ILO core labour standards
The ILO conventions recognised as fundamental – covering forced labour, child labour, freedom of association, discrimination and occupational safety – which set the substantive benchmark for the catalogue of protected rights in section 2(2) of the German Supply Chain Act.
The ILO core labour standards are those conventions of the International Labour Organization that the 1998 Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work declared universally binding on all member states, whether or not they have ratified the individual instrument. The classic set comprises eight conventions in four categories: the elimination of forced labour (Conventions 29 and 105), the effective abolition of child labour (Convention 138 on the minimum age and Convention 182 on the worst forms of child labour), freedom of association and the right to collective bargaining (Conventions 87 and 98), and the elimination of discrimination in employment and occupation including equal remuneration (Conventions 100 and 111). In 2022 the International Labour Conference added a safe and healthy working environment as a fifth category, bringing Convention 155 on occupational safety and health and Convention 187 on the promotional framework into the canon.
In supply chain practice these standards are not aspirational language but hard law with a direct hook. The annex to the German Supply Chain Due Diligence Act (LkSG) lists the eight classic conventions together with the 2014 Protocol to Convention 29, and section 2(2) LkSG translates their substance into a closed catalogue of twelve protected legal positions – from child and forced labour through disregard of occupational health and safety obligations and the withholding of an adequate wage to unlawful eviction and the use of security forces in ways that violate human rights. Those positions are the reference point for the entire due diligence architecture: risk analysis, preventive and remedial measures and the complaints procedure all attach to them. Occupational safety is assessed against the law of the place of employment under section 2(2) no. 5 LkSG, and the conventions added in 2022, numbers 155 and 187, have not so far been written into the LkSG annex.
The same standards underpin the other relevant frameworks. The OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises, the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights and the UN Global Compact all refer to them, as does the EU Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CSDDD, Directive (EU) 2024/1760), whose annex names the core conventions explicitly. That directive's timetable, however, is in flux: the so-called stop-the-clock directive pushed back the transposition and application dates, and the substantive rewrite under the Omnibus package remained politically contested. The standards resurface in reporting as well: ESRS S1 and ESRS S2 require companies to disclose how they address forced and child labour, freedom of association and discrimination in their own workforce and across the value chain. Aligning supplier requirements with the core labour standards therefore serves several frameworks with a single taxonomy.
Legal Basis
Section 2(2) LkSG and the annex to the LkSG (ILO Conventions 29, 87, 98, 100, 105, 111, 138, 182 and the 2014 Protocol to Convention 29); ILO Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work (1998, amended 2022); annex to the CSDDD (Directive (EU) 2024/1760); ESRS S1 and S2
Practical Example
A clothing retailer with 1,400 employees sources from 60 direct suppliers in South and South-East Asia. The human rights officer maps the catalogue in section 2(2) LkSG one-to-one onto her risk assessment questionnaire, so that every question is tied to a protected legal position and to the ILO convention behind it: age verification and hiring procedures to Conventions 138 and 182, identity documents and recruitment fees to Conventions 29 and 105, works council structures to Conventions 87 and 98, pay statistics by gender to Convention 100. At one supplier she finds that employment contracts are agreed only verbally and that identity papers are held by plant management – a classic indicator of forced labour under Convention 29. Rather than terminating the relationship, she agrees a corrective action plan with deadlines, has the return of the documents verified on site, and documents the measure and its effectiveness review in a form that will stand up to scrutiny by the supervisory authority.