by Ivan Osorio
November 4, 2006

If you have never been to a conference of the United Nations, the World Trade Organization, or any other global body, you would find the experience instructive. For at these global confabs we can see who we—by “we” I mean advocates of free markets and limited governments—are really up against.

The Ruckus Society, Friends of the Earth, Greenpeace, and other activist so-called “nongovernmental organizations”—or NGOs—are ubiquitous at these global gatherings.

Most NGO activists refer to themselves collectively as “civil society”—that is, they claim to represent the people rather than the governments of the member states of the U.N. and other global bodies.

 Of course, no one has elected these activists to any office. It’s United Nations officials—who aren’t elected either—who bestow legitimacy on them as participants at countless conferences and meetings.

As Gary Johns, formerly of Australia’s Institute of Public Affairs, who has done substantial research on NGOs, notes, there is a good reason for this. NGOs give United Nations officials and other transnational bureaucrats something they would not otherwise have—a legitimizing constituency. And therein lies a symbiotic relationship.

This constituency of NGOs needs the forums that the transnational bureaucrats organize, because it allows the NGOs to portray themselves as the agents of participatory democracy. This is not democracy as traditionally understood—that is, representative democracy, in which government officials derive their legitimacy by representing the populace or a segment thereof.

Participatory democracy is about process, and about getting as many parties involved in that process as is necessary to dispel the appearance of bureaucrats acting without any democratic tether.

The U.N. has always worked with non-governmental organizations. For decades, groups like Catholic Relief Services, the Salvation Army, and Amnesty International have worked with U.N. agencies and member states to address real world needs dealing with disaster relief, refugee relocation, human rights, and other tough issues.

But in recent years NGOs have become more politicized, more numerous, and more vocal. How did this come about?

A turning point came in 1992, with the adoption of Agenda 21 by 178 U.N. member states at the Rio Earth Summit. Agenda 21 calls for central economic planning to transfer wealth to the developing world—with the aid of  NGOs, of course. The section of Agenda 21 that deals with NGOs, Chapter 27, states (and I quote):

Both the United Nations system and individual governments should invite non-governmental organizations to be involved in making policies and decisions on sustainable development.

This preceding line is bolded in the original text. It goes on:

They should also make non-governmental organizations part of a process to review and evaluate how Agenda 21 is being put into practice.

Now, NGO influence has exploded in the 10 years since Agenda 21 was adopted. In 1968 there were about 260 NGOs with some type of U.N. recognition. But today close to 3,000 NGOs have consultative status with various U.N. bodies. This has occurred by design.

In 1996 the United Nations set up formal procedures giving NGOs official “consultative status.” Any NGO that applies is required to submit its charter and by-laws, financial statements, annual reports, and sample publications to the U.N.’s NGO Section. It also must explain how its activities contribute to the goals of the U.N. And to keep its accredited status the NGO is required to submit a report on its accomplishments. Sound stringent? Well, not really, when you consider that the report (quote) “must not exceed four pages double-spaced” (unquote) and it only needs to be submitted once every four years.

Some agencies have tightened requirements, but more still needs to be done.

Since the Rio Earth Summit, NGOs have played an increasing role in U.N. conferences, including the 1997 conference on global warming in Kyoto, Japan, that begat the treaty that now bears the city’s name. Since 1997, green activist NGOs have been making the trek to the biennial Conference of the Parties meetings, which seek to negotiate the Kyoto treaty’s implementation.

Accredited NGOs are allowed to attend U.N. conferences and meetings, including at meetings of specialized U.N. agencies like the World Health Organization and UNESCO. NGO representatives are permitted to speak at meetings, circulate written statements, participate in planning sessions, and propose agenda items for consideration. Voting is about the only thing representatives of U.N. member states can do that representatives of NGOs cannot do.

NGOs are a driving force behind U.N. efforts to develop the institutions and policies of what’s called “global governance.” They are behind Kyoto, the International Criminal Court, and a host of other binding agreements and conventions.

One area in which their influence has grown is in the negotiation of trade agreements, which now often come with side agreements on environment, labor, and other regulatory matters that would be better left to sovereign governments.

In fact, in some countries, like the U.S., trade agreements often lead to domestic NGOs being given funds for their programs in their partner’s country.

Many NGOs are funded by some of the wealthiest foundations in the United States, including foundations like Ford, MacArthur, and Packard. George Soros and Greenpeace each have more money to spend on global policy making than do the governments of Ghana, Nepal, or Honduras.

If NGOs get their way, they will be able to implement and enforce under U.N. auspices the very policies they have proposed. And when the U.S. and other democracies agree to be bound by U.N. treaties and agreements, they will comply with policies promoted by unelected NGOs, which, contrary to their assertions, are unrepresentative of the world’s peoples.

Worse, the global NGO game can easily fall prey to politics on behalf of repressive regimes. A few years ago, a number of U.N. delegations attempted to withdraw the consultative status of Freedom House. China complained that Freedom House had invited “anti-China elements” to a panel discussion. Cuba objected to its support for discussions of freedom and democracy inside Cuba. And Sudan objected to Freedom House’s objections to slavery in Sudan.

The collapse of Communism and other oppressive tyrannies has liberated millions of people around the world who are creating real civil societies. They are organizing private, voluntary and charitable organizations that are doing valuable work. The independence of these groups must be recognized and their freedom to make decisions and raise funds deserves legal protection.

But many NGOs are using their new power to undermine individual freedom. They are promoting new international arrangements that are indifferent to the individual countries’ laws. And they are advocating labor and environmental policies that will harm the citizens of less-developed countries that desperately need capital investment and economic development.

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If NGOs really want more “global governance,” they will need to accept more rules for themselves. One possible model is that of the U.S., where nonprofit organizations must report on their finances annually to the Internal Revenue Service.

In similar fashion, the United Nations and other multinational bodies should require NGOs to make public reports on the amount and sources of their revenue—including government funding—before granting them “consultative” status or other forms of official recognition.

The U.N. has already allowed NGOs into its policy making tent. The very least it could do now is to hold the NGOs to the same transparency standards that many of them demand of governments and corporations.

However, there is also some pressure from the Left to net call “civil society” any NGOs that get corporate funding. Transparency can have its downside when government funding is considered “good” and corporate funding “bad.”