UPES, SCHOOL OF LAW, DEHRADUN

ASSIGNMENT

TOPIC:- ROLE OF INTERNATIONAL LABOUR ORGANIZATION IN

PROMOTION OF SOCIAL SECURITY

SUBMITTE BY:

TARUN SHARMA

B.A. LL.B. (CONSTITUTIONAL LAW), BATCH 2

ROLL NO. - R154216110

SAP ID- 500053204

 INTRODUCTION
The ILO has played a major role in developing an international defined normative framework
guiding the establishment, development and maintenance of social security systems across the
world and has become the world’s leading point of reference for efforts to this end. Following its
establishment in 1919 and being the first to recognise the right to social security in 1944
through the Declaration of Philadelphia, now appended to the ILO Constitution, the
Organization’s tripartite constituents have elaborated and adopted a series of Conventions and
Recommendations establishing social security as a separate branch of international law and
providing a framework to enhance and extend social protection in countries from all regions of
the world.
The Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights’ (CESCR) on the right to social
security was influenced by the content of social security instruments adopted by the International
Labour Organization (ILO). The ILO has progressively developed the normative content of the
right to social security since the adoption of its constitution in 1919; laying the foundations for
the establishment of a separate branch of international law, namely international social security
law.
Of the 31 conventions and 24 recommendations adopted in the area of social security between
1919 and 2012 by the ILO’s tripartite constituents, the Social Security (Minimum Standards)
Convention, 1952 (No. 102) is considered the flagship social security instrument. Convention
No. 102 is unique for both its conceptual formulation of social security, and the guidance it
provides for establishing social security systems. The notion of social security in the Convention
classifies the of social security systems into nine standard branches, namely:1
 Health care,
 Sickness,
 Old age,
 Unemployment,
 Employment injury,
 Family and child support,
 Maternity,
 Disability, and
1
Bruce E. Kaufman, The Global Evolution of Industrial Relations 30 (ILO, Geneva, 2004).
 Survivors and orphans.
For each of these branches, Convention No. 102, complemented by other conventions and
recommendations setting higher standards, also specifies how the systems are to be set up,
namely:
 What circumstances each branch is meant to protect;
 Who should be protected;
 What type of benefit should be provided;
 How do persons become eligible for benefits; and
 For how long the benefit should be granted.
The most recently adopted ILO social security standard, the Social Protection Floors
Recommendation, 2012 (No. 202) expands the normative framework for the extension of social
security by introducing the concept of nationally-defined social protection floors that guarantee
at least access to essential health care and basic income security throughout the life course.2

CONVENTIONS

• The Social Security (Minimum Standards) Convention, 1952 (No. 102).

• The Equality of Treatment (Social Security) Convention, 1962 (No. 118).

• The Employment Injury Benefits Convention, 1964 (Schedule I amended in 1980) (No.121).

• Invalidity, Old-Age and Survivors’ Benefits Convention, 1967 (No. 128).

• The Medical Care and Sickness Benefits Convention, 1969 (No.130).

• The Maintenance of Social Security Rights Convention, 1982 (No. 157).

• The Employment Promotion and Protection against Unemployment Convention, 1988

(No.168).

• The Job Creation in Small and Medium Sized Enterprises Recommendation, 1998 (No. 189).

• Maternity Protection Convention (Revised) 2000 (No. 183).

2
Available at the http://www.ilo.org Last accessed on 15.11.2019.
IMPACT OF SOCIAL SECURITY

Social security has a powerful impact at all levels of society. It provides workers and their
families with access to health care and with protection against loss of income, whether it is for
short periods of unemployment or sickness or maternity or for a longer time due to invalidity or
employment injury. It provides older people with income security in their retirement years.
Children benefit from social security programmes designed to help their families cope with the
cost of education. For employers and enterprises, social security helps maintain stable labour
relations and a productive workforce. And social security can contribute to social cohesion and
to a country’s overall growth and development by bolstering living standards, cushioning the
effects of structural and technological change on people and thereby providing the basis for a
more positive approach toward globalization.3

3
Available at http://www.jstor.org/stable/41937365 last accessed on 15.11.2019.