For more than nine decades, the International Labour Organization (ILO) has been responsible for setting up, monitoring, and implementing international labour standards in order to ensure that workers around the globe enjoy minimum social protection and workers' rights. Lars Thomann examines the ILO's wide ranging efforts to achieve compliance with international labour standards adopted by the organization and ratified by its member states. The author draws on different compliance schools of various strands of international relations theory and discusses them against the background of the ILO's compliance efforts in general and regarding the abolition of forced labour in particular. He shows that even though the ILO has experience in bringing about compliance – given its seniority – and is in many cases successful in doing so, it is not well equipped to deal with persistent cases of non-compliance.

Dr. Lars Thomann completed his doctoral thesis at the Bremen International Graduate School of Social Sciences under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Peter Mayer and Prof. Dr. Michael Zürn.