International Labour Organization

The ILO is the UN agency responsible for drawing up and overseeing international labor standards. Working with its Member States, the ILO is devoted to advancing employment opportunities for all workers. It aims to promote rights at work, encourage job-related security, and enhance better living standards to the people of both poor and rich countries. The ILO is the world’s only tripartite multilateral agency in that it brings together representatives of governments, employers, and workers to jointly shape policies and programs. It formulates international labor standards in the form of conventions and recommendations addressing basic labor rights: freedom of association, the right to organize, collective bargaining, abolition of forced labor, equality of opportunity and treatment, and other work-related issues.

Although relatively new to the ILO, having become a member in 2007, the RMI is a regular and active participant in its meetings. The RMI has ratified two of the most important ILO conventions for shipping and seafarers aboard RMI flagged vessels. They are the Maritime Labour Convention, 2006 (MLC, 2006) and the Seafarers’ Identity Documents Convention, 2003 (C. 185). ILO conventions and instruments adopted in whole or in part by the RMI are contained in MN 2-011-1, International Maritime Conventions and Other Instruments Adopted by the Republic of the Marshall Islands.

Effective participation in the international regulatory arena at the IMO and ILO provides the RMI, and the RMI Maritime Administrator, the wherewithal to implement and enforce international and national shipping laws and regulations in an informed and practical manner.