Monitoring Policy Making at the United Nations |
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NGOs Background on ECOSOC and the CSI Case
Information posted in the CONGO List-Serv
July 1999
The issue of human rights has always been a politically-sensitive subject at the UN. And when non-governmental organisations (NGOs) get embroiled in such issues, it becomes doubly sensitive. Last week, the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) decided, at its meeting in Geneva, to ask one of its subsidiary bodies, the Committee on Non-Governmental Organisations, to reconsider its decision to revoke the consultative status of a controversial NGO, Christian Solidarity International (CSI).
The revocation is a relatively extreme measure taken under extreme circumstances. The issue has pitted the South against the North. Developing nations, led by Sudan, have accused the CSI of exceeding its ''acceptable limits'' when it accredited the leader of an armed group fighting against the Sudanese government to speak before the UN Commission on Human Rights. The 15-members of the European Union - along with the US and Canada - not only justify the CSI action but also argue that the Committee on NGOs had not followed due process in reaching its disputed decision.
But Sudan's representative Ibrahim Mirghani Ibrahim told ECOSOC that while his country appreciated NGOs that provided valuable humanitarian services in Sudan, there have been ''growing concerns in the international community about the behaviour of one NGO, Christian Solidarity International,'' he said.
The commander of the Sudan Liberation Army (SLA) had been accredited to speak for CSI, he said, and pointed out that the SLA had advocated action against the Sudanese government. When the issue is re-opened at the next session of the Committee in the Fall, there is bound to be a heated exchange and, obviously, a split decision once again.
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