Submitted by crinadmin on
Summary: The Committee on Non-Governmental Organizations held its resumed session in New York from 20 to 29 May and on 7 June 2013.
The Committee is tasked with considering the applications of NGOs for consultative status with the UN, as well as the quadrennial reports submitted by non-governmental organizations (NGOs) already in consultative status. The Committee makes recommendations to the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC), which can either approve or overturn a decision. During this session, the Committee recommended consultative status to 161 NGOs and deferred the applications of 219. The Committee approved 49% of new applications. This is in keeping with an average approval rate of 48% over the last 11 sessions. However, the rate of approval of previously deferred applications remains disturbingly low at 22%. This represents a significant drop in the average approval rate of 29% for deferred applications over the last 11 sessions. Despite the disappointing rate of approvals overall - the result of blocking tactics by various States – the Committee made great strides in opening the UN to LGBT voices. In a 9-6 vote, the Committee recommended consultative status to two national groups working on sexual orientation and gender identity issues: Homosexuelle Initiative Wien (HOSI-Wien) and the Australian Lesbian Medical Association (ALMA). This represented a significant achievement, as it is only the second time that the Committee has recommended consultative status for an NGO working on LGBT issues. It is expected that the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) will finally grant consultative status to Hosi-Wien and ALMA in its July session in Geneva. In other positive developments, the Committee recommended status for a number of credible human rights NGOs, including Scholars at Risk (SAR), Lawyers for Lawyers[xii], El Centro de Estudios de Derecho Justicia Sociedad Dejusticia, Human Rights Network (HURINET) and an organisation working on minority issues (A.U.A. Americas Chapter). All of these applications had been previously deferred for several sessions. In other ways, the session was similar to others in that some States continued to oppose NGOs that hold views they do not agree with, or that have been critical of a government’s human rights record. Committee members use various strategies to control the review process and defer applications, such as asking (often repetitive) questions that go beyond the scope of what NGOs are required to submit with their applications. Among many others, the Committee continued to block applications from organizations working on caste issues (International Dalit Solidarity Network (IDSN)), human rights (International Federation of Liberal Youth, Collectif des Familles de Disparu(e)s en Algérie, Fondacion Alkarama, Kuki Organization for Human Rights Trust, Geneva Institute for Human Rights (GIHR)) and sexual and reproductive rights (Youth Coalition for Sexual and Reproductive Rights (YCSRR)). The Committee also continued to exert its pressure on human rights NGOs that already have status by deferring the quadrennial reports of certain organizations. NGOs already in consultative status are required to submit quadrennial reports in order to maintain that status. The Committee deferred again all of the 22 previously deferred reports. Notably, the 2007-2010 quadrennial report of Freedom House and the 2007-2010 report of Human Rights First were again deferred due to questions from China and Cuba. And of the 113 new reports before the Committee, only the report of Earthrights International--a NGO that links environmental and human rights--was deferred. Further Information