Capital letters > Short title
 
  1. In instruments, the general rule is that capital letters are used for words and expressions such as "State", "Member" but "member State"; Capitals are also used in the following examples: International Labour Office, Governing Body, General Conference, Director-General; for the titles of official texts and programmes, like "Tripartite Declaration of Principles concerning Multinational Enterprises and Social Policy", "International Programme on Chemical Safety", and the Constitution of the ILO; and for the proper names of countries and cities and the names of organizations, like "the International Monetary Fund", and "World Health Organization" Initial capitals are the rule when making a cross-reference to another "Part" in an instrument. Lastly, the first letter of words in the short title, set out in the preamble of ILO instruments, is capitalized.
  1. The general rule for capitalization in Conventions and Recommendations should be to follow the rules of English grammar, and to avoid over-use of capital letters. In short, this means capital letters for what is a defined and specific, and small letters for what is generic. The ILO house style manual recommends the use of capital letters in English in the following examples:
  • for proper nouns and the names of state territories and organs, as well as for political, administrative and legal institutions;
  • for cardinal points (compass references) where they form part of the official name of a territory;
  • the definite article where it forms part of the official name of a territory, city or person (e.g. The Hague. This is however more common in French usage);
  • for the names of companies and firms;
  • for adjectives where they form part of the official title of oceans, seas, lakes etc.;
  • for the initial letter of titles of periodicals, publications and books and for major subdivisions of a book or publication; and;
  • initial capitals for short titles of legislative texts and international instruments, as well as for commissions, committees and working groups.