Drafting practice
  1. In accordance with well-established practice, Articles containing the final provisions are added by the ILC Drafting Committee[109] to the text of the proposed Convention attached to the report of the technical committee responsible to draw up a proposed text. This draft of the Convention is then submitted to a final vote in the plenary session of the Conference. The Drafting Committee uses the standard final provisions, although changes to them are made as required by the technical committees of the Conference. The parameters left open in the standard final clauses adopted by the Conference are usually, in the absence of any instructions from the technical committees, left unchanged by the Drafting Committee, which resorts to the default parameters indicated in brackets in the final provisions. These default parameters are discussed below.
  1. The standard final provisions adopted by the Conference have comprised two types of significant developments. The first concerns entry into force, which was significantly modified in some of the maritime labour Conventions adopted since 1936. The second concerns the practice that has developed with regard to the final provisions of the five Protocols adopted since 1982, which differ in certain respects from the standard Final Articles by virtue of their special legal nature characterized by their attachment to another Convention.[110] Other less significant developments have been introduced for reasons that do not always appear clearly today. Some of those changes have been reproduced from one convention to the next and have thus been perpetuated.
  1. Once included in a Convention, the final provisions, like any other provisions in a Convention, cannot be amended except by revision of the Convention of which they are an integral part. In order to get around that difficulty, the Organization adopted the Final Articles Revision Conventions, Nos. 80 and 116, in 1946 and 1961 respectively, with a view to harmonizing the system applied to Conventions following the adoption of new standard final clauses.[111]
[109] In accordance with article 6 of the Standing Orders, the Drafting Committee is made up of at least three persons who need not be delegates or advisers at the ILC.
[110] P89 and P110 concern only subjective entry into force, notification of member States and the United Nations Secretary-General, and the languages of the authoritative versions P81 and P155 also provide for an objective entry into force and the possibility of denunciation in accordance with the rules applicable to Conventions. P155stipulates that denunciation of C155involves automatic denunciation of the Protocol. Lastly, P147 also stipulates the qualities of the five Members whose ratification is required for it to enter into force, provides for the Governing Body to present a report to the ILC and examine the question of revision, and finally, specifies the conditions under which it is closed to ratification.
[111] In March 2003, the ILO Governing Body had before it an Office document concerning final provisions of Conventions. It examined a number of possible changes to the standard final provisions currently used (see Committee on Labour Issues and International Labour Standards: The preparation of international labour Conventions: Questionnaire and code of good drafting practices, GB.286/LILS/1/2 (March 2003)). On that occasion, as there was no consensus and no clear indications as to how to proceed, it was decided to continue discussion of the matter (Reports of the Committee on Legal Issues and International Labour Standards: First report: Legal issues, GB.286/13/1 (March 2003), Para. 63).