The International Labour Organization is the UN specialized agency which seeks the promotion of social justice and internationally recognized human and labour rights. It was founded in 1919 and is the only surviving major creation of the Treaty of Versailles which brought the League of Nations into being and it became the first specialized agency of the UN in 1946.

The setting of international labour standards comes from a unique legislative process involving governments, as well as employers' and workers' representatives from around the world. Three main ideas of international labour standards comes from protection of wages, safe use of asbestos, and the worst forms of child labour . Defined by member governments include slavery, child prostitution and pornography, the use of children to traffic in drugs and work which is likely to harm the health, safety or morals of children. A recent World Bank study estimated that less than 5% of child workers in the developing world are involved in export related activities.

I believe that if the WTO took a more active stance on labour issues, that the results would be achieved much quicker. It is true the ILO was created specifically for labor issues. If the WTO does uphold the eight fundamental beliefs of the ILO, then there is no reason why they cannot incorporate these same beliefs for better working conditions, into their policies. I would propose that the ILO and WTO form an organization together, similar to the International Trade and Development Centre (which is a link between the WTO and the World Bank). The ILO would still be responsible for enforcing the policies, but aid from the WTO could prove very successful, in allowing the ILO's policies to be effectively carried out by all countries. There is 21 more membership states in the ILO then in the WTO, while there is 10 counties that belong to the WTO and not the ILO so we can clearly see that there are some member states that have chosen to not join one organization over the other, while some have joined neither. Of all the organizations, such as ILO, UN, ITD, IMF, IFC, MIGA, ICSID, IBRD, IDA, the World Bank, the ICFTU, and the WTO is the fourth largest group(when you add the 30 states that have applied for membership), the UN, ILO, AND IFC, are slightly larger.

It is a commercial contract ensuring trade liberalization and not labour standards. If there is any link between trade and working conditions, it is that possible trade restrictions are likely to bring about lower, not higher, living standards of targeted countries. The WTO should not tolerate any form of trade sanctions designed to impose particular labour standards by forcing additional mandatory costs on those WTO Members which, due to their past development, enjoy comparative advantages stemming from the cost-effective labour." This clearly transcends into the third point whether trade and labour sanctions should be mixed. I believe that it is important for countries such as Canada, to take a stand, and not trade with countries that have policies against Human Rights, yet the industrialized first world countries, should not exploit nor ignore developing countries, but rather assist them in providing education, sanitary conditions essential towards a better standard of living, and helping these countries foster a democratic spirit where equality and liberty for all would be implemented within their government. The WTO is comprised of governments and not businesses, that is one of the leading misconceptions. The WTO does recognize that there are lobbyists which may be corporations, yet it is the member governments which must make consensus on all proposals, and thus the WTO considers their system to be more effective than a democratic, majority over minority vote. I do believe it is great to have consensus, but I would urge for a tripartic membership, that would allow workers, employers and governments similar to the ILO, to all have equal say within the WTO. The policies of the WTO are based on a sure belief in the economic system of competition, supply, demand and other economic principles.

The fundamental question is whether a society should be run on the same principles as the economy? I would say no, because I feel that there is personal bias, emotions, fears, and other uncontrollable factors that vary from person to person, and so a society based on economics would fluctuate similar to the stock market, and chaos would evolve. Unfortunately the WTO and others believe that it is precisely the intervention of human feelings, biases and protectionist regulations that disrupt the natural free flow of the economy, causing chaos to evolve. Unfortunately it is a dream to believe that we will all come to a set conclusion one day as to what causes chaos, and thus it is even more difficult to predict how to resolve our differences, and the problems that now lie before us. Luckily there is many people in the world, who do believe that they have an answer, and will do everything in their power to see it achieved. Some of them are in the WTO, others in the ILO, unions, working at home and in factories, and some have not yet been born, but everyone will contribute hopefully to implementing the values, or at least just one of the articles of the UN's Universal Human Rights Declaration into their own lives.