NGO COMMITTEE RECOMMENDS TWO BODIES FOR SPECIAL STATUS WITH ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL COUNCIL
| Press Release NGO/453 |
Committee on NGOs
43rd Meeting (AM)
NGO COMMITTEE RECOMMENDS TWO BODIES FOR SPECIAL STATUS
WITH ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL COUNCIL
One NGO Recommended for Roster Status;
Committee Also Briefed on NGO Accreditation with Human Rights Commission
The Committee on Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) this morning recommended two NGOs for special consultative status with the Economic and Social Council as it continued its 2001 resumed session. It recommended one NGO for roster consultative status to that body.
Also this morning, the Committee heard a representative of the Commission on Human Rights speaking on the accreditation of NGO representatives to the Commission, as part of the ongoing cooperation of the two bodies in that process.
Recommended for special consultative status were: the National Assembly of Youth Organizations of the Republic of Azerbaijan, and the Association Marocaine de Soutien et d’Aide aux Handicapés Mentaux. Charitable Public Fund Poligon, an international organization based in Kazakhstan, was granted roster consultative status.
Applications considered this morning are contained in documents E/C.2/2001/R.2/Add.6-11.
[Organizations that have special consultative status with the Council can attend meetings of the Council and circulate statements of a certain length; those with general status can, in addition, speak at meetings and propose items for the Council’s agenda. Quadrennial reports on activities in support of the United Nations are required by all organizations with general and special consultative status. Organizations with roster status can attend meetings but are not required to submit quadrennial reports.]
Regarding the accreditation of NGO representatives, Committee Chairman Levent Bilman of Turkey made a statement recalling the steps that had been taken to increase coordination between the Committee on NGOs and the Human Rights Commission.
Maria Francesca Ize-Charrin, the Chief of the Support Services Branch of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, addressed the Committee on procedures related to NGOs in Geneva. She described the types of badges issued prior to the annual session of the Commission on Human Rights, based on properly authorized letters of accreditation. She said the Commission was responsible for checking the representatives’ legitimacy via a database; a daily list of
participants was issued and checked as participants arrived for meetings. It could also control issuance of badges.
The Commission could not, however, control the use that NGOs made of the badges, she said. NGOs had not been made sufficiently aware of their responsibility for the actions of the person to whom they had given a badge. She described the rules that covered NGO participation in meetings and the distribution of documents. The expanded bureau of the Commission met weekly with NGOs to discuss issues such as the insufficiency of meeting space for the 3,000 persons attending the annual session. The new guidelines the NGO Committee had provided would help make NGO responsibility clear to participants.
The question-and-answer discussion that followed Ms. Ize-Charrin’s statement focused on the importance of making NGOs aware that they were responsible for the individuals whom they accredited, following the remark of the representative of the United States that it was the crux of the matter. Ms. Ize-Charrin said that it was a problem not only with NGOs but also with specialized agencies.
Issues concerning parallel meetings, lists of accredited individuals, authorizing letters, NGO statements and procedural questions involving NGOs were also raised. Speaking in the discussion were representatives of the Russian Federation, Sudan, Algeria, India, Tunisia, Ethiopia, Cuba and China.
The representative of France, as head of the working group on the matter, pointed out the numerous steps taken to improve NGO participation in the Human Rights Commission, including the exchange of letters, the present dialogue and improvements in security measures between the Commission Secretariat and the host country.
The procedural debate that ensued included representatives of India, Cuba, Algeria and Iran, which spoke as an observer. It resulted in a decision to continue the working group's informal discussions and to have the Chairman correspond about further procedural clarifications with the Commission on Human Rights, including the matter of two organizations against whom complaints had been lodged.
The representatives of Turkey and Germany also spoke today.
The NGO Committee will meet again at 3 p.m. today to continue its consideration of applications for consultative status and requests for reclassification of status.
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