The Contribution to International Legislation of the Nineteenth Session of the International Labor Conference

It is proposed in this article to consider the Draft Conventions adopted by the International Labor Conference at its Nineteenth Session primarily with a view to illustrating the nature of the contribution which the Conference is making to international legislation and the manner in which problems which have some general bearing upon the development of international law and organization arise for consideration in connection with International Labor Conventions. It is unnecessary for this purpose to recapitulate the composition, powers, and procedure of the International Labor Conference, or to review that part of the activities of its Nineteenth Session which did not lead to the immediate adoption of Draft Conventions. It is therefore necessary to warn the reader that this article is not an attempt to give him a general impression of the Conference. It does not attempt to review the general discussions of social policy based upon the director's report. It does not describe the Unemployment (Young Persons) Recommendation, 1935, an important pronouncement which is one of the most valuable results of the Conference, but which, being a Recommendation, is intended “to be submitted to the Members for consideration with a view to effect being given to it by national legislation or otherwise,” and is therefore incapable of becoming by ratification the source of international obligations. This article, further, gives no account of the preliminary discussions which will probably lead to the adoption of Draft Conventions in future years; nor does it review the work of the Conference in supervising the application of existing Conventions. Its scope is limited strictly to a discussion of the five Draft Conventions actually adopted at the Nineteenth Session, i.e., the Forty-Hour Week Convention, 1935; the Reduction of Hours of Work (Glass-Bottle Works) Convention, 1935; the Maintenance of Migrants' Pension Rights Convention, 1935; the Underground Work (Women) Convention, 1935; and the Hours of Work (Coal Mines) Convention (Revised), 1935. Certain of these instruments raise far-reaching questions of economic and social policy; but discussion of such questions would not be appropriate in what is intended as a legal commentary.