INTRODUCTION

I owe the honour of being here with you to share ideas about the future of the International Labour Organization (ILO)to the friendly and effective persuasion of Anne Trebilcock and Brian Langille. If I agreed to be associated with an editorial undertaking that goes far beyond my own person, it was for a reason that was also its own condition:

I saw an opportunity to be of some service to the ILO by stimulating a positive reflection on its future, inside and outside of the organization; this seemed all the more appropriate in a context that unfortunately gives us little cause for optimism: one where some of the essential elements of the multilateral system are being called into question, in a world where the lines are no longer clear.

Apart from the frustration that this subject seemed to have largely escaped the ILO’s centenary celebration, my willingness to accept stemmed above all from three feelings or convictions that I would like to share with you to launch the debate:

1. A DEBT OF GRATITUDE

I will quickly go over the reasons why I feel a real debt of gratitude towards this organisation. They are set out in more detail in the written version that will be made available. I would simply like to emphasise that these almost four decades have largely made me what I am, while offering me a triple opportunity.

I joined the ILO almost by accident due to a vacancy in the Cabinet of the then Director-General, David Morse, and I must confess that it was not out of deep convictions. My academic reading, and in particular that of E.B. Haas, had given me an image of the ILO that was very commendable, but far removed from the avant-garde prestige I attributed to the European organisations which were the subject of my doctoral thesis.

It was a former Polish ILO official, who was inconsolable at having been driven out of the lakeside paradise under pressure from his government at the peak of the cold war, who managed to somehow persuade me that nowhere else would I find such a “douceur de vivre”. I thought I'd give it a try for a year or two, and in the end I found myself associated with the organization’s destiny, as a civil servant and later at the Institute, practically from its fiftieth to its centenary years!

The first opportunity was to spend my apprenticeship years in contact with civil servants who had themselves joined the ILO in the hopeful and energetic days immediately after the war.

They were driven by convictions and an extraordinary energy, which Brian Urquhart and Stéphane Hessel captured well on the UN side. However, the ILO had its own specific characteristics, inherited from the pre-war period and passed on in particular by C. Wilfred Jenks. Foremost among these was the importance attached to the selection of young civil servants who would provide the backbone of the Organisation.

Jenks personally oversaw the recruitment of a number of officials who became unshakeable pillars of the ILO during the period of decolonization. This was the illustrious case of Nicolas Valticos, as well as that of Felice Morgenstern, to whom Klabbers rightly pays tribute in the book (p. 137), and who was a model of intellectual rigour and moral integrity; she would have deserved the tribute of this collection more than anyone else.

I was not personally exposed to the extraordinary intellectual bottle-feeding to which, according to the testimony of those concerned, Jenks subjected new recruits in order to prepare them, technically and morally, for their future responsibilities and to develop their esprit de corps.

What I can testify to from my own experience throughout the happy years I spent under the benevolent, generous and very wise guidance of Francis Wolf, who himself joined at a very young age after having fought in the ranks of the French Liberation Forces, is that the working environment remained deeply imbued with the humanist culture that had been part of their apprenticeship.

The second is to have had the opportunity and the honour of serving 5 Director Generals directly since David Morse. Cheating a little, I could even say half a dozen, because I did work a lot with Guy Ryder, but it wasn't in his capacity as DG and so, strictly speaking, he doesn't count.

The sequence had begun rather badly, since in the space of barely three months in the DG's Cabinet I had lived through Morse's resignation, and in a very direct way, since I was at his side when DG Wilfred Jenks died in Rome. I don't know whether this earned me the reputation of having the evil eye; the fact is that his successor, Francis Blanchard, who was a cautious man, quickly organised my transfer to the Legal Department when he took up the post.

And it was from the Legal Department that I eventually had the opportunity to work most closely with him and his successor DG Michel Hansenne.

This enabled me to appreciate the very special and even unique role that the DG plays (each in his own way but always in the wake of the first DG, Albert Thomas, and the tradition he established) in enabling the Organisation to remain relevant in the face of the radical changes in its environment over the century of its existence.

The third is having had the opportunity to work on my favourite subjects in the Legal Department, and later as Special Adviser to DG Juan Somavia. Jordi Agusti-Panareda, to whom this meeting owes so much, did me a great honour by analysing my contribution from the point of view of axiology (p. 55).

In truth however it revolved, more often than not, around what I call institutional engineering - not to say tinkering; what I mean by that is the exploration and optimisation of the potential of the Constitution and practice to respond to changing contexts and needs, and its adaptation by means of constitutional or regulatory amendments when it is not possible to do otherwise in the face of realities.

Five cases deserve particular mention from this point of view:

• The first was the adaptation of the constitution to the new realities of decolonisation, multiplied by those of the Cold War, through the adoption of the 1986 amendment to the constitution, which made it possible to get to the bottom of the problem (even if it was achieved at the price of some inevitable inconsistencies, and at the wrong moment (three years before the game changer of the fall of the Berlin Wall).
• The second, through the constitutional amendment of 1997, was to reinforce the status of the ILC as a genuine parliament and tripartite legislator by giving it the capacity to eliminate instruments that no longer served their purpose and raison d'être, notwithstanding the contractual links that might exist between parties to abrogated conventions and that had until then been considered inviolable.
• The third was to establish, on the basis of the commitments inherent in membership, a core of fundamental rights that must be respected by all members even when the corresponding conventions are not ratified, and thus ensure a minimum "level playing field" in the face of the emergence of a globalised economy that puts all systems of protection in competition and at risk. This was, of course, the basis for the 1998 Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work.
• The fourth task was, in the context of the complaint procedure initiated against Myanmar for violation of Convention 29, to try to show that the ILO “had teeth” and was even capable of taking a bite out of the implementation of Article 33, including by legitimising the use of economic and trade coercive measures in the face of the refusal of the Myanmar military regime to comply with the recommendations of the Commission of Inquiry. Alas, this was not enough to loosen the grip of a junta and an army of half a million soldiers on the population and the economy, as Richard Horsey (p. 291), who knows what he is talking about, recalls: while he was ensuring the ILO's risky presence on the ground to, among other things, enable the victims of forced labour to make their plight knownsince he was the target of anonymous threats to be cut into pieces.
• The fifth and last was to work on what became the 2008 Declaration on Social Justice for a Fair Globalization. Its broad purpose was to extend and complement the ‘98 Declaration by creating a global framework for periodic review of situations and progress among members in relation to the four objectives then defined as strategic. Unfortunately, the new horizons it opened up - including in terms of standards - have not, in my opinion, really been exploited or even seriously explored. The chronology suggests that its regulatory potential has suffered collateral damage from the priority given to the subcontracting activities of the ILO in connection with the implementation of the 2030 Agenda, in particular Sustainable Development Goal 8. Exploiting this potential could be the great task of the future, to give concrete and institutional expression to the will expressed by the DG.

In the end, my only regret is perhaps that I did not initiate an interpretation procedure, not by turning to the International Court of Justice (a bit too déjà vu!), but by setting up the Tribunal provided for in Article 37(2) of the Constitution, the absence of which has resulted in the impasse discussed by Désirée LeClercq (p. 204-213).

2. A CONVICTION:

IN THE RENEWED RELEVANCE OF THE ILO AND ITS REGULATORY POTENTIAL TO HELP CORRECT THE EROSION OF THE CREDIBILITY/SUSTAINABILITY OF THE MULTILATERAL SYSTEM

There is at least one observation that, although lines are blurred, seems to be fairly widely shared: the multilateral system and its credibility are in trouble. One of the most obvious manifestations of this state of affairs is the gap that has widened between promises and realities. The promises have been made emphatically and unanimously in what was remarkable example of the "common language of mankind": the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development (hereinafter the 2030 Agenda).

The realities are, inter alia, those of inequalities which are growing in a way that defy common sense, to say nothing of the sense of justice. The Secretary General of the UN himself has expressed alarm at the fact that this Agenda is "off track"; his deputy Amina Mohammed even went so far recently as to mention the urgency of rescuing it. 

It is true that this situation does not seem sustainable for at least two reasons:

• it undermines the legitimacy of the most established governments, which appear either ineffective or complicit;
• it undermines the credibility of the multilateral system as a whole, insofar as it is in complete contradiction with the expectations arising from one of the key objectives , which is to "combat inequalities within and between countries".

One cannot therefore rule out the possibility that this situation, as a result in particular of the growing and very unequal impact of the climate and environmental crisis, could one day give rise to "such great discontent that”, in the words of the ILO Constitution (taken from The Treaty of Versailles), "universal peace and harmony" would be threatened. This is why, in my view, recently elected DG Gilbert Houngbo was right to devote a great deal of attention to this issue in his campaign programme.

Actually, the ILO, whether it likes it or not, is a stakeholder in the erosion of the system's credibility by the very fact of its close association with the promises of the 2030 Agenda and their implementation. A number of contributions to the book - whether or not we agree with their analysis - bear witness to this, sometimes in very blunt terms.

In these circumstances, the challenge is not so much to convince public opinion and decision-makers of the merits of the cause of social justice; the risk is, on the contrary, to thus give the impression that they are not already bound by their acceptance of the ILO Constitution that has made this a shared commitment for over a century.

The real challenge - which is also an exceptional opportunity – is:

• to help identify the institutional roots of the disconnect between the multilateral system's proclaimed ambitions under the 2030 Agenda and the realities of persistent and worsening inequalities; and
• to reactivate/optimise its institutional comparative advantages in an attempt to remedy the situation.

Skipping a few stages in my reasoning, I would like to go to what seems to me the crux of the matter and the root cause of the hiatus: the multilateral system has not succeeded in tackling head-on, either methodologically or institutionally, the contemporary realities of global interdependence. This interdependence affects all areas of the economy, technology, health and now, most acutely, the environment and climate. The implementation of the objectives of the 2030 Agenda, in particular the fight against inequality cannot be really effective unless this reality is fully taken on board.

It is important to emphasise that the benefits and constraints arising from global interdependence are no longer chosen - as was once the case because of market openings - they just have to be faced. This is particularly obvious when it comes to the dissemination of technologies, the environment, the climate and epidemiology.

Quite on the contrary, the problem is that the 2030 Agenda is still marked by an approach that is essentially one of a juxtaposition, which prevails at three key levels: A) the goals to be achieved; B) the efforts expected of States to implement them; and finally C) the support that IGOs are supposed to provide to achieve them.

Yet the realities of interdependence now seem to require a change of perspective at all these levels.

2.1. GOALS:

From the fight against inequality to the acceptable sharing of the benefits and constraints of interdependence in sustainable development

What I would like to suggest first of all is that social justice, although it is not mentioned anywhere in the 2030 Agenda, is indeed at the heart of the issue of sustainable development, i.e. inherent to the very concept of sustainability. However, the challenge goes far beyond the gathering of a "coalition": it presupposes first a genuine paradigm shift; and as a result it requires the ILO to reactivate its role as universal tripartite legislator after having essentially played as subcontractor in the implementation of the 2030 Agenda.

i. A paradigmatic shift: from the fight against inequalities to the establishment of conditions suitable for an acceptable sharing of the benefits and burdens of sustainable development in a context of interdependence.

Let us return to the link between the erosion of the credibility of the multilateral system as a result of the growing gap between its proclaimed ambitions and the fact that, having already travelled more than halfway towards 2030, these ambitions are being denied by the growth of inequalities that defy common sense (even though the phenomenon goes hand in hand with a remarkable reduction (by half?) in global poverty).

The institutional root of this gap seems to lie essentially in the fact that, despite the assertion of the "integrated and indissociable" (p. 55) nature of the various goals, the fight against inequalities, is de facto treated as one goal among all the others (number 10). It is the subject of a series of more or less disjointed recommendations, including (10.3) that of "eliminating discriminatory policies and practices to ensure equality of opportunity and reduce inequality of outcomes".

Be that as it may, this approach to the goal, like the remedies proposed, do not go to the root of the problem I have tried to identify: making the distribution of the benefits and constraints of a global interdependence that is increasingly burdensome acceptable to all concerned. This is all the more obvious as the weight of these constraints, particularly in environmental matters, is likely to fall increasingly on the weakest, and there is no reason to think that they could continue to accept this ever-heavier burden indefinitely without reacting.

This problem cannot be treated as just one among others, as goal 10 seems to suggest. It is more fundamentally an issue of sustainability of the development process, which is precisely the subject of the present reflections.

According to Tonia Novitz, who has given the subject a great deal of thought, the success of this concept is undoubtedly due in large part to its ambiguity (p. 96).

She's probably right. The problem is that this ambiguity may contribute to hide the obvious: the twin requirements that seem intrinsic to the concept:

- Ecological compatibility: the aim is to ensure that the process of interdependent development, through the increasingly rapid positive and negative transformations that it generates (or that generate it) within and across borders, remains compatible with the preservation of nature, the environment and, in a word, life itself.

-Social acceptability: the aim is to ensure that both the benefits and the burdens - particularly in terms of the measures to be taken to protect the environment and the climate - are distributed in a way that makes the continuation of the process acceptable to all stakeholders.

There are various examples of measures designed to safeguard the environment, which have been the object of popular rejection in developed countries precisely because they appeared to weigh more heavily on the less affluent.

The condition for this acceptability thus boils down to ensuring fairness in the sharing of common benefits and constraints of this global interdependence; this is what social justice - as applied to the globalization phenomenon - is about.

It is all the more remarkable, against this background, that there is no mention of social justice under this goal, or indeed in the text of the 2030 Agenda as a whole.

This is all the more surprising given that – contrary to the Millennium Development Goals - the ILO was closely involved in the drafting process (cf Tonia Novitz, p. 90). And what is even more astonishing is that the 2008 Declaration was formally approved by the General Assembly!

ii. A shift in the ILO institutional role: from sub-contractor back to legislator

In the light of the above, the challenge facing the ILO goes far beyond the role it seems to have been assigned until now in the implementation of the 2030 Agenda: essentially that of subcontractor for the implementation of Goal 8 on Employment and Decent Work and related targets.

Firstly, it needs to convince all its Members that, in the interests of their long-term legitimacy, they must address head on the issue of the fair sharing of the benefits and burdens of global interdependence within the framework of a comprehensive social and environmental policy; and secondly, it needs to provide them with common guidelines to help them, in a concrete way, to implement measures and a coherent policy while taking account of the idiosyncrasies and legitimate preferences of their populations. This is a major challenge for the ILO, but it has both a clear mandate and the relevant instrument to meet it.

It has a clear mandate to do so under the Declaration of Philadelphia and the solemn obligation to work towards "a just share of the fruits of progress". In their contribution, Ewing and Hendy rightly return to this provision in detail (p. 96 - 97). Two points in particular deserve to be emphasised.

Firstly, the increased relevance of this mandate (granted that the question is no longer merely one of participating in the accumulation of wealth brought about by open borders or the spread of new technology but is also a question of bearing a fair share of the burden of safeguarding the climate and the environment and the sometimes traumatic transformations imposed by the cross-border spread of new technologies, including AI).

And secondly, the legally binding nature of this mandate, as pointed out in several contributions to the book (in particular Hendy and Ewing's, p. 65 - 66). This is not just wishful thinking or a slogan. The Organisation's mandate is binding on its members, and even the UN.

As Jenks (who knew what he was talking about) maintained, the Declaration of Philadelphia"... is binding on the ILO and its members and binding on the UN as an authoritative statement of its mandate". Some authors are not wrong to point out in this respect that the Centenary Resolution represents a step backwards (p. 70).

The question is how to discharge this mandate realistically. The answer seems relatively obvious: by making a more inventive use of its standard-setting tools to encourage all ILO members to adopt an integrated social and environmental policy and to offer them a common frame of reference.

It possesses the relevant legal instrument

I have sketched out in a Box of the written version of this introduction that will be made available to you the possible content and form of normative action to promote a global social and environmental policy approach to meet the challenge of ensuring a more socially understandable and acceptable sharing of the benefits and constraints of global interdependence. I am not going to repeat and will only highlight some key considerations.

First, it should be stressed that the path towards such a global and integrated policy has already been cleared by the 2008 Declaration; DG Houngbo has rightly pointed out in that respect that its potential had not been sufficiently exploited. Indeed, it could help provide some of the "building blocks" I have mentioned, adapting them to the current context and, in particular, to the renewed importance of the "environmental justice" dimension since 2008. The Outcome of the General Discussion on a Just Transition of the last session of the International Labour Conference (ILC) may also provide some additional input, even though they have been framed in a “transition” perspective which, in my view, does not match the underlying “global interdependence“ problem. The structural nature of this problem calls, in my view, for a corresponding structural/ institutional response.

Second, there is a precedent for the type of global integrated document envisaged which is the Social Policy (Basic Aims and Standards) Convention, 1962 (No. 117). This instrument does remain relevant in its principle, even though its objective and content are not intended to regulate global interdependence, but to accompany the accession to independence of the former colonial territories.

Third, admittedly this normative undertaking would obviously require a long and complex process; at the same time, it is this very process which may represent the main added value of a normative undertaking for reaching a shared understanding and commitment. The normative process allows for iterative development, with a succession of written consultations with stakeholders and a double (or triple) discussion at the ILC.

And in this case, it seems obvious that these consultations could and would have to involve the IGOs competent in the adjacent fields, in order to strengthen the relevance and legitimacy of the content of the future instrument and help promote the coherence that is lacking.

Fourth, the promotion of a global integrated policy would seem perfectly consistent with the UN Deputy Secretary General’s reflections, which call for the 2030 Agenda to be "rescued" and for the "goal to goal" approach to be overcome (Amina Mohammed on 9 May (DSG/SM/1848)).

This would also seem perfectly consistent with the observations of the World Trade Organization (WTO) Director-General in a July issue of Foreign Affairs who urges members to introduce active labour market and social policy to ensure that the gains (NB: constraints seem to be systematically forgotten!) from trade and technology are realized.

Last but not least, the adoption of a new instrument of this type would not only have the advantage of providing a common frame of reference and guidance for Members; it would also help to fill the gap in the 2030 Agenda with regard to an essential condition for the effectiveness of their implementation: the necessary reciprocity that must exist between members with regard to theirefforts to implement the common commitments to which they are supposed to have subscribed in good faith by adopting the 2030 Agenda.

2.2. FROM SOLIDARITY TO RECIPROCITY

in efforts to implement shared commitments to social progress and environmental protection for real efficiency

As I have already pointed out, the implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals is, in the perspective of the 2030 Agenda, supposed to be ensured by the juxtaposition of individual efforts by States to implement their parallel commitments, subject only to a "Global Partnership" which as spelled out in paragraph 39:

“[…] will work in a spirit of global solidarity, in particular solidarity with the poorest and with people in vulnerable situations”.

The problem is that the willingness of States to give effect to these commitments is thwarted by the behaviour of other States, which may prefer to sacrifice the implementation of their social or environmental commitments to gain a competitive advantage on an open international market - including attracting or retaining capital.

This "free rider" behaviour is inherent in the compartmentalization of the multilateral system - to which I'll return later.

The 2030 Agenda has not modified the situation. It takes the multilateral system and its compartmentalization for granted. It even insists on the need to achieve a "genuine liberalization of multilateral trade".

This situation does not seem sustainable. It is a fact that not long after the adoption of the Agenda the main architect of the system started to take liberties with its trade regime. It is also a fact that with successive COPs [Conference of the Parties under the Paris Agreement on Climate Change] the free rider behaviour appeared more and more problematic from the viewpoint of environment protection.

What seems thus clear is that the necessary solidarity between developed and developing countries in their efforts to achieve Global Goals and shared commitments should go hand in hand with formal recognition of the necessary reciprocity that must exist between their respective efforts to achieve their shared commitments and goals.

N.B. Routh (p. 182) criticizes Rawls for not including in his Law of Peoples (as he calls it) a reciprocity that must exist between the efforts members have made to implement their shared goals and commitments to sustainable development.

At the same time however, one of the lessons of the Glasgow COP 26 was also to make clear that there is no State or group of States which is not in some way or another (in particular from an historical perspective) the free rider of some other State or group of States. This is the case with industrialized countries which claim to stop pollution at their borders after reaching their present state of affluence through pollution.

It is thus of the essence that this necessary reciprocity does not imply in any way an equivalence of outcomes. The efforts that any Member may expect from any other Member must be a function of the possibility and specificity of the said member.

What can the ILO do without departing from its mandate to help reach such delicate balance? Two things that are far from negligible: on the one hand, a reciprocal right of monitoring over each member's efforts to implement a possible social and environmental policy instrument; and on the other, a label of legitimacy for the efforts of members who would like to go further in a more restricted circle.

Offering a reciprocal review (and encouragement) framework

One thing is clear: the affirmation of the need for reciprocity between efforts to achieve progress towards objectives common to all members is, as is clear from the final recital of the preamble to its Constitution, at the heart of ILO membership and its constitutional logic. Liam McHugh-Russell (p. 341) reminds us that this logic is so pervasive that the Permanent Court of International Justice placed it at the heart of the definition of the ILO's competence.

This logic of reciprocity is expressed more concretely in the supervisory system, and even more significantly from our point of view, in the system for monitoring the action taken by members to follow up on conventions when they fail to ratify them; Article 19(5)(e) of the Constitution requires all Members who choose not to ratify to make known "the extent to which effect has been given […] to any of the provisions of the Convention…” until it has been ratified. The same possibility of reciprocal review arises from the reporting obligation to which the implementation of recommendations is subject under Article 19(6)(d). What is important to stress is that this mechanism is perfectly in line with the logic of reciprocity of efforts to make progress to which all members are bound, independently of the reciprocity of obligations which are binding only on the parties to a convention.

In his 1997 report to the ILC on normative action and globalization, the DG (Hansenne) rightly noted that this mechanism "allows for a leverage which has no equivalent amongst other International Organizations" (p. 14).

This "leverage" would apply to a possible ILO normative instrument designed to promote an integrated approach to social and environmental policy, with a view to a more acceptable sharing of the benefits and burdens of global interdependence within and between countries. Through the reports provided for in Art. 19, the Constitution would enable such cross-reviewing of efforts made by any other members to implement the overall policy advocated by such an instrument. Even if it were initially to take the form of a Recommendation, such an instrument could be accompanied by a sui generis monitoring system, and even - for those States willing to submit to it - a "peer review" system (to which reference is made in the 2008 Declaration). This leads precisely to the second possible "benefit”.

Conferring legitimacy to additional inter se efforts

This could be the second and perhaps even greater added value of a possible social and environmental policy instrument: the legitimacy its very existence could confer upon the efforts and commitments of certain Members wishing to go further in a more restricted circle on the basis of reciprocity.

The unexpected impact of the '98 Declaration on bi- or multilateral trade agreements is that it has highlighted the role and importance that the legitimacy attached to a text emanating from the universal tripartite legislator that is the ILC can play in facilitating and justifying trade agreements which, subject to specified social /environmental conditions, involve reciprocal benefits or concessions by the parties over and above WTO commitments.

The proliferation of such multi-lateral and sometimes "mini-lateral" agreements, to use the concept coined by Steve Charnovitz (p. 199), is a further cause for concern for the coherence and solidity of the multilateral trading system. The adoption of an ILO standard-setting instrument formulating common guidelines for all members as to the social and environmental policies to be implemented to ensure sustainable development in a context of interdependence would have the advantage of offering a common authoritative reference for all countries wishing to go further among themselves in the direction of these objectives.

2.3. OPTIMIZING THE ROLE AND INSTITUTIONAL LEGITIMACY OF THE ILC

to promote greater policy coherence within the multilateral system through its compartmentalization

The compartmentalization of the multilateral system through the juxtaposition of independent organizations and mandates is no accident. As already noted, it was intended by the principal architect of the post-war multilateral system, none other than the United States. Despite original intentions (recalled by Perulli, p. 34), it led as a result of a succession of developments - the torpedoing of the Havana Charter (Supiot, p. 26) - the adoption of the Washington consensus and finally the establishment of the WTO and its Dispute Settlement Mechanism - to this “compartmentalization”, to ensure the precedence of economic, financial and then commercial objectives over social and other objectives.

This process was by no means fortuitous. As clearly demonstrated by the historian Slobodian (to whom several contributions make reference – Kohiyma and Lieby (p. 143), Perulli (p. 24), Mundlak (p. 252) - it was designed (in the mind of the so-called Geneva school) to protect investments and their free movement from "deviant" (dixit Slobodian) national policies which, under the guise of progress or social justice - but in reality more often than not in response to corporate or sectoral interests - would undermine them. Their revered model was the Court of Justice of the European Union.

And they would certainly be shocked to discover from Caruso and Papa's contribution that this revered jurisprudence now includes social "bright pages" ... (p. 244).

However, the picture changed quite radically with the realization, within the very country that was its "principal architect", of the boomerang effect of the free movement of American investment in search of skilled, cheap labour abroad on the accession of blue-collar workers to the middle class, with all the consequences that this entailed for the country's governance and the fabric of society and social balance. This phenomenon is a harsh reminder that it's not the satisfied consumer but the frustrated citizen who puts a ballot in the box.

In this respect, it is hard not to marvel at the vagaries of history. It was United States President Bill Clinton who, by lending his support to the AFL/CIO in the midst of the WTO's Seattle Conference in 1999, definitively put the nail on the coffin of social debate at the WTO, and it was the same Bill Clinton who, this time under pressure from Wall Street and "capitalism in a hurry", as Perulli puts it in his contribution, triggered, with the green light he gave to China's admission to the WTO just over a year later, the exodus from low-skilled jobs, which happened to be those with the highest unionization rates.

The paradox of the situation, however, is that from a strictly institutional point of view, the “compartmentalization" established by the principal architect was not deemed to be absolute. It did include an institutional loophole: the Declaration of Philadelphia (DoP), adopted with the support of the Roosevelt administration, included a provision (DoP, Para. II (c) that all ILO officials should know by heart, but which has remained a dead letter, as Kohiyama and Lieby point out (p. 146 - 147), and actually does not need to be formally invoked to be given effect. [“all national and international policies and measures, in particular those of an economic and financial character, should be judged [in light of the statement of fundamental objective in the DoP] and accepted only in so far as they may be held to promote and not to hinder the achievement of this fundamental objective”].

Nothing indeed obliges the ILC to rely expressly on this provision (whose hegemonic tone hardly encourages cooperation) to organize its work and achieve the desired result. The ILC is free to organize such a debate with its "sister" organizations through the DG's thematic report, or by including an appropriate question - whether recurrent or not - on its agenda. This would offer a unique opportunity to discuss accumulated experience and knowledge with all stakeholders, on the basis of appropriate documentation and on an equal footing. In this respect, DG Juan Somavia aptly compared this institutional framework, with its tripartite structure and the participation of NGOs, to a genuine "Parliament of the real economy". This Parliament also has the advantage of being available, upon invitation, to all IGOs concerned, even in the absence of formal reciprocal representation agreements (as required for representation on WTO bodies).

This forum could provide an exceptional framework to help “decompartmentalize" knowledge, experience and policies/recommendations, with the participation of the organizations concerned, in particular by offering an opportunity to exchange:

• On the subject of research in progress within these organizations, which sometimes overlap, contradict or ignore each other, for example, on the subject of interactions or "interconnectivity" between the various goals of the 2030 agenda;
• On the concrete impact of the policies advocated by the aforementioned organizations in the exercise of their respective mandates on the populations who benefit or suffer from them; and
• On topical themes of common interest.

The Centenary theme "Future of Work" offers a perfect counter-example of what this potential could offer. As it happens, the theme of work and its future had been the subject of parallel but in many respects discordant reports by the World Bank, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development and various academic institutions, including the Massachusetts Institute of Technology; these reports could therefore have been made available to ILC delegates at the same time as the report by the experts mandated by the ILO to serve as a basis for debate, with the high-level participation of the organizations concerned.

A striking comparison of the two reports by the World Bank and the ILO - Kerry Rittich's contribution (p. 43) - shows what a missed opportunity this debate was. Through the synthetic and balanced overview she gives of the content of these reports, she also offers a perfect illustration of the kind of introductory summary that the Office could provide to delegates to initiate and facilitate a meaningful debate.

One of the most significant comparative advantages of this untapped potential deserves to be specially noted: it is available without any change to the existing procedural framework. All that would be required to activate it would be to put on the ILC agenda either a recurring issue, a specific subject of common interest, or even the DG's thematic report.

As to this, it may no doubt be argued that neither the composition of the tripartite delegations nor the way debates are conducted at the ILC at present really lend themselves to such a function of echo chamber, reflection and informed exchange.

The response to this argument is not to mistake the effect for the cause. Experience suggests that the level and nature of representation is determined (especially among governments) by the extent and power of the technical or strategic interest in subject under discussion within the circle of interests represented at the ILC. (I'll come back to the broader question of representation of the informal economy, and other new or future forms of work, not forgetting that of future generations).

This brings us to the final question, which is a cause for concern: the ILO has the way, but do tripartite constituents have the will?

3. A DISQUETING CONCERN: WHAT ABOUT TRIPARTITE WILL?

The ILO is now facing a challenge which may be more subtle but is of comparable magnitude to the one it faced in the post-war period, when it had to rebuild a new international order.

I have tried to show that the ILO's Constitution and practice provide it with the tools to meet this challenge, even if this means awakening them from their slumber, and demonstrating inventiveness.

The remaining question is whether it can still mobilize the tripartite will to mobilise them. Unfortunately, the current tripartite situation is not the same as it was in the post-war period. LeClercq even goes so far as to suggest that the "incomparable beauty" of the ILO 's tripartite structure, like a peacock's tail, weighs it down and leads it to accumulated "deadlocks" (p. 212).

On the government side, the main obstacle may be the greater diffraction and interweaving of interests between countries and groups, combined with the disappearance of a factor that had helped the ILO meet the challenges of adaptation and innovation in the past: the existence of a certain type of leadership, often linked to a high degree of continuity of representation among the government representatives, especially those sitting in the ILO Governing Body (GB).

This continuity was linked to a variety of factors. In addition to the ideological stakes represented by the ILO in the confrontation of two models of social justice, there was the strategic importance of the subjects dealt with, as was the case, for instance, with the issue of constitutional amendment in 1986 which aimed inter alia at the abolition of the ten non-elective seats in the GB. This contributed to the attractiveness of a seat on the GB (in particular the non-elective seats) for strong personalities. These personalities had sufficient autonomy to deviate from their instructions or modify them according to the evolution of the debates, and to win the support of their colleagues. Among European members, the attractiveness of participation in decision-making bodies for such personalities has declined sharply as a result of the importance taken by European coordination; but the same trend seems also to exist within other regional groups following the last GB reforms.

To illustrate my point, I’d like to mention at least two names: that of an international law celebrity, Roberto Ago, whose devotion to the ILO and institutional inventiveness knew no bounds (and which manifested itself in a rather “gory” way in his last wish that a tribute ceremony be held in the presence of his coffin in the ILO cinema); then that of Yahia Briki, formerly sentenced to death for terrorism during the war of independence in Algeria, pardoned by Charles De Gaulle, who became a proselytizer of tripartism and the inventor of the formula that bears his name and which enabled the 1986 constitutional amendment to be put together at the cost of fracturing the common front between the “Group of 77” and the Eastern bloc.

Governments should be made aware that ILO initiatives to create a universally-agreed framework for action could help to correct the loss of legitimacy/credibility their apparent inability/impotence to manage the effects of global interdependence in an acceptable and equitable manner has earned them in the eyes of the public.

This situation is not necessarily irreversible.

There is reason to believe that the avenues I have outlined in the second part of my presentation could be of strategic interest, despite – or because of – their apparent modesty.

On the one hand, they affect the credibility and sustainability of the universal multilateral system, and by extension the credibility of governments in the eyes of their public opinion; on the other, they can be implemented using existing tools, without the need to embark on an improbable reform of the multilateral system and its constituent charters (for example, to remedy the “social deficit” of the Marrakech agreements, whose adoption with such fanfare did not foreshadow such a rapid decay). In other words, what could help crystallize a consensus around the exploration of these avenues is that, for governments as a whole, they represent a kind of low-cost alternative to the headache of reforming the multilateral system.

And, precisely because it would be such a “low-cost” alternative, these initiatives could benefit, if not from the enthusiastic support, at least from the “benign neglect” of the other Organizations in the multilateral system, either because they would seem doomed to failure, or because, if successful, they could help to restore fairly painlessly the social image of the system as a whole.

On the workers’ side, there is a risk of being locked into a defensive posture, focused on safeguarding the existing normative acquis and occasionally extending it to “sectorial” (which is not always as justified as was the case for domestic workers). Not only could this prove to be a losing strategy in the medium term, as suggested by the slow progress of the SRM (La Hovary, p. 170), but it could also mean missing out on the future of tripartite regulation of global interdependence. With this in mind, workers need to realize that it would be in their best interest to breathe new life into normative action by seizing the opportunity to project it onto a subject of strategic importance for the future: that is, global interdependence in terms of technology and environment. They should realize the potential of a new type of normative action, to help put in place the appropriate national institutions and policies so that the benefits and constraints of the inexorable transformations linked to said interdependence are shared in as acceptable a way as possible between stakeholders.

It is important to stress that, far from representing an alternative to the updating and development of the existing corpus, such an instrument could, on the contrary, provide a general framework and an impetus for modernizing and filling the gaps in that corpus. The book offers a number of insights concerning the gap between the existing corpus and the new realities and forms of work that would require the attention of a tripartite and universal legislator.

On the employers' side, the risks inherent in the current situation should bring them back to the reformist vision of their role within the ILO, held throughout the Cold War in the face of competition from the "democratic centralist" model of social justice vis à vis members from the "Third World". Faced with this competition, they chose the realistic option of taking part in the extension of the body of standards and supervisory procedures, defending the ILO Committee of Experts on the Application of Conventions and Recommendations against attacks from the Soviet bloc.

What are these risks? At least three can be identified:

• Firstly,the danger that the discontent and frustration engendered by the multilateral system's inability to remedy the absurdly unequal sharing of the benefits and constraints of global interdependence will lead to the re-partitioning of the economic space into hostile blocs, with hard-to-predict consequences on the political, social and economic climate for business; this is the direction in which the worrying ATO (Allied Trade Organization) scheme referred to by Steve Charnovitz (p. 200) seems to be pointing.
• Second,the need to meet, through new appropriate regulatory devices, newly emerging work disaffection from essential workers like the “Big Quit” that may affect development projects or their growing concern about respect for their private life.
• Thirdly - and perhaps above all - the danger that, in the face of climate and environmental emergencies, restrictive regulations will be imposed unilaterally on them and on "production", without workers having had an equal say in the matter, as is the case in the ILO decision-making system.

Considering these risks, it would indeed seem quite in keeping with the realism Employers manifested during the Cold War, to consider that it is once again in their best interests to be open to the proactive exploration of the ILO's potential for global social and environmental regulation as a lesser evil, as it is, after all, the only Organization where they are involved on an equal footing in the decision-making process.

(This observation is in line with LeClercq's observation that it is employers who would have the most to gain from the establishment of an Interpretation Tribunal, offering them a guarantee of due process in the face of unilateral and fanciful interpretations of ILO instruments within the framework of trade agreements, p. 213).

Admittedly, that's a lot of "ifs". And these "ifs" are unlikely to materialize spontaneously. In addition to a favourable alignment of the planets, two factors seem e undoubtedly required in my view.

The first is the pressure of external forces which are directly and positively interested in the ILO's unused regulatory potential but have no internal relay. As Routh's contribution (p. 204) points out, "however admirable" the ILO's claim to ensure participatory democracy through the most representative national organizations may be, this access appears far too limited to ensure adequate representation of all the relevant interests of the informal economy and new forms of work, care work and, more generally, "all in need of […] protection”, as envisaged by the Declaration of Philadelphia and discussed by Adrián Goldin (p. 349-357).

There is in addition the fundamental challenge of safeguarding the interests of future or unborn generations. Laurence Boisson de Chazournes reminds us that taking future generations into account is not just a moral duty.

She emphasizes that the principle of intergenerational equity and the principle of public participation go hand in hand in the implementation of the precautionary principle (p. 80).

In a recent book (“Le Monde, modes d'emploi : comprendre, prévoir, agir, protéger”, 2023), Jacques Attali went so far as to argue that the best way of legally safeguarding the interests of these generations would be to enshrine in all national constitutions a provision to the effect that the adoption of any measure that jeopardizes the interests of future generations is unconstitutional!

However, the skewed representativeness in favour of traditional forms of subordinate labour is neither inevitable nor absolute. Awareness of the ILO's potential for change and regulation should draw the attention of all external forces for change, in particular that of the younger generations, and encourage them to press for the Organization to be roused, like Sleeping Beauty, from its regulatory slumber.

One should also not overlook the possibility of achieving a better balance through Article 3(2) of the Constitution. This provision allows delegates to the ILC to be accompanied by technical advisors to deal with technical issues on the agenda. Even if this door is narrow, it has the merit of existing. One should encourage the forces concerned, and in particular the younger generations, to force this door open by putting pressure on the most representative organizations and governments, or by creating their own representative organizations.

The second is to provide a powerful catalyst for overcoming sectoral interests within groups, which seem to be increasingly prevalent, in order to crystallize a collective will.

This catalyst exists. It is the Office and its Director-General, in accordance with the Constitution and, above all, a practice that goes back to Albert Thomas. This long-standing practice has been gradually consolidated with the assent of all the tripartite constituents, including the employers.

A particularly significant illustration of this was given in extreme circumstances by the man who already represented employers on the Governing Body before the war, and who was their spokesman during the post-war decades: Pierre Waline. During a particularly stormy session of the ILC in June 1973, where the DG (W. Jenks) had to face an outpouring of criticism for having reminded the ILC to respect due process, he was one of the few delegates to intervene to defend the DG's right to express his point of view even though he himself disagreed with it; and he did so specifically in the name of the tradition established by Albert Thomas.

Indeed, according to this tradition, it is up to the Office, under the authority of the DG, to make tripartite constituents aware of the new needs and challenges facing the Organization as a result of the changing context, and to give them its vision of the necessary adaptations/evolutions, particularly at institutional level, as well as proposing the strategy and stages for their implementation.

Even if we confine ourselves to institutional innovations, examples abound:

• the action of Edward Phelan and the "rump" Office in Montreal to secure the ILO's place in the new post-war world order;
• the role of Morse and Jenks in setting up the freedom of association procedure;
• the good offices entrusted to Blanchard in clearing the final hurdles on the way to the adoption of the constitutional amendment of 1986, in order to draw the consequences of the universalization of the Organization;
• Hansenne's initiatives to draw the consequences of the shift in the international systemwith the end of the Cold War and the advent of the global market, which led, among other things, to the identification of a set of "universal" and "enabling" fundamental rights;
• Somavia's setting up of the World Commission on the Social Dimension of Globalization, whose report (A Fair Globalization, 2004) in turn paved the way for the 2008 Declaration on Social Justice, whose potential remains largely untapped.

The continuity of these initiatives is perhaps all the more remarkable given that - apart from the ILC “bronca” against Jenks in 1973 - they often began by disturbing constituents. For example, the more controversial ideas of the "social label" type put forward by Hansenne in his 1997 report may well have helped, by contrast, to make the movement towards the 1998 Declaration appear far more reasonable.

The crisis situation in the multilateral system gives even greater importance to this function of impetus and leadership. It is a means of reviving interest in the debates and, through it, of reinforcing the level of representation among all members - as we have seen whenever the subject on the agenda of the Governing Body or the ILC has represented a real strategic issue, particularly in the governmental ranks.

The election of a DG who comes neither from the non-governmental groups nor from the inner circle of the founding countries could be an asset in opening up the possibility of reviving tradition at a time when it appears particularly critical. It would also enable him to rally the widest possible support for such an undertaking, while avoiding being placed in the position of a Gulliver entangled in the web of corporatist interests and sensitivities.

CONCLUSION

As I am talking about how lucky I've been to make a career for myself in an organization with such great institutional originality and remarkable historical depth, some of you, particularly among the younger generation, may feel that it's all very good for me, but that there's not so much to be proud of in the world my generation is leaving them, whatever the quality of the tools they will continue to have at their disposal to cope with it.

It's true that, after the hopes and perhaps ill-considered optimism of the post-war period, uncertainty - not to say anxiety - about the future is now becoming a global, cross-border phenomenon. This is making the fortunes of shamans and shrinks of all denominations, and attracting to their ranks many talents who in the past would have found employment – dare I say it, better employment - in the production of new knowledge and wealth.

Some observers or specialists have thus come to consider that, unable to reform itself, the multilateral system should, if not being written off, at least be the object of a radical refoundation on a new basis, which, among other things, should involve non-state and cross-border peoples and players. Isabelle Daugareilh's contribution - and a few others – however, caution us against excessive optimism about what we can expect from non- or extra-state regulation; she warns us that the power and (ir)responsibility of multinational enterprises is likely to haunt us throughout the century, even though the Centenary Declaration did not see fit to address the issue (p. 301).

In a similar vein, Perulli cautions us about the illusion that global governance could be delineated in democratic terms and axiologically towards social justice (p. 30).

History may well end up proving right those who see salvation only in a complete overhaul of the multilateral system, but at what price?

When confronted with such dilemma, the temptation is, to use Anne and Brian‘s words in their introduction “to lose faith in our capacity to do anything“.

I hope my remarks may help contribute to dispel this temptation. Through the torn fabric of our hopes, - to use again their words - I hope you may have peered at the Sleeping Beauty which is waiting to be awakened: she may have more to offer than the chain of improvisations that may be the response to the aggravation of the situation according to the New York Time s… and that the current succession of summits of all nature and kinds may already illustrate.

I've tried to show you that, with its standard-setting tools - in particular, the formidable cross-border and cross-sectional forum that the ILC potentially represents, and the autonomy that the DG can boast of in the tradition of Albert Thomas - what the ILO can offer is far from negligible, and well worth giving a chance.

Before throwing the baby out with the bathwater, it is time to take a hard look at what can be done with institutional means that, although imperfect, have the advantage of existing.

These tools have the additional advantage that they can be mobilized more easily than in other organizations, thanks to a decision-making system that does not require consensus (unlike that of the WTO, to which Steve Charnovitz attributes the impossibility of adapting to make up for, among other things, its "deficit" in terms of social justice).

(Closing remarks and thanks)