The ILO was created in a period of globalization in the early nineteenth century to help governments agree on health and safety protections for workers. These labor standards were renewed after World War II and today the ILO is the primary global agency at the interface where governments and labor meet on a global scale. This chapter looks at the authority of the ILO in both theory and practice. The theory is provided by the legal texts of the ILO’s conventions and agreements, and a case study on Myanmar’s long-running violations of the rules provides insight into some of the lived experience of the rules.

Chapter 5 investigates China’s participation in the International Labour Organization’s Conference Committee on the Application of Standards, where its taker behavior can be attributed mainly to the lack of scrutiny it received from this Committee.This chapter unveils an instrumental aspect of Beijing’s behavior, exposing that beginning in the late 1990s, the PRC began using this venue to speak in defense of friendly countries during their reviews before the ILC.By analyzing the votes and statements of these countries in the UNCHR and HRC, I show that Beijing appears to have benefited from reciprocal treatment as these countries frequently voted against resolutions on China’s record and offered protective statements during the PRC’s Universal Periodic Review before the HRC.This behavior suggests that even though the PRC was a taker in this Committee, its actions did not necessarily uphold the principles undergirding the regime.