Sovereignty and the ILO

Sovereignty has long been an orienting principle of international law, but the meaning of sovereignty is perennially contested. Now in its second century of operation, the International Labour Organization (ILO) was born in 1919 at the dawn of the modern era of global economic and social cooperation. Erected against an ideology equating sovereignty with unbridled national autonomy, the ILO inspired scholars and civic society actors to reimagine a more pluralistic international community in which governments would use international organizations and treaties to shape the regulation of labor markets. This essay retells the story the birth of the ILO in the context of the 19th century intellectual history of the "sovereignty" concept and then details the ways in which the tensions underlying sovereignty were addressed in the fabric of the ILO's constitution. The essay also examines some important episodes in the ILO's first decade that demonstrate the normative challenges facing the ILO as it seeks to fulfill its progressive mission of basing a world economy on social justice.