The British Year Book of International Law. W. S. M. K. The International Law Association: Report of the Thirtieth Con- ference held at the Peace Palace, The Hague, 1921. W. S. M. K. 262 Hyde, W. Cheney, International Law, chiefly as Interpreted and Applied by the United States. Cyril M. Piccotto . Bentwich, N., Westlake's Private International Law; Holland, Stone, Gilbert, Laws and Regulations regarding Lead Poisoning in Various Countries. Sir Thomas Oliver . Jenks, Edward, A Digest of English Civil Law. Henri L. Levy- Keith, A. Berriedale, Dominion Home Rule in Practice. A. G. . The Legal Status of Women in Alberta. Monica M. Geikie Cobb Plucknett, Theodore F. T., Statutes and their Interpretation in (TANFORD LIBRA INTERNATIONAL LABOUR LEGISLATION. [Contributed by SIR LYNDEN MACASSEY, Κ.Β.Ε., Κ.C.] THE work of the International Labour Organisation is increasing rapidly in importance for those who follow the trend of Comparative Legislation, and, in view of the special provisions contained in the Peace Treaty for enforcement by the Permanent Court of International Justice of conventions and recommendations passed by the Organisation and adopted by countries which are parties to the Treaty, of growing interest to all concerned with International Law. It is hardly necessary to state that the Organisation was established by Part XIII of the Treaty of Versailles primarily to promote the international protection of workers by conventions agreed between member States, and so secure more just and humane conditions of labour than those which theretofore existed. As constituted by Article 388 of the Treaty the Organisation consists of a General Conference, convened at least once every year, of four representatives of each State which is a member of the League of Nations-two being delegates of the Government, one of the employers and one of the workpeople of, and in, that State-and an International Labour Office at Geneva controlled by a Governing Body elected by the Conference. The first Conference took place in Washington in October 1919; what may be called the second was held at Genoa in June 1920, and the third in Geneva in October last. At this latter Conference a lengthy report, dated October 23, 1921, was presented by M. Albert Thomas, the distinguished Director of the International Labour Office, entitled "League of Nations-International Labour Conference-Third Session-Geneva 1921-Report of the Director." It is obtainable from the International Labour Office, describes the work up to that date of the Organisation, and is destined to be a historical document. Great as the success of the office has been in promoting measures for uniform international labour legislation, all of which are recorded, the chief importance of the Report from the standpoint of Comparative Law arises from the exhaustive details contained in it of the action which the countries, parties to the League of Nations, have taken to accept and carry those measures into effect, and from the sidelights it throws upon constitutional practice in those countries. The provisions of the Peace Treaty are now so well-known to readers of this journal that it would be superfluous to do more than remind them that by Article 405 the Conference may frame its proposal in regard to any question of proposed international legislation in one of two forms: either as a recommendation of principle to be submitted to the member States for consideration with a view to effect being given to it by national legislation, administrative action or otherwise, or as a draft convention for ratification by the member States. If a draft convention or a recommendation is passed by a two-thirds majority of the votes of the delegates present at the Conference, readers will remember that it is deemed to be adopted by the Conference, and that each member State is then bound under ordinary circumstances, within a year from the conclusion of the Conference, or, in exceptional circumstances within eighteen months, to submit any recommendation or draft convention so adopted to "the authority or authorities within whose competence the matter lies for the enactment of legislation or for other action." If, on such submission, the authority or authorities decline to give effect to a recommendation or to ratify a draft convention, the member State is free from all further obligations. Should, however, any member State fail to effect such submission, any other member State may refer the matter to the Permanent Court of International Justice. Interesting questions of Constitutional Law or, perhaps, more properly speaking, constitutional practice, have arisen in regard to the meaning and effect of the words in Article 405 of the Peace Treaty, namely, what is "the authority or authorities within whose competence the matter lies for the enactment of legislation or other action," and what procedure Article 405 intends should be followed by member States in regard to ratification. The original draft of the Article contemplated conventions only and not recommendations, and proposed that any draft convention adopted by the Conference by a two-thirds majority must be ratified by every member State unless within one year the National Legislature of that State should have expressed its disapproval of the draft convention. Shortly after the preparation of this draft, a Commission on International Labour Legislation was appointed by the Peace Conference on January 31, 1919, to consider the draft and settle it as Part XIII of the Treaty. There was considerable divergence of views on this Commission as to what the provisions of Article 405 should be, some countries taking the view that States should be laid under a specific treaty obligation to ratify conventions adopted by the Conference, whether their legislative authorities approved them or not, subject to a right of appeal to the Executive Council of the League of Nations; other countries, notably the United States of America, objecting to any obligation whatsoever to ratify being put upon a member State. Article 405 in its present form represents a compromise arrived at by a Sub-Committee of the Commission consisting of representatives of the American, British, and Belgian delegations, especially appointed by the Commission to find an acceptable solution of the difficulty. The report of the Commission dated March 24, 1919, in referring to Article 405, contains this Passage: "The majorityof the Commission therefore decided in favour of making ratification of a convention subject to the approval of the national legislatures or other competent authorities." It would seem from the report that the Commission was under the impression that all draft conventions adopted by the Conference, as well as all recommendations passed by the Conference for legislation in member States, provision for which was inserted by the Commission in Article 405, would be submitted to the national legislatures of member States in countries where parliaments existed. So far as Great Britain was concerned, a discussion took place in the House of Commons on May 27, 1921, as to who was "the authority or authorities within whose competence the matter lies for the enactment of legislation, or other action." In the course of the debate reference was made to the instructions of the British War Cabinet dated March 14, 1919, to the delegates representing Great Britain at the Peace Conference. These instructions contained, inter alia, the following passage: "The Conference was not merely an assembly for the purpose of passing resolutions, but would draw up draft conventions which the States would have to present to their legislative authorities." The contention was raised that where legislation was required, conventions and recommendations adopted by the International Labour Office should, in accordance with Article 405, be submitted to Parliament as "the authority within whose competence the matter lies for the enactment of legislation." The learned Attorney-General stated the view of the Government to be that the printing and circulation of the draft conventions and recommendations of the International Labour Conferences in the form of a Parliamentary paper was a sufficient submission to Parliament, if any submission to Parliament was really required by Article 405, but that the authority in Great Britain which decides whether a convention is to be ratified or not is not Parliament, but the Crown acting on the advice of the Ministers of the Crown, and that it was also for the Government to decide whether they would or would not adopt any of the recommendations passed by the Conference, in which event they would submit to Parliament such only of the recommendations as they desired to incorporate in a legislative measure. The position under the constitutional system in Great Britain would be a curious one, if the Government were bound to submit to Parliament in the shape of a Bill for an enabling or enforcing Act of Parliament, a draft convention or recommendation which the Government delegates had voted against at the Conference, or one to which the Cabinet objected on principles of policy. In other member States than Great Britain considerable difficulties have arisen in regard to the mode of ratification and by reason of the inability of Governments to give effect to the procedure apparently contemplated by Article 405, of submitting conventions to their national legislatures for legislative action where such bodies existed. In France the constitutional practice is for the Government to request Parliamentary authorisation for the ratification of treaties or conventions only when they have been signed by the plenipotentiaries of France and the other States concerned, and are from the diplomatic point of view concluded agreements. After the Washington International Labour Conference the French Government introduced into the Chamber of Deputies on April 29, 1920, a number of Bills authorising ratification of five of the Washington Conventions, but later came to the conclusion it was unable to proceed in that method inasmuch as the draft conventions had merely been adopted by a two-thirds majority of the International Labour Conference and were not concluded conventions regularly signed by plenipotentiaries. To obviate this objection, the French Government proceeded to convert the draft conventions into concluded conventions, suitable for submission to the Chamber of Deputies, by embodying them in treaties or conventions signed by French plenipotentiaries and also |
