Report on 9 December Meeting
of Governments on NGO Access
By Naomi Onaga
World Federalist Movement
December 9, 1997Following on the Monday, December 8 "Informal open-ended consultations" on NGOs (see INTGLIM memo of 8 December 1997), another such meeting was announced in the UN Daily Journal on Tuesday, December 9 to take place that day at 3:00 PM at the Trusteeship Council.
About 40 government representatives attended, mostly the same as the previous day's meeting. About 12 NGO observers sat in the back of the room.
Ross Hynes of Canada chaired the meeting. He said he was chairing instead of Ambassador Kamal, who had moderated the day before, in reponse to requests by some delegations to have the drafter of text facilitate debate. He said he is chairing as a delegation interested in sponsoring the text in the future if this questions should arise, but was currently hoping that after discussion a consensus can be reached in order to introduce a Presidential text. He said there had been considerations about introducing a new draft text for discussion in the meeting, but it was instead decided to continue discussions on the 3 December text that was discussed yesterday. He attempted to start substantive debate, but India, Cuba, Egypt, China had questions about the procedure and rules governing NGO attendance at the meeting. Netherlands said he did not think presence of NGOs would present a problem; Italy said that this is an informal meeting of delegations interested in discussing this issue so there are no rules of procedure. Egypt called for suspension of the meeting to discuss this, and it was decided to ask NGOs to leave.
INTGLIM heard subsequently that despite the fact that NGOs were asked to leave, the views expressed by governments on increased NGO participation remained generally positive, and delegations started discussion on the substance of the draft text; views were generally similar to the Monday December 8 meeting. Preambular paragraph 1 and 2 and operative paragraph 1 was discussed. PP 1 and 2 (which recognizes the contribution of NGOs in the UN and cites existing modalities for NGOs in ECOSOC and international conferences) after discussion and some changes still contain some brackets, but most delegations did not seem to have too many problems with it. Operative paragraph 1 (which provides the interim invitation to NGOs to the GA Plenary, Main Committees, special sessions, and intergovernmental subsidiary bodies) was discussed in great length - this is the area that delegations have the most problems.
The discussion was reportedly fairly constructive and reasonable, focusing on the work on the text; this is a sign of willingness of delegations to try to strike a compromise, which could be presented as a consensus text by the end of the General Assemby on 17 December. The US, which had not participated in the Monday December 8 discussion, reportedly participated in the Tuesday negotiations. According to one report, the key to success is if delegations are able to compromise, both on extreme "negative" positions as well as extreme "positive" positions.
There will be another informal meeting of governments probably on Thursday, December 11; it will be listed in the UN Journal probably as a closed meeting and NGOs will not be allowed to attend. Early next week, however, there may be an open meeting, possibly chaired by Ambassador Kamal, to finalize the draft text, for submission to the General Assembly Plenary. #026#
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