NGO COMMITTEE RECOMMENDS 16 ORGANIZATIONS FOR CONSULTATIVE STATUS WITH ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL COUNCIL
| Press Release NGO/466 |
Committee on NGOs
9th and 10th Meetings (AM & PM)
NGO COMMITTEE RECOMMENDS 16 ORGANIZATIONS FOR CONSULTATIVE STATUS
WITH ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL COUNCIL
Committee Also Hears Allegations
Of Abuses of Accreditation Rules by Certain NGOs
The Russian Academy of Natural Sciences was recommended for the highest consultative status with the Economic and Social Council today by the Committee on Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs), as that Committee met in morning and afternoon sessions to review new applications for consultative status and to consider responses to complaints lodged against NGOs that already held such status.
The Russian Academy, which received wide support from the Committee for its bid for general consultative status, promotes science, education and culture, according to its application, for the economic and spiritual rebirth of the Russian Federation.
The Committee also recommended today 12 NGOs for special consultative status and three for roster status. It left three applications for consultative status pending after discussion.
Complaints considered today had been lodged by Member States against NGOs for extending their accreditation to other organizations which did not have consultative status with the Council, allowing them representation at the Commission on Human Rights.
Recommended for special consultative status this morning were: Hawa Society for Women, a national organization of the Sudan; Hope for the Nations, an international organization based in Canada; Lebanon Family Planning Association, a national organization; the Health of the Net Foundation; the International Fund for Animal Welfare; as well as the United States-based National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, Family Health International, Global Housing Foundation, and the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research, the last two of which are national organizations.
The American Society of Criminology, an international organization also based in the United States, and the Hong Kong Federation of Women’s Centres, a national NGO of China, were recommended special status ad referendum, in anticipation of replies to outstanding queries. The Center for Oceans Law and Policy, a national organization of the United States, was recommended for special status this afternoon.
Recommended for roster status today were: Forests Monitor Ltd., an international organization based in the United Kingdom; Association de Développement de la Vallée du Dra, a national NGO of Morocco; and Association Francophone Internationale des Directeurs d’Établissements Scolaires, based in Canada.
Left pending after discussion today was the application of the Jesuit Refugee Service, an international Catholic organization based in Italy, after the representative of Pakistan raised the question of whether the geographical distribution of its activities, which were minimal in his country, was influenced by religious discrimination.
The application of the Ambedkar Centre for Justice and Peace, an international NGO based in the United States, was also left pending this afternoon after a representative of the organization responded in person to questioning by India’s representative concerning its assessment of child slavery in his country. Questions were also raised by India's representative about the access passes already afforded to the NGO.
Information on the NGOs whose applications were considered today can be found in documents E/C.2/2002/R.2/Add.3,4 and 5.
Regarding accreditation abuses at the Commission on Human Rights, the Committee decided to require a special report from the NGO known as the Transnational Radical Party, after the Observer of Viet Nam demanded that the organization explain its actions in allowing the Montagnard Foundation, Inc. to speak at the fifty-seventh session of the Commission on Human Rights, saying that it was an arm of a terrorist organization originally recruited by United States intelligence during the war.
The Committee also decided to have a reminder of the rules of accreditation sent to the Asian Legal Resource Centre after a complaint was lodged by Sri Lanka that it had distributed materials from organizations without consultative status at the fifty-eighth session of the Commission on Human Rights.
In addition, it was decided that clarifications be requested from the International League for the Rights and Liberation of Peoples, following the complaint by the representative of Turkey that the NGO disregarded his country’s territorial integrity by issuing a document at the fifty-eighth session of the Commission on Human Rights that referred to the “Pontos” region as being separate from its national territory.
Following a complaint by the representative of Colombia, the Secretariat was requested to investigate the individuals and NGOs involved in an assault on the Vice-President of Colombia at the fifty-eighth Human Rights Commission session.
The Committee also took up special reports prepared in response to Iran’s complaints against five NGOs which it said had provided at the Human Rights Commission to members of Modjahedin Khalgh Organization/National Council of Resistance (MKO/NCR), which it said was a terrorist organization. In that regard, the report from the International Association of Democratic Lawyers was accepted, and the cases against two other NGOs, the International Federation of Human Rights Leagues and the Women’s Human Rights International Association, were dismissed.
The observer from Iran said, however, that the reports of New Human Rights and the Movement against Racism and for Friendship among Peoples had not stated their position clearly enough on providing a future platform for the MKO/NCR, with the former asked for clarifications and the latter for an additional report. Information concerning this matter can be found in document E/C.2/2001/Add.2.
The NGO Committee will meet again on Monday, 20 May, at 10 a.m.
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