[MUSIC] Hello, welcome back. In this video, we are going to consider the possible sanctions. What sanctions are available for the ILO. Jen Michelle, actually, it is very important to note that international labor law is a part of international public though, right? So I wanted to ask you whether it is very important to know the sanctions, which I will label for the ILO because quite often I have heard that ILO is referred to as a kind of toothless tiger. And I don't think that it's a nice phrase to describe the international organization. What do you think about? >> But I think it's good to have the question and it's good to think about the sanction and first more generally on International Public Law. Let us go to the UN Charter. There are three types of sanction in the UN Charter. First the military ones. I cannot imagine to send blue helmets to a country to impose the Feeder Association in connection with ILO convention 87. And we all know that even in the UN system military sanctions are not really very efficient not to speak about the human effects of it. Second, you have the economic sanction, boycott blockers and all that. Let us first say that even in my view even in the UN for the UN, it has not proved to be very efficient. We have example with recent example, Iran for example. What is the results? Not that the country is giving up but that the government and the people behind the government are saying no, we are treated unfairly and the government become stiffer. And it will be more difficult to have a dialogue with this kind of government. It's true also that there is a kind of indirect sanction, economic sanction, which are not saying the what economic. It's true that in facts the donors of the technical cooperation of the ILO may stop financing technical cooperation in some countries because of a violation of an important convention. They would not say it publicly but they will do it. In also we know that there will be a ball cut off some countries for those reason and in the case of Myanmar for example that the forced labor case in Myanmar recently. There was voices to say let us boycott the country. In fact, the country was boycotted to a large extent but there is a third category of sanction and for lawyers, they say no, that's nothing and it's much more that you can imagine. It's we could call them diplomatic or let's diplomatically say it's the mobilization of the shame, the publicity on the bad country and that works very much. I was referring in another model about the Libyan case and to convince the government of Libya Colonel Qaddafi and his government to do something to to open a dialogue with us. I say, okay, but it's either us and we are here as goodwill persons or you will be criticized publicly in international forum the one of the ILO. So the pressure is there and I can mention a number of cases where this pressure function and another case or the old case Great Britain time of Mrs. Thatcher. Mrs. Thatcher change the rules to calculate the unemployment a number of time. If I remember 33 times so there was they were treating with the basis of the statistic the ILO. The UK government has to explain to the ILO conference why they were acting like this and the case was solved of course. Even a very conservative government doesn't wish to appear trafficking statistics. So there is a number of cases nevertheless, nevertheless. Sanctions or I would say legal sanctions was this kind of sanction are relatively fragile. And that's why the government used the pressure mainly to induce a dialogue with the government. It means that the ILO supervisory body are not condemning a government like a tribunal. They are not tribunal. They know it but reduce a dialogue, to induce them to speak to discuss and in most cases to let some high-level civil servant or an expert or a professor or a judge to go from another country, to go to that country, and to discuss and to see how things could be changed. And with the knowledge of course of for example comparative labor law and you say well look in Russia. That was that is the provision and it works well apparently. Why not to adjust it to your own circumstances but to do it as well. >> Thank you very much. But what do you think about the use of the isle of the economic sanctions? Why it is so rarely used? So actually officially we know that it is the only once was used in the case of Myanmar. >> Even in the case of Myanmar. There was no way the official economic sanction. There was a kind of general refusal of such an attitude of a government, it was more or less unanimous. I would say. It was a little less in Asia, a little more in America's but there was a general refusal. I would say the economic sanction are back in another way and I would explain with two personal examples. The first I was in Bangkok and one day I receive a phone call for high official in the ministry of Labor of Indonesia saying well sir. We have a problem. I say yes. I imagine if you call me. However, we have a problem because we are for the time being part of the general system of preferences of the United Nations or the United States. That means that we have proof. We have some special time with to import out and but there is a in dead last relation, there is a provision saying that if we do not respect freedom of association, we will be out of the list and they are threatening us. Could you send an expert please to help us? It was a difficult situation, but nevertheless. I select my best expert in industrial relation, a Filipino and he went and he had just a registration. It took him some time up to three months of discussion, but it dented and Indonesia kept in the list in the good list. So that's the first time. Ten years laters I was there your regional director in Beirut and then I got the promotion. So it was the minister would call me and say Mr. Sevi we had a problem. I say well which kind of problem? We have a trade agreement with the United States, Jordan with the United States and there is a social clause and they consider that our freedom of association situation is not good enough. Could you send an expert please? So again we sent an export. I sent an expert there and you manage it. It was a little bit difficult because it was a women experts selected by some donors and in Jordan the relationship between men and women are a little bit more difficult. But finally it went well, so there is no direct economic sanction, but it will be used without the authorization of the ILO to a certain extent to threaten a government to be out of some economic advantages because they are violation of ILO standards. >> I see, thank you so much for these very bright examples. So I see that we have to evaluate efficiency in a very broad way because actually that way of implementing international labor standards varied greatly. Thank you so much. Please now can see it on the slide the main information discussed within this video and in the next video we are going to speak about the implementation difficulties. Please stay with us and see you soon.
