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.

This Chapter was initially drafted during the Obama Administration. The Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP) had been negotiated and, although it had not yet been ratified in the United States, the Administration and majority of policy makers were in favor of its implementation. Since that time, as previous Chapters have made clear, the United States Administration changed and the United States withdrew from participation in the TPP. While unfortunate, the Administration’s political decision to withdraw from the TPP does not come as a surprise; an examination of the negotiating history of those provisions illuminates a stark political divide within the United States, even prior to the change in Administrations. Fortunately, the other eleven parties to the TPP persevered, resulting in the Comprehensive and Progressive TPP.