Articles

• Aston, Jurij Daniel

Abstract

In his recent ‘Millennium Report’ the Secretary‐General of the United Nations spread his arms widely to embrace civil society. Yet the present institutional framework of the UN allows only for limited participation of NGOs, and there is fundamental disagreement between UN Member States on whether participatory rights of NGOs should be extended. This disagreement as well as the weaknesses of the current mechanism are well reflected in the work of the UN Committee on NGOs which, on the one hand, confers consultative status upon too many organizations, thereby endangering a substantive collaboration between the UN and NGOs in very practical terms, and, on the other hand, too often rejects organizations that deal with human rights issues under the pretext of ‘misbehaviour’, thereby muzzling critical voices at the UN. The challenge will be to find a model allowing for substantial contribution of NGOs while at the same time taking into account the necessary limits of participation. The debate promises to be difficult, not only in light of the current dichotomy between open and closed societies of UN Member States, but also because the issue goes to the very fundaments of how international law works, who its actors and, in the end, its legal subjects are.