UKPSC Prelims 2025 Q117: As on April 2025, India is not a party to which of the

Q: What is the answer to UKPSC Prelims 2025 Q117?

C. Correct — C, Occupational Safety and Health Convention. This option names International Labour Organization Convention No. 155, adopted in 1981 and in force from 1983. India is not among the states that have ratified the **Occupational Safety and Health Convention**, so as on April 2025 it was not a party to it. The other three names bind India, and all three date back decades: it has been a CITES Party since 1976, a State Party to the 1972 World Heritage Convention, and a member government of the International Whaling Commission. Carry this away: **a country can regulate workplace safety heavily in its own law and still not have ratified the ILO Convention on the subject.** Ratification is a separate, separately recorded act.

UKPSC Prelims 2025 General Studies Paper-I · Question 117 of 149

Verified against the official question booklet. Answer as per UKPSC's provisional answer key.

Answers from UKPSC's provisional answer key. The Commission publishes a provisional key for UKPSC Prelims 2025 and invites objections before issuing a final key. Every answer shown here is the Commission's own provisional answer (key PDF), not our derivation. If the final key changes an answer, this page is updated to match.

As on April 2025, India is not a party to which of the following international conventions/commissions?

(a)Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of fauna and flora (CITES)
(b)World Heritage Convention
(c)Occupational Safety and Health Convention
(d)International Whaling Commission

Answer

Why

Correct — C, Occupational Safety and Health Convention.

This option names International Labour Organization Convention No. 155, adopted in 1981 and in force from 1983. India is not among the states that have ratified the Occupational Safety and Health Convention, so as on April 2025 it was not a party to it.

The other three names bind India, and all three date back decades: it has been a CITES Party since 1976, a State Party to the 1972 World Heritage Convention, and a member government of the International Whaling Commission.

Carry this away: a country can regulate workplace safety heavily in its own law and still not have ratified the ILO Convention on the subject. Ratification is a separate, separately recorded act.

Why the others are wrong

(a)
Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of fauna and flora (CITES) — India has been a Party to CITES since 1976, so it is not the instrument India stands outside as on April 2025.
CITES is the right answer to which treaty controls cross-border trade in listed wild species through Appendices I, II and III and a permit system. Its subject is commerce in specimens, not the protection of habitat inside a country.
(b)
World Heritage Convention — India is a State Party. Its earliest inscriptions — Ajanta, Ellora, Agra Fort and the Taj Mahal, all made in 1983 — depended on that status, since nominations come from States Parties.
This is the right answer to which 1972 UNESCO convention created the World Heritage List and the World Heritage Committee.
(d)
International Whaling Commission — India is among the Commission's member governments, so this is not the body it sits outside. Lacking a whaling industry is not a bar to membership; the Commission's members include states that join on the conservation side of the debate.
The IWC is the right answer to which body adopted the moratorium on commercial whaling, decided in 1982 and effective from the 1985–86 season.

Concept

Being a "party" to a convention is a recorded legal status, not a description of what a country does. A state becomes a party by depositing an instrument of ratification, accession or acceptance; until it does, the treaty does not bind it, however closely domestic law already resembles the treaty text.

For ILO instruments this is unusually easy to check. Each Convention carries a number, and the ILO keeps a public register showing which member states have ratified which Convention, with dates.

An item of this shape tests one binary fact per option, so a single confident "no" settles it without needing to know the other three in detail. Here three of the four names come from the environment and heritage side of international law and one comes from the ILO's labour-standards system.

The ILO angle carries into governance topics too. In June 2022 the International Labour Conference added a safe and healthy working environment to the fundamental principles and rights at work, which moved Conventions Nos. 155 and 187 into the fundamental category.

Key facts

CITES was adopted at Washington in 1973 and entered into force in 1975; India has been a Party since 1976.
The World Heritage Convention was adopted by UNESCO in 1972 and created the World Heritage List and the World Heritage Committee.
India's earliest World Heritage inscriptions — Ajanta, Ellora, Agra Fort and the Taj Mahal — were made in 1983.
The International Whaling Commission was set up under the 1946 International Convention for the Regulation of Whaling; India is a member government.
The IWC adopted the moratorium on commercial whaling in 1982, and it took effect from the 1985–86 season.
ILO Convention No. 155, the Occupational Safety and Health Convention, was adopted in 1981 and entered into force in 1983.
India is not among the states listed as having ratified ILO Convention No. 155.
India ratified ILO Conventions Nos. 138 (minimum age) and 182 (worst forms of child labour) in 2017.
In June 2022 the International Labour Conference made a safe and healthy working environment a fundamental principle and right at work.

The four names, and India's standing in each

CITES, adopted 1973→Party since 1976

World Heritage Convention, UNESCO 1972→State Party; first inscriptions 1983

Occupational Safety and Health Convention, ILO No. 155, 1981→Not ratified by India

International Whaling Commission, under the 1946 whaling convention→Member government

Three of the four instruments listed in the options bind India; the ILO's Convention No. 155 is the one it has not ratified.

Study next

The ILO's fundamental Conventions and India's ratification record among themCITES Appendices I, II and III, and what a change of listing does to trade in a speciesThe World Heritage Convention machinery: nomination, the Committee, and the List of World Heritage in DangerThe International Convention for the Regulation of Whaling and the 1982 moratoriumTreaties India has deliberately stayed outside, such as the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty

Common traps

Reading "Occupational Safety and Health Convention" as a topic rather than as a numbered ILO instrument, then reasoning from India's factory and labour legislation to a ratification that is not on the register.
Assuming a country without a commercial whaling industry would have no reason to sit on the International Whaling Commission.
Treating signature and ratification as one step; a state that has signed an instrument is not yet a party to it.
Losing the negative in the stem — the item asks which one India is not a party to, and a hurried read turns it into the opposite question.
Letting the "as on April 2025" date suggest the statuses are recent; the three memberships that do exist here go back to the 1970s.

The idea appears as a status check. The options gather treaties from different systems — environment, heritage, labour, humanitarian law — and one is singled out by India's ratification status, framed either positively (which has India ratified) or negatively, as here.

A second form lists several conventions as numbered statements and asks which combination India has not ratified. That needs the same register-level fact, not a feel for the subject matter of each treaty.

Related PYQs

UPSC_2026_GS1_Q892026

Same device — the item turns on which international conventions India has not ratified, with ILO instruments among the names. It differs in form: that one asks for a combination drawn from a numbered list of five, while this UKPSC item needs only the single odd name out of four.

UPSC_2018_GS1_Q302018

Same institution and the same habit of naming an ILO Convention by its number. What differs is the test: it asks what Conventions 138 and 182 are about (child labour), whereas the UKPSC item turns on India's party status, which is a different kind of fact about the same register.

UPSC_1998_GS1_Q331998

Shares the underlying point that ratification of ILO Conventions is a state-by-state fact to be checked rather than inferred from a country's conduct or its domestic law. It differs in form, being an assertion–reason pair, and in subject, since it concerns United States action at the WTO rather than India's treaty status.

Practice

practice — not a real PYQ
The Occupational Safety and Health Convention, 1981 is which International Labour Organization Convention?
- (a)Convention No. 100
- (b)Convention No. 138
- (c)Convention No. 155
- (d)Convention No. 182
Answerc — Convention No. 155 is the Occupational Safety and Health Convention, adopted in 1981 and in force from 1983.
No. 100 is the Equal Remuneration Convention, No. 138 fixes the minimum age for admission to employment, and No. 182 addresses the worst forms of child labour, so none of them carries this title.
practice — not a real PYQ
The International Whaling Commission was established under which one of the following?
- (a)Convention on Biological Diversity, 1992
- (b)International Convention for the Regulation of Whaling, 1946
- (c)United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, 1982
- (d)Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species of Wild Animals, 1979
Answerb — the 1946 International Convention for the Regulation of Whaling created the Commission, which later adopted the 1982 moratorium on commercial whaling.
The Convention on Biological Diversity and the Convention on Migratory Species each run through their own Conference of the Parties, and the Law of the Sea Convention set up bodies of its own; none of the three created the Whaling Commission.
practice — not a real PYQ
Which one of the following regulates international trade in specimens of wild animals and plants through a system of Appendices and permits?
- (a)Ramsar Convention on Wetlands
- (b)Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora
- (c)World Heritage Convention
- (d)Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety
Answerb — CITES places species in Appendices I, II and III and makes cross-border movement of their specimens depend on permits.
Ramsar concerns wetlands designated for the List of Wetlands of International Importance; the World Heritage Convention lists cultural and natural sites; the Cartagena Protocol governs transboundary movement of living modified organisms, not trade in wild species.
practice — not a real PYQ
The Convention Concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage, 1972 was adopted by which organisation?
- (a)United Nations Environment Programme
- (b)International Union for Conservation of Nature
- (c)United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization
- (d)Food and Agriculture Organization
Answerc — UNESCO's General Conference adopted the Convention in 1972, and the World Heritage Committee it created maintains the World Heritage List.
IUCN advises that Committee on natural sites but did not adopt the Convention; UNEP is the UN's environment programme; the FAO's mandate is food and agriculture.