EUROPEAN UNION WORLD

 VIDEO

Focus Human Rights: Women's Rights, NGOs, Second Dimension

Non Governmental Organizations and States: Contrasting Roles

The activities of nongovernmental organizations are also important to the politics of international human rights.

Amnesty International, Americas Watch, the American Civil Liberties Union, and several other organizations were important in the debates about Central American policy in the 1980s. And in both North America and Europe, NGOs played a major role in national debates over sanctions against South Africa during the 1980s.

Because of their private status, NGOs often can operate free of the political control of states. And because they do not have broader foreign policy ambitions that may conflict with human rights objectives, NGOs often are better able to press human rights concerns. Being narrowly focused and generally nonpartisan, NGOs can sometimes raise human rights issues within a country that others cannot. This is particularly the case where independent political activity is repressed and civil society is weak.

Strengths and Weaknesses

However, the power of NGOs is limited. They must rely on the power of publicity and persuasion. Many states have used their powers of coercion against local members of human rights NGOs, turning them into new victims. Some countries have forbidden external funding of NGOs, or have used onerous registration procedures to hobble their work.

Sovereign states have almost the opposite strengths and weaknesses of NGOs. States must accommodate a wide range of interests in their foreign policies. Governments tend to formulate foreign policy in their national interest, and this means that human rights advocacy may be limited by other objectives. But when states do choose to pursue human rights issues, they typically possess resources, channels of influence, and even publicity capabilities that are unavailable to NGOs.

Recent Developments

The 1993 Vienna World Conference on Human Rights helped refocus international attention on human rights in the post-Cold War world. The war crimes tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda, established by the U.N. Security Council in 1993 and 1994, have developed the law of armed conflict and international    humanitarian law, seeking to protect civilians and noncombatants in those civil war conflicts. Special tribunals were established for Sierra Leone in 2002 and Cambodia in 2003 to prosecute military and political leaders responsible for atrocities during times of war and genocide. In addition, although the United States has not joined as a treaty party, and has expressed certain reservations about its scope, the International Criminal Court was  established in 1998 by the Rome treaty, and has been tasked by the U.N. Security Council to prosecute human rights violations in the Darfur conflict in Sudan.

The 1995 United Nations Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing attempted to place women’s issues within the mainstream of international human rights discussions. With its emphasis on “good governance,” the World Bank highlights important human rights issues. The Council of Europe and the European Union have stressed that countries seeking to join the political structures of Europe must have policies that protect human rights. In 2002, the United States established the Millennium Challenge Corporation to provide economic assistance to countries that govern democratically, invest in their people, and encourage economic freedom.