Non-Governmental Organizations and Their Influence on International Society

Abstract

International non-governmental organizations (NGOs) have proliferated in the latter half of the 20th century. Many of these transnational actors are new to world politics, a province that historically has been dominated by states. In some issue areas, NGOs have acquired significant authority in the eyes of transnational actors. A prime example is the human rights group, Amnesty International, which began in 1961 with letter-writing efforts to free individuals imprisoned for the nonviolent expression of opinion. Since then, and especially within the past two decades, Amnesty International has developed the capacity to research, report and analyze global patterns of human rights violations, empowering it to be a source of record in U.N. sessions and national halls of power. Moreover, Amnesty International is only one of a network of international and national NGOs active in human rights. Others include the International Commission of Jurists, the International Committee of the Red Cross and Human Rights Watch, all of which attempt to influence governments by applying general human rights principles to particular situations. Similarly, a growing network of environmental NGOs works to hold governments accountable to international environmental standards. Other NGOs, such as OXFAM, establish economic development projects and administer economic and humanitarian aid with funding from the pockets of private contributors. What these NGO activities have in common is, while they often challenge governments and sometimes complement government-provided services, they nearly always act in counterpoint with governmental actors. NGO operations historically have been dependent upon interstate organizations for the provision of channels of action. However, partly due to the limitations on participation and expression inherent when international arenas are controlled fundamentally by states, these NGOs have also devised new channels of action that allow them more freedom. International NGOs not only cross formal national boundaries - they also have created a direct and independent form of non-governmental diplomacy through networks of their own.(2) The economic, informational and intellectual resources of NGOs have garnered them enough expertise and influence to assume authority in matters that, traditionally, have been solely within the purview of state administration and responsibility. Further, many NGOs claim a certain legitimacy for their causes by virtue of popular representation. Whether or not the influence and independent authority claimed by NGOs by virtue of their expertise and mandate of popular sovereignty amount to an erosion of formal state sovereignty is both a theoretical and empirical question. While I will not discuss the conceptual history of sovereignty here, for purposes of this essay it is important to recognize, as has been noted recently, that state practices only murkily reflect formal, diplomatic definitions of sovereignty, and sovereignty is often highly conditional and socially determined in practice.(3) Similarly, the relative influence of NGOs is not a static phenomenon, and their impact on state policies has changed and is changing with time. To return to human rights, NGOs have been involved at crucial junctures in strengthening the expectation that states be held accountable for human rights practices in the 20th century, as international and regional human rights norms have been elaborated in response to problematic country cases, and states have been encouraged to create new intergovernmental reporting and monitoring procedures at the formal level.(4) These changes have arisen not so much from enthusiastic state participation as from international popular and diplomatic pressure exerted on governments. Human rights NGOs, such as Amnesty International, have become skilled at mounting such pressure by feeding information into pertinent public and governmental channels for discussion, on the one hand, and distributing and promoting new human rights instruments, on the other. …