© Photo: UN Women / Ryan Brown
The elections to the Committee on NGOs are three weeks away. We now know the full list of 20 candidates for membership. They include some of the most egregious human rights violators on the planet. ECOSOC members should not give them their vote. It is also not too late for better candidates to stand.
We now know the list of candidates for membership of the Committee on NGOs. It is as follows:
The civic space in 60% of candidate States is characterized as being ‘closed’ or ‘repressed’ civic space, by NGO Civicus in their Monitor Tracking Civic Space. These include all of the candidates for the Asia-Pacific region. The civic space in the other 40% of candidate countries is described as ‘obstructed’ or ‘narrowed’.
The line-up prompts several reflections:
i/ That regional groups are still unwilling to take the promotion of civil society seriously and evaluate candidates in light of their human rights records, including in regard to the promotion of the rights of human rights defenders, and their records of cooperation with the UN.
ii/ That the space for civic space is narrowing as a result of actions by the State. A recent Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts bill in candidate State, the UK, for example, has been widely criticized for putting the right to peaceful protest under threat.
iii/ That there are three candidate States whose human rights records are particularly egregious. China, Eritrea and Russia are standing as candidates for the NGO Committee. What makes them stand out as wholly unfit to be members of the NGO Committee (or any UN body) is that:
ISHR believes these States should not be considered as candidates. All bar one regional slate is currently non-competitive. States should stand to challenge the candidacies of States that are wholly unfit for membership.
No ECOSOC member should vote for a State with such an egregious human rights record. It flies in the face of common decency to do so. Voting for such a State makes a mockery of the human rights system. It places the body responsible for overseeing the relationship between civil society and the UN, and accrediting NGOs, in the hands of those who actively work to gag, silence and terrorize defenders.
States must elect to stand up for civil society. The elections on 13th April matter.
On 5 and 6 May 2025, during its 83rd Ordinary Session, the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights (ACHPR) held the second joint forum of its special mechanisms. This serves as an opportunity to bring actors from various backgrounds to discuss the possibility of converging human rights and sustainable development for the benefit of Africans.
At the 83rd ordinary session of the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights, held in Banjul (The Gambia) from 2 May to 22 May, ISHR delivered an oral statement calling for peace in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the continuation of the process toward a human rights defenders protection law in Zambia, reparations for Africans and people of African descent, and a binding treaty on environmental rights in Africa.
On 3 May 2025, on the sidelines of the 83rd ordinary session of the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights, ISHR co-sponsored a side event on the situation of human rights defenders in the Sahel, organised by the International Federation for Human Rights and the World Organisation against Torture.
