On 20 April, China’s highest legislative body, the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress ratified two International Labour Organization (ILO) conventions banning forced labour, bringing to six, from the ILO’s total of eight, the number of fundamental conventions that China has adopted. While this is a welcome development, the conventions on trade union rights and collective bargaining are still outstanding, and these tardy ratifications appear to provide just a minimal response to accusations of forced labour, particularly among the primarily Muslim Uighur minority.
China and ILO conventions. In signing the Forced Labour Convention (C029) of 1930 and the Abolition of Forced Labour Convention (C105) of 1957, China becomes one of the last countries to comply with well-established international standards, since only eight (including the United States) and eleven countries, respectively, had not hitherto ratified these conventions. China is now a signatory to 28 of the 190 ILO conventions – as a reminder, France is a signatory to 128 of these conventions, incl
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