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Articles
Geneva: Four NGO Recommendations for GA Treaty-Body Strengthening Process
2012-03-09 | | 
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Today, 24 international and national human rights organizations addressed recommendations to the UN General Assembly member states, in response to a surprising turn of events in the UN Treaty Body strengthening process. The process, known as the Dublin process, which had been progressing successful since late 2009, was undercut by a surprising Russian-tabled resolution requesting the President of the General Assembly (PGA) to launch an intergovernmental process to conduct negotiations on strengthening and enhancing the effective functioning of the treaty body system. Even more concerning, the initial draft limited NGO interaction to those with ECOSOC accreditation, despite the fact that participation of treaty body work is open to all members of civil society.
While the resolution adopted has addressed some of these concerns, a number of outstanding points have yet to be addressed, particularly relating to the engagement of NGOs and civil society generally with the GA Working Group. It is in response to this that the international NGO community has prepared four key recommendations to ensuring effective participation of non-governmental organizations:
- The inter-governmental process should build on practice in the GA regarding non-state stakeholder participation in standard-setting processes. The arrangements should invite NGOs with an interest in the matter to make contributions to the work entrusted to the inter-governmental process.
- The resolution mandates that the inter-governmental process be open, transparent and inclusive. Consequently, all meetings of the inter-governmental process should be open to NGOs.
- In order for the inter-governmental process to benefit from the inputs and expertise of NGOs, as stipulated in GA resolution A/RES/66/254, NGOs should be able to make direct contributions in a timely manner. This requires allotting time within the intergovernmental process for NGOs to provide expertise.
- NGOs with an interest in the discussions about strengthening the treaty bodies operate at the grassroots, national, regional and international levels. Arrangements for NGOs in the open-ended inter-governmental process should enable all such NGOs – many of which may be physically absent – to follow the discussions and to provide their input and expertise.
Alkarama calls on all member states of the General Assembly to respect the above recommendations to ensure effective NGO engagement in this newly-established process.