred, as

ILO’s future effectiveness. In one of his earliest articles as Director of the

22. Thomas, ‘‘International Labour Organization’’, p. 5.

An important protagonist in the American campaign for ILO

adaptation to the postwar international system led to a revival in the

From an academic point of view, ILO historiography becomes more

On the one hand the stream of ‘‘self-promotion’’ continued, that is to

also no coincidence that several books and articles on the relations

Institute of International Studies, Geneva, 27 October 1969); idem, 1919–1969: 50 Years in

A typical example of this historical professionalization is the biography

standards,55 the formation and functioning of the group system,56 and

ILO’s work. Against the background of a growing North–South divide,

FROM THE MID 1970S UNTIL THE END OF THE COLD

international vehicle through which global power in production relations

of the Cold War and in a new era of globalization nation-states began

international expertise,78 social security and the construction of welfare state

independent from the nation-states. National governments finance the

LONG-TERM SHIFTS AND FUTURE CHALLENGES

89. For more information on this project see http://www.ilocentury.org.

The fourth conclusion is that ILO historiography suffers from ‘‘geo-

leave practically no traces in the archives. It is here that memoirs

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