Administrative Court of the International Labor Organization

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The seat of the ILO in Geneva, venue of the court

The Administrative Tribunal of the International Labor Organization ( English ILO Administrative Tribunal , ILOAT ; French Administrative Court, l'OIT , TAOIT ) is an international court based in the Swiss city of Geneva , which for legal employment needs of the employees of more than 50 international organizations responsible . It emerged in October 1946 from the administrative court of the League of Nations, which had existed since 1927, and consists of seven judges who currently sit for three weeks in spring and autumn each year. The decisions of the court, which only takes action on the initiative of the employees concerned, are usually final.

history

The Administrative Court of the International Labor Organization goes back to the Administrative Court of the League of Nations , which was established on September 26, 1927 and was also responsible for the International Labor Organization (ILO). With the dissolution of the League of Nations after the end of the Second World War and the transformation of the ILO into a specialized agency of the newly founded United Nations (UN), the court continued to function as the administrative court of the ILO from October 1946, giving it its current name. The judges in office at the administrative court of the League of Nations at that time were taken over. Later on, Georges Scelle from France and Hubert Armbruster from Germany worked as judges at the court.

The area of ​​responsibility of the court, which from 1946 was initially limited to the ILO itself, was expanded in 1949 by a corresponding amendment to the statute to include organizations which, with the consent of the ILO Board of Directors, recognize the jurisdiction of the court. The first organization to do this was the WHO in the same year , followed by the ITU , UNESCO , WMO and FAO in 1953 . There have been several attempts, for example in 1978 on the initiative of the UN General Assembly , to merge the court with the United Nations Administrative Court, which has existed since 1949 . Corresponding plans were not implemented, however; rather, further separate courts with comparable tasks arose in the system of the UN specialized agencies, for example the Administrative Court of the World Bank in 1980 and the Administrative Court of the International Monetary Fund in 1994 .

Jurisdiction and Legal Basis

The Administrative Court of the International Labor Organization is responsible for the legal issues of the employees of more than 50 international organizations which have recognized the jurisdiction of the court. These include the majority of the UN specialized agencies, the international criminal police organization Interpol , various European organizations such as EFTA , the European Patent Organization and Eurocontrol , major international research institutions such as CERN , the ITER project , the European Southern Observatory and EMBL as well as with the International Criminal Court and the EFTA Court of Justice are two other international courts. It is therefore responsible for the legal matters of more than 45,000 employees.

The legal basis of the court is the statute adopted by the International Labor Conference in 1946 and last amended in 2008 as well as the procedural rules adopted by the court in 1993 in the 2011 version. Important general principles that judges take into account when assessing a case are, in particular, natural law , which The requirement of legal certainty as well as the core standards of the ILO resulting from international law , which include, among other things, equal opportunities , the principle of equal treatment , the ban on discrimination and freedom of association . Although the court is not bound to any particular legal system, both the principles of French administrative law and the common law greatly affects its jurisdiction and the wording of its decisions.

Organization and way of working

In accordance with Article III of its statute , the court consists of seven judges , all of whom come from different countries and are appointed by the International Labor Conference on the proposal of the Administrative Council of the ILO for a term of three years. As a rule, three, in exceptional cases five or all seven of the judges take part in a trial. A majority of the votes of the judges involved is necessary for the decisions. The Australian Mary Gaudron was President of the Board in 2011, and Seydou Ba from Senegal in 2012 .

Proceedings before the court only come about at the initiative of the employees of the organizations concerned; an action by an organization against an employee is not possible in the court. As a rule, a prerequisite for bringing the matter before the court is the exhaustion of the internal objection and clarification options of the respective organization, including arbitration , mediation and ombudsman procedures . There is a registry for the processing of correspondence and other administrative tasks , the head registrar of which is appointed by the ILO. The official languages are English and French .

decisions

The Administrative Court of the International Labor Organization currently issues around 50 decisions during its sessions, which are to be held in accordance with Article 3 of the Rules of Procedure depending on the workload and currently take place in the spring and autumn of each year for a period of three weeks at the headquarters of the ILO in Geneva. In the course of its history, the court has decided a total of more than 2,800 cases. The decisions were published before 1978 as Series C of the Official Bulletin of the ILO and since then in the Judgments of the Administrative Tribunal of the International Labor Organization series .

The decisions of the court are usually final. However, in the event of any doubt as to jurisdiction or the presumption of a material procedural error, the governing body of the organization concerned may request an opinion from the International Court of Justice in accordance with Article XII of the Statute of the Tribunal . Such an opinion came about in 1956 after UNESCO challenged various decisions of the court .

literature

  • Catherine Comtet-Simpson: The ILO Administrative Tribunal . Geneva 2009 (English; online , PDF, 163 KiB).
  • Michael Ogwezzy: An Appraisal of the Role of ILO Administrative Tribunal: Promoting and Protecting the Contractual Rights of International Civil Servants . Lambert Academic Publishing, Saarbrücken 2012.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d Niels M. Blokker, Henry G. Schermers: The ILO Administrative Tribunal (ILOAT). In: International Institutional Law: Unity within Diversity. Fifth edition. Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, Leiden and Boston 2011, ISBN 9-00-418798-7 , pp. 464/465
  2. ↑ a b c Catherine Comtet-Simpson, Geneva 2009, p. 2 (see literature)
  3. ^ Administrative Tribunals of International Organizations. In: Boleslaw Adam Boczek: International Law: A Dictionary. Second edition. Scarecrow Press, Lanham MD 2005, ISBN 0-81-085078-8 , p. 350
  4. ↑ ILO Administrative Tribunal: Membership (last accessed on December 2, 2012)
  5. ↑ a b Catherine Comtet-Simpson, Geneva 2009, p. 3 (see literature)
  6. ^ Statute of the Administrative Tribunal of the International Labor Organization (last accessed on December 2, 2012)
  7. ↑ Rules of the Administrative Tribunal of the International Labor Organization (last accessed December 2, 2012)
  8. ↑ a b Catherine Comtet-Simpson, Geneva 2009, p. 5 (see literature)
  9. ↑ ILO Administrative Tribunal: Composition of the Tribunal (last accessed on December 2, 2012)
  10. ↑ ILO Administrative Tribunal: The Tribunal (last accessed on December 2, 2012)
  11. ^ MJ Langley Hardy: Jurisdiction of the Administrative Tribunal of the ILO The Advisory Opinion of the International Court of Justice of October 23, 1956. In: International and Comparative Law Quarterly. 6 (2) / 1957. Cambridge University Press / British Institute of International and Comparative Law, pp. 338-347, ISSN  0020-5893
  12. ↑ Advisory Opinion of 23 October 1956 - Judgments of the Administrative Tribunal of the ILO upon Complaints Made against Unesco ( Memento of the original dated April 2, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. ( PDF file , 3.3 MB) @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.icj-cij.org