The UNHRC in NGO Access

Team Members: A. Exsted, S. Mathauer, and Y. Mouna*

*Note: The team members contributed equally and are listed in alphabetical order.

Info_UNHRC.pdf

Infographic

Please look at the infographic for the topic explored by the team.

Advocacy Letter

Please read the team's letter to the President of the United Nations Human Rights Council, Václav Bálek.

Letter_UNHRC.pdf

Blog Post

What is the UNHRC?

The United Nations Human Rights Council (or the UNHRC) is a body within the United Nations that meets year-round to discuss global human rights matters. It consists of 47 representatives from countries who are members of the UN that are elected by the General Assembly, the main body of the UN (UNHRC n.d.). Its activities include conducting the Universal Periodic Review, a method of assessing and tracking human rights adherence across different member nations; maintaining the Advisory Committee, which provides expertise and advice on resolving human rights abuses; and the Complaint Procedure, where people can bring issues to the council's attention. Certain kinds of advocacy groups called NGOs (Non-Governmental Organizations) will often work with the Council in an effort to promote their chosen causes. They have the ability to participate in the Council sessions if they acquire consultative status with the UN’s Department of Economic and Social Affairs (ECOSOC), which gives them much more influence and power to further their cause (UNHRC n.d.).

Photograph of the Human Rights and Alliance of Civilizations Room in the Palace of Nations in Geneva, where the UNHCR meets (Ludovic Courtès 2015)

The Problem Faced by NGOs

The UNHRC has a finite amount of resources; only so many cases can be heard, and only so many NGOs get to speak their pieces before during meetings. There are two types of NGOs that have to compete for the Council’s attention. First are NGOs that simply have a chosen issue and seek to bring aid, attention, and resources to those issues. The second group are NGOs that receive funding from for-profit organizations. These NGOs are incentivized to promote the issues that their donor companies want. The issue here lies in the difference of intention or purpose. While for-profit organizations are not eligible for consultative status with ECOSOC (UN NGO Branch), these NGOs' are.

This gives these organizations equal status within the Human Rights Council. So armed with both substantive funding and this status, NGOs that are biased towards corporations become competition to regular NGOs. Therefore, one can see how the conflict here is that one set of groups aims to aid human rights, whereas the other aims to further profits. This creates competition to receive resources from the UNHRC.

Workers in a Factory owned by Yakeda Outdoor Travel Products Co, located in Yangon, Myanmar (Ann Wang 2019)

Why This Is Important

By accepting funding from for-profit organizations, NGOs are making themselves beholden to the interests of said organizations. And although that doesn’t necessarily make it a bad thing, once those interests conflict with the ideals of the UNHRC it becomes a major issue (Nadar 2007). Multinational Corporations (MNCs) have a long history of human rights violations in the name of cheap labor and profits. Whether it is using sweatshop labor in developing countries, or violently disrupting labor union strikes, they are willing to do anything to help better their bottom line (Deva, 2003). And with international organizations like the UNHRC's creation, there is a threat posed to those corporations' interests. So in order to combat this they invest money into certain NGOs that then get consultative status in order to make sure that they can get in the way of the UNHRC’s goals of upholding basic human rights for everyone in the world (McGaughey 2017). By doing that they have an equal place at the table as the actors who are fighting for human rights. This is a major issue as they have a completely legal way to halt the fight for human rights that would harm their profits.

The UNHRC Advisory Committee 10 Years After it's Founding (UNHRC 2018)

What Should We Do?

One way to remedy this is to change the process by which the UNHRC hears and allocates resources to various NGOs in order to elevate the interests of parties originating from the Global South. This would involve some restructuring of the Advisory Committee, the activities that involve putting together various experts to look at all the available data on an issue and come up with possible solutions that are within the working capacity of the state the issue exists within. The Advisory Committee should create limits for how much time and resources it expends on NGOs that receive greater funding from MNCs. Reassigning UN personnel to cases that work more primarily for advocacy, without the distraction of profit incentive, would increase the likelihood of Global South countries being able to resolve their human rights problems in a timely manner.

Sources

The United Nations Human Rights Office of the High Commissioner. n.d. “Welcome to the Human Rights Council”. United Nations Human Rights Council. https://www.ohchr.org/en/hr-bodies/hrc/about-council

The United Nations NGO Branch. n.d. “Introduction to ECOSOC Consultative Status”. United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs. https://csonet.org/?menu=30

Nader, Lucia. 2007. The Role Of NGOs in the UN Human Rights Council. International Journal on Human Rights. 7 (4): 7-29. https://doi.org/10.1590/S1806-64452007000200002

McGaughey, Fiona. 2017. "The role and influence of non-governmental organisations in the Universal Periodic Review—International context and Australian case study." Human Rights Law Review. 17 (3): 421-450. https://doi.org/10.1093/hrlr/ngx020

Deva, Surya. 2003. “Human Rights Violations by Multinational Corporations and International Law: Where from Here?” Connecticut Journal of International Law 19( 1): 1–57. https://heinonline.org/HOL/LandingPage?handle=hein.journals/conjil19&div=7&id=&page=

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