25 March 2008
Nongovernmental Organizations and States: Contrasting Roles
NGO activities are important for politics of human rights
(The following article is taken from the U.S. Department of State publication, Human Rights in Brief.)
The activities of nongovernmental organizations are also important to the politics of international human rights. Amnesty International, Americas Watch, the American Civil Liberties Union, and several other organizations were important in the debates about Central American policy in the 1980s. And in both North America and Europe, NGOs played a major role in national debates over sanctions against South Africa during the 1980s.
Because of their private status, NGOs often can operate free of the political control of states. And because they do not have broader foreign policy ambitions that may conflict with human rights objectives, NGOs often are better able to press human rights concerns. Being narrowly focused and generally nonpartisan, NGOs can sometimes raise human rights issues within a country that others cannot. This is particularly the case where independent political activity is repressed and civil society is weak.
Strengths and Weaknesses
However, the power of NGOs is limited. They must rely on the power of publicity and persuasion. Many states have used their powers of coercion against local members of human them into new victims. Some countries have forbidden external funding of NGOs, or have used onerous registration procedures to hobble their work.
Sovereign states have almost the opposite strengths and weaknesses of NGOs. States must accommodate a wide range of interests in their foreign policies. Governments tend to formulate foreign policy in their national interest, and this means that human rights advocacy may be limited by other objectives. But when states do choose to pursue human rights issues, they typically possess resources, channels of influence, and even publicity capabilities that are unavailable to NGOs.
