International Labour Organization

The International Labour Organization is the international body charged with setting labour standards and advancing social and economic justice, founded under the Treaty of Versailles in 1919 as an agency of the newly created League of Nations, making it older than the IMF and World Bank by roughly a quarter-century. It survived the League's 1946 collapse to become the first specialized agency of the new United Nations system. The ILO is built on a distinctive tripartite structure unique among major international bodies: governments, employers' organizations and workers' organizations each hold seats and a vote in its governance, built on the founding principle that labour is not a commodity and workers are owed dignity rather than treatment as a mere economic input. Headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland, it had 187 member states as of the mid-2020s and received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1969.