Talk:Member states of the International Labour Organization

Sovereignty as a condition of membership
Nowhere in the cited sources was sovereignty mentioned as a condition of membership. The conditions were that the "State" be a member of the UN, or if not it has to be allowed in by other members (Membership requirements, p. 1). In fact, this section and the sources mentioned two counterexamples to that: Byelorussia and Ukraine were admitted with no issue by virtue of being UN member states despite not being "sovereign". Ghébali, Ago & Valticos 1989, p. 8: "...the ILO Constitution provided only for the admission of 'States', within the meaning generally attributed to the term in international law,...". Adding the word "sovereign" changes the meaning of the requirement considerably and is actually not supported by the sources cited. "Sovereign state" may very well be a reasonable interpretation for "state", but this interpretation is explicitly rejected by the very source cited in the article. DHN (talk) 15:48, 15 December 2022 (UTC)


 * Hi @DHN thanks for brining this to the talk page. There were three non-sovereign state entities admitted to the ILO, the two you mention plus Namibia.  All three are dicussed and the specific reasons how their membership occurred. Please read pp107-9 of Ghélbi et. al (it's available on Google Books, search term Danzig) and the mention of the Danzig precedent and Namibia's membership of the ILO. Ghélbi et. al details the Danzig precedent (which established ILO membership requring sovereign status) and gives the reasons for the three exceptions (the first two were already UN members, hence entitled to ILO membership, in Namibia's case it was treated as technically soverign). The quote you cite only reinforces my point - the general meaning attributed in international law to state, is a sovereign state. Regards, Goldsztajn (talk) 12:52, 16 December 2022 (UTC)
 * @Goldsztajn I did read the source you mentioned and nowhere did it mention the word "sovereignty". The implication of adding the word "sovereignty" - that the ILO went against its constitution to admit these members, is explicitly refuted by the source. All these were admitted in accordance with the constitution, as the source took pains to point out. I admit that the conditions are more nuanced than just requiring them being states, but adding the word "sovereign" just adds a condition that isn't there and muddies the matter even further. DHN (talk) 13:44, 16 December 2022 (UTC)
 * Hi @DHN - Ghélbali et. al (p.107) explicitly state that in admiting these states it was in contravention of the Danzig principle, but that political reality overrode the legal interpretation of the constitution ("whatever the legalities of the situation, there were eminently political reasons..."). Does this produce a contradictory outcome? Absolutely. Does that change the constitutional principle of membership for the ILO is state sovereignty? No. You can also have a look at Berhardt's (2014) Decisions of International Courts and Tribunals and International Arbitrations which has a detailed case note of the PCIJ's ruling; analysis of the majority opinion  (p.71) includes this: "the court considered the previous practice of Poland and Danzig to be decisive and found that the Free City was not completely free in the conduct of its own affairs (sovereignty)." Consider also pp.22-23, the section titled "The concept of state for the purposes of membership of the ILO", in Osieke's (1985) Constitutional Law and Practice in the International Labour Organization.  The sourcing overwhelmingly indicates that the ILO constitution has been interpreted to indicate that only sovereign states can be admitted. I've made some amendments to the paragraph and added further footnotes, let me know if these address your concerns. Regards, Goldsztajn (talk) 12:18, 19 December 2022 (UTC)
 * @Goldsztajn Thanks for the clarification. I agree that the interpretation for the constitution was that it applied to sovereign states due to the Danzig decision, but sovereignty was never explicitly mentioned in the charter.  DHN (talk) 18:43, 19 December 2022 (UTC)