Speaking in plenary

The Conference has detailed rules on the right to address its plenary, in particular during the discussion of the Reports of the Director-General and of the Chairperson of the Governing Body for which it is necessary to register in advance.

Who can speak in the plenary?

Speakers in the plenary must be accredited either as delegates or as “advisers and substitute delegates” acting on behalf of delegates. Please refer to the Explanatory note on credentials for national delegations.

In accordance with article 23.3 of the revised Standing Orders approved by the Conference in June 2021, one delegate or attending minister representing the Government, one delegate representing the Employers and one delegate representing the Workers may participate in the discussion in respect of each Member State. A visiting Head of State or Government may speak in addition to the Government delegate or minister. No speaker may speak in the discussion more than once, except in those cases when a speaker is granted a right to reply by the Conference plenary chairing officer.

How to register for the plenary

  • All requests to speak in the plenary must be submitted in advance through the registration form for the list of speakers for the plenary. Information required include the name, country, group (whether government, employer or worker delegate, invited international organization), and contact information of the speaker, including a mobile number in case of urgent need.
  • Queries regarding speeches in plenary may be addressed to plenaryspeeches@ilo.org.
Delegates who are registered to speak in person in plenary are requested to send the text version of their speech to plenaryspeeches@ilo.org at least 24 hours before they are scheduled to speak. Pre-recorded statements, however, must be received 48 hours in advance. Please refer to the section on “Format of pre-recorded statements and related technical information” for important details.


It is important that the text version clearly indicates:

  1. The name of the speaker;
  2. the name of the delegation; and
  3. marked “check against delivery”
  • Registration will open on Friday, 12 May and close on Wednesday, 7 June at 6 p.m. (Central European Summer Time). Requests will be dealt with in the order they are received.
  • Speakers will be notified beforehand by email of the sitting and the approximate time at which the President will give them the floor.
Please note that this concerns registration only for those wishing to take the floor in the Conference plenary during the discussion of the Reports of the Chairperson of the Governing Body and of the Director-General.

Requests to speak in plenary during the adoption of Committee reports must be addressed to the Chairperson of the respective committees through their secretariats.

Time limit for speeches


To allow as many speakers as possible to take the floor during the discussion of the Reports of the Chairperson of the Governing Body and of the Director-General, the time limit for speeches is set at a maximum of five minutes, in accordance with article 14(4) of the Standing Orders of the International Labour Conference.

This time limit will be strictly applied to all statements.

For participants’ information, this time allowance corresponds to approximately two typewritten double-spaced A4 pages (or 600 words), read at a speed that allows accurate simultaneous interpretation, that is 120 words per minute.
It is therefore strongly recommended that delegates reduce courtesies to a minimum and enter into the substantive elements of their statements without delay.

Format of pre-recorded statements and related technical information

The 111th Session of the Conference is back to its pre-COVID format and delegates are expected to address the plenary in person.

Delegates will however have the possibility to deliver their statements through a pre-recorded video message, in which case they are requested to take note of the following specifications:
  • Video messages must respect the five-minute limit allotted to interventions. Video messages exceeding this time limit will be broadcast for five minutes only.
  • Video messages must be sent at least 48 hours before the scheduled speaking time, together with the text version of the speech, to (plenaryspeeches@ilo.org).
  • Technical specifications:
    • format: MP4 format
    • Video codec: H264 (no more than 5 MBps)
    • Aspect ratio: 16:9 (horizontal, not vertical)
  • As there might be difficulties in emailing large files directly, speakers may wish to use wetransfer (wetransfer.com), which is a free application, when sending their videos to plenaryspeeches@ilo.org.
  • The following information should appear on the subject line of the email: “name of speaker – country – video”. It is important to note, however, that for technical reasons, the name and title of the speaker should be indicated only in the email, and not inserted in the video itself. These will be added by ILO video technicians.
  • If the video statement is delivered in any language other than the seven ILO working languages (Arabic, Chinese, German, English, French, Russian and Spanish), the video message should be subtitled in one of the three official languages (English, French or Spanish). A written translation of the speech in one of the three official languages must also be sent in advance for the benefit of the interpreters.

Please note that there will be no possibility for live interventions through video conferencing platforms (Zoom)