Transnational Activism in the UN and EU: A Comparative Study (Routledge Advances in International Relations and Global Politics)

Transnational Activism in the UN and the EU Comparing non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in the United Nations and the European Union across a range of different issue areas, this volume examines how the choice of venue and institution affects the strategies of NGOs. Despite significant differences with respect to their scope, membership, as well as their institutional rules, the authors find that the UN and the EU have surprisingly similar effects on civil society organizations and regulate access in such a way that it significantly constrains the agency of NGOs. Highlights include: • A comprehensive outline of the volume’s main research questions, situated within the existing literature on the topic. • Eight case studies of NGO involvement in the UN and the EU across a range of different areas, including human rights, the environment, and socio-economic and security issues. • A theoretically grounded summary of case-study findings, challenging the findings of previous studies regarding the power of NGOs. • A discussion of the findings’ implications for the broader literature, as well as for studies relating to the EU and the UN in particular. Transnational Activism in the UN and the EU will be of interest to students and scholars of International Relations, European Studies, and Global Politics. Jutta Joachim is Associate Professor of Political Science at the Leibniz University of Hannover, Germany. Birgit Locher is a political consultant and Research Fellow at the Institute of Political Science at the Eberhard Karls University of Tübingen, Germany.

Routledge Advances in International Relations and Global Politics 1 Foreign Policy and Discourse Analysis France, Britain and Europe Henrik Larsen 2 Agency, Structure and International Politics From ontology to empirical enquiry Gil Friedman and Harvey Starr 3 The Political Economy of Regional Co-operation in the Middle East Ali Carkoglu, Mine Eder, Kemal Kirisci 4 Peace Maintenance The evolution of international political authority Jarat Chopra 5 International Relations and Historical Sociology Breaking down boundaries Stephen Hobden 6 Equivalence in Comparative Politics Edited by Jan W. van Deth 7 The Politics of Central Banks Robert Elgie and Helen Thompson 8 Politics and Globalisation Knowledge, ethics and agency Martin Shaw 9 History and International Relations Thomas W. Smith 10 Idealism and Realism in International Relations Robert M.A. Crawford 11 National and International Conflicts, 1945–95 New empirical and theoretical approaches. Frank Pfetsch and Christoph Rohloff

12 Party Systems and Voter Alignments Revisited Edited by Lauri Karvonen and Stein Kuhnle 13 Ethics, Justice & International Relations Constructing an international community Peter Sutch 14 Capturing Globalization Edited by James H Mittelman and Norani Othman 15 Uncertain Europe Building a new European security order? Edited by Martin A Smith and Graham Timmins 16 Power, Postcolonialism and International Relations Reading race, gender and class Edited by Geeta Chowdhry and Sheila Nair 17 Constituting Human Rights Global civil society and the society of democratic states Mervyn Frost 18 US Economic Statecraft for Survival 1933–91 Of sanctions, embargoes and economic warfare Alan P. Dobson 19 The EU and NATO Enlargement Richard McAllister and Roland Dannreuther 20 Spatializing International Politics Analysing activism on the internet Jayne Rodgers 21 Ethnonationalism in the Contemporary World Walker Connor and the study of Nationalism Edited by Daniele Conversi 22 Meaning and International Relations Edited by Peter Mandaville and Andrew Williams 23 Political Loyalty and the Nation-State Edited by Michael Waller and Andrew Linklater 24 Russian Foreign Policy and the CIS Theories, debates and actions Nicole J. Jackson

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37 International Relations, Security and Jeremy Bentham Gunhild Hoogensen 38 Interregionalism and International Relations Edited by Heiner Hänggi, Ralf Roloff and Jürgen Rüland 39 The International Criminal Court A global civil society achievement Marlies Glasius 40 A Human Security Doctrine for Europe Project, principles, practicalities Edited by Marlies Glasius and Mary Kaldor 41 The History and Politics of UN Security Council Reform Dimitris Bourantonis 42 Russia and NATO Since 1991 From Cold War through cold peace to partnership? Martin A. Smith 43 The Politics of Protection Sites of insecurity and political agency Edited by Jef Huysmans, Andrew Dobson and Raia Prokhovnik 44 International Relations in Europe Traditions, perspectives and destinations Edited by Knud Erik Jørgensen and Tonny Brems Knudsen 45 The Empire of Security and the Safety of the People Edited by William Bain 46 Globalization and Religious Nationalism in India The search for ontological security Catrina Kinnvall 47 Culture and International Relations Narratives, natives and tourists Julie Reeves 48 Global Civil Society Contested futures Edited by Gideon Baker and David Chandler

49 Rethinking Ethical Foreign Policy Pitfalls, possibilities and paradoxes Edited by David Chandler and Volker Heins 50 International Cooperation and Arctic Governance Regime effectiveness and northern region building Edited by Olav Schram Stokke and Geir Hønneland 51 Human Security Concepts and implications Shahrbanou Tadjbakhsh and Anuradha Chenoy 52 International Relations and Security in the Digital Age Edited by Johan Eriksson and Giampiero Giacomello 53 State-Building Theory and Practice Edited by Aidan Hehir and Neil Robinson 54 Violence and Non-Violence in Africa Edited by Pal Ahluwalia, Louise Bethlehem and Ruth Ginio 55 Developing Countries and Global Trade Negotiations Edited by Larry Crump and S. Javed Maswood 56 Civil Society, Religion and Global Governance Paradigms of power and persuasion Edited by Helen James 57 War, Peace and Hegemony in a Globalized World The changing balance of power in the 21st Century Edited by Chandra Chari 58 Economic Globalisation as Religious War Tragic convergence Michael McKinley 59 Globalization, Prostitution and Sex-trafficking Corporeal politics Elina Penttinen 60 Peacebuilding Women in international perspective Elisabeth Porter

61 Ethics, Liberalism and Realism in International Relations Mark D. Gismondi 62 Law and Legalization in Transnational Relations Edited by Christian Brütsch and Dirk Lehmkuhl 63 Fighting Terrorism and Drugs Europe and international police cooperation Jörg Friedrichs 64 Identity Politics in the Age of Genocide The Holocaust and historical representation David B. MacDonald 65 Globalisation, Public Opinion and the State Western Europe and East and Southeast Asia Edited by Takashi Inoguchi and Ian Marsh 66 Urbicide The politics of urban destruction Martin Coward 67 Transnational Activism in the UN and the EU A comparative study Edited by Jutta Joachim and Birgit Locher

Transnational Activism in the UN and the EU A comparative study

Edited by Jutta Joachim and Birgit Locher

LONDON AND NEW YORK

First published 2009 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by Routledge 270 Madison Ave, New York, NY 10016 This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2008. “To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s collection of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk.” © 2009 Jutta Joachim and Birgit Locher All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Transnational activism in the UN and the EU: a comparative study / [edited by] Jutta Joachim and Birgit Locher. p. cm.—(Routledge advances in international relations and global politics) Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. United Nations. 2. European Union. 3. International cooperation. 4. Non-governmental organizations. 5. Human rights. I. Joachim, Jutta M. II. Locher, Birgit. JZ4984.5.T73 2008 341.23—dc22 2008020298 ISBN 0-203-88799-9 Master e-book ISBN ISBN 13: 978-0-415-44685-3 (hbk) ISBN 13: 978-0-203-88799-8 (ebk) ISBN 10: 0-415-44685-6 (hbk) ISBN 10: 0-203-88799-9 (ebk)

Contents List of illustrations

xiii

List of contributors

xiv

Foreword

xv

Acknowledgments

xvi

List of abbreviations

xvii

PART I Introduction 1 Transnational activism in the EU and the UN JUTTA JOACHIM AND BIRGIT LOCHER PART II Transnational activism in the UN 2 Civil society organizations in the United Nations KAREN MINGST 3 Where the states are: environmental NGOs and the UN climate change negotiations MATTHEW HOFFMAN 4 Human rights NGOs at the United Nations: developing an optional protocol to the Convention against Torture ANN MARIE CLARK 5 Political opportunity structures and non-state influence: making the case for transparency at the World Bank PAUL NELSON 6 Negotiating human security at the UN: transnational civil society, arms control and disarmament SIMONE WISOTZKI

1 3 19 21 29 43 59 74

PART III Transnational activism in the EU 7 Institutions and civil society organizations in the EU’s multilevel system JUSTIN GREENWOOD 8 NGOs, the European Union and the case of the environment ANTHONY R. ZITO AND JAMIE ELIZABETH JACOBS 9 Safeguarding asylum as a human right: NGOs and the European Union EMEK UÇARER 10 Pan-European NGOs and social rights: participatory democracy and civil dialogue PAULINE CULLEN 11 NGOs and security: the case of the European Union MATTHIAS DEMBINSKI PART IV Conclusion 12 Worlds apart or worlds together? Transnational activism in the UN and the EU JUTTA JOACHIM AND BIRGIT LOCHER Index

88 90 101 116 134 147 161 163

174

Illustrations Figure

1.1 Linking political opportunity structures and NGOs’ strategy packages

12

Tables

1.1 Institutional differences between the UN and the EU with respect 13 to access 4.1 Human rights NGOs at ECOSOC in 2003, as a proportion of all NGOs with consultative status

47

4.2 Strategies and niches for NGO participation in UN human rights 49 standard-setting 4.3 NGOs’ political opportunities and their fulfillment at the UN for 54 the Convention against Torture (CAT) in 1984 and the Optional Protocol to CAT in 2002 9.1 The institutional evolution of the JHA portfolio

117

Contributors Ann Marie Clark, Department of Political Science, Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana, USA. Pauline P. Cullen, Department of Sociology, Dickinson College, Carlisle, Pennsylvania, USA. Matthias Dembinski, Peace Research Institute, Frankfurt, Germany. Justin Greenwood, Department of Public Administration and Law, Robert Gordon University, Aberdeen, Great Britain. Matthew Hoffman, Department of Political Science, University of Toronto, Canada. Jamie Elizabeth Jacobs, Department of Political Science, West Virginia University, USA. Jutta Joachim, Institute of Political Science, Leibniz University, Hannover, Germany. Birgit Locher, Institute of Political Science, University of Tübingen, Germany. Karen Mingst, Department of Political Science, University of Kentucky, Lexington, USA. Paul Nelson, Graduate School of Public and International Affairs, Pittsburgh University, USA. Emek Uçarer, Department of International Studies, Bucknell University, Lewisburg, USA. Simone Wisotzki, Peace Research Institute, Frankfurt, Germany. Anthony Zito, School of Geography, Politics and Sociology, University of Newcastle, Great Britain.

Foreword Most studies of transnational activism either focus on one sector of activity (e.g., the environment, women’s issues), or limit themselves to a single institutional venue, like the EU, the UN, NAFTA or the WTO. In their new book, Joachim and Locher and their collaborators execute a carefully crafted paired comparison of how four different sets of transnational groups (working in the environment, on human rights, economic/social action and security) interact with two very different international institutions – the United Nations and the European Union. Their book is original in two respects. First, rather than make exaggerated claims for NGO influence, they examine how these groups are affected by the institutions whose policies they seek to change. Second, their “inside-out” perspective produces an important finding that students of both NGOs and international organizations will have to contemplate: despite the significant differences between the two international organizations, their effects on those who would influence them are quite similar. This book is an important contribution to both international relations and to the study and practice of transnational activism. Sidney Tarrow Cornell University

Acknowledgments This project originated from an informal exchange over a cup of coffee at an ISA conference on women’s organizations in the EU and the UN. Noticing interesting similarities and differences between the two international organizations with respect to civil society engagement, on the one hand, and the void of comparative research regarding transnational activism, on the other hand, we embarked on what at the time seemed like a risky endeavor, but what soon turned into an exciting undertaking. With the enthusiasm and commitment of scholars from the US and Europe who were experts in different policy areas and insiders of the UN or the EU, we were able to carry out this project. Two international workshops, one in Montreal in 2004 and one at the Social Science Research Center (WZB) in Berlin in 2005, provided great occasions to turn our initial ideas into a solid research agenda. We owe thanks to many people, including Michael Zürn and Dieter Rucht for hosting us at the WZB, as well as all the colleagues who served as peers, commenting on the various chapters of the book: John Boli, Tanja Brühl, Tanja Börzel, Justin Greenwood, Darren Hawkins, Bert Klandermans, Christiane Lemke, Ulrike Liebert, Karen Mingst, Lisa Prügl, Jackie Smith, Hans Peter Schmitz, Cornelia Ulbert, and Bernhard Zangl. Special thanks goes to Sidney Tarrow who encouraged us to move forward with the project and commented on parts of the manuscript. Thanks to the participants of the Connex Workshop “Participative Governance beyond Borders? Civil Society Engagement in Comparative Perspective”, in Brussels, and the International Workshop “Reconstituting Democracy from Below: New Approaches to Civil Society and the Public Sphere”, at the Hanse Wissenschaftszentrum in Delmenhorst for their feedback on the project. We are particularly grateful for the generous financial support we received from the German Science Foundation, the Fritz Thyssen Foundation, and the International Studies Association. We also thank the editorial staff at Routledge Press, particularly Heidi Bagtazo, Lucy Dunn, and Amelia McLaurin, and Camille Lowe at Pindar NZ for their professional assistance and helpful feedback. And we owe gratitude to our research assistants Stefan Oltsch and Susanne Tönsmann who helped organizing the two workshops, and to Daniel Steffens for a terrific job in preparing the manuscript for publication. Last but not least, we want to thank Christof and Wolfgang. Being patient listeners, great optimists, and skillful babysitters, they played several roles in helping us to complete this project. Jutta Joachim Birgit Locher

Abbreviations AHG

Ad Hoc Group

AI

Amnesty International

APT

Association for the Prevention of Torture

ATT

Arms Trade Treaty

ATTAC

Association pour la taxation des transactions pour l’aide aux citoyens/Association for the Taxation of Financial Transactions for the Aid of Citizens

BASIC

British–American Security Information Council

BEUC

Consumers Union Federation

BIC

Bank Information Center

BWC

Biological Weapons Convention

CAAT

Campaign Against Arms Trade

CAN

Climate Action Network

CAO

Compliance Advisor/Ombudsman

CAT

Convention against Torture

CCME

Churches Committee on Migrants and Exiles

CD

Conference of Disarmament

CoE

Council of Europe

CEAS

Common European Asylum System

CEFIC

Chemical Industry Federation

CEPS

Centre for European Policy Studies

CESD

Centre for European Security and Disarmament

ChemSEC

International Chemical Secretariat

CIVCOM

Committee for Civil Aspects of Crisis Management

COARM

An EU working group on conventional arms

COFACE

Confederation of Family Organisations in the European Union

CONCORD

Confederation for Relief and Development

CONECCS

Consultation of the European Commission and Civil Society

CONGO

Committee on Non-Governmental Organizations

COP

Conference of the Parties

COPA

Committee of Professional Agricultural Organisations (EU)

COREPER

Committee of Permanent Representatives

CPN

Conflict Prevention Network

CSFP

Common Foreign and Security Policy

CSO

Civil Society Organization

CSR

Corporate Social Responsibility

CWC

Chemical Weapons Convention

DG

Directorate General

DG EMP

(DG) Employment and Social Affairs

DG JLS

(DG) Justice, Liberty, Security (previously DG JHA)

EAPN

European Anti-Poverty Network

EBU

European Blind Union

EC

European Community

ECAS

European Citizens’ Action Service

ECHR

European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms

ECJ

European Court of Justice

ECOFIN

Council of Economic and Finance Ministers

ECOSOC

Economic and Social Council

ECRE

European Council on Refugees and Exiles

ECtHR

European Court of Human Rights

ED

Environmental Defense

EDF

European Disability Forum

EEC

European Economic Community

EEB

European Environmental Bureau

ENAR

European Network Against Racism

ENB

Earth Negotiation Bulletin

EN.CPS

European Network for Civil Peace Services

ENGO

Environmental Non-Governmental Organization

EP

European Parliament

EPC

European Political Cooperation

EPC

European Policy Centre

EPLO

European Peace-building Liaison Office

EPT

European Commission for the Prevention of Torture

ESDP

European Security and Defense Policy

ESF

Emergency Social Fund

ETI

European Transparency Initiative

ETUC

European Trade Union Confederation

EU

European Union

EULEC

European Union Law Enforcement Cooperation

Eurodad

European Network for Debt and Development

EWL

European Women’s Lobby

EYF

European Youth Forum

FAS

Federation of American Scientists

FEANTSA

European Federation of National Organisations Working with the Homeless

FOEE

Friends of the Earth Europe

GA

General Assembly

GNP

Gross National Product

GRIP

Groupe de Recherche et d’information sur la Paix et la Sécurité

GTI

Global Transparency Initiative

HRW

Human Rights Watch

IANSA

International Action Network of Small Arms

IAPL

International Association of Penal Law

ICBL

International Campaign to Ban Landmines

ICJ

International Commission of Jurists

IDA

International Development Association

IFACAT

International Federation of Christians Against Torture

IFC

International Finance Corporation

IFI

International Finance Institution

IGO

International Governmental Organization

IISD

International Institute for Sustainable Development

ILGA

International Lesbian and Gay Association

ILO

International Labor Organization

IMF

International Monetary Fund

IPCC

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change

IRCT

International Rehabilitation Council for Torture Victims

ISIS

International Security Information Service

ISP

International Subcommittee on Prevention

JHA

Justice and Home Affairs

JRS

Jesuit Refugee Service

KATU

(Finnish) Civil Society Conflict Prevention Network

LIBE

Committee on Civil Liberties

LIMAC

Freedom of Information Mexico

MDBs

Multilateral Development Banks

MEP

Member of the European Parliament

MHE

Mental Health Europe

MPG

Migration Policy Group

NET

National Environmental Trust

NGO

Non-Governmental Organization

NPM

National Preventive Mechanism

NRA

National Rifle Organization

OMC

Open method of coordination

OPCAT

Optional Protocol to the Convention against Torture

OPEC

Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries

PICUM

Platform for International Cooperation on Undocumented Migrants

PoA

Program of Action

POS

Political Opportunity Structure

PrepCom

Preparatory committee

PSC

Political and Security Committee

QMV

Qualified Majority Vote

REACH

Registration, Evaluation, Authorization and Restriction of Chemicals

RELEX

(DG) on External Relations

RSPB

(UK) Royal Society for the Protection of Birds

SALW

Small arms and light weapons

SC

Security Council (UN)

SCAT

Swiss Committee against Torture

SCO

Safe country of origin

SEA

Single European Act

SIF

Social Investment Fund

SIPRI

Stockholm International Peace Research Institute

STC

Safe third country

TEU

Treaty on European Union

UDHR

Universal Declaration of Human Rights

UK

United Kingdom

UN

United Nations

UNDP

UN Development Program

UNEP

UN Environmental Program

UNESCO

UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization

UNFCCC

UN Framework Convention on Climate Change

UNHCR

UN High Commissioner for Refugees

UNICE

Union of Industrial and Employers’ Confederations of Europe

US(A)

United States (of America)

VCI

Verband der Chemischen Industrie/German Chemical Association

WFSA

World Forum on the Future of Sport Shooting Activities

WMO

Weapons of mass destruction

WMO

World Meteorological Organization

WTO

World Trade Organization

WWF

World Wide Fund for Nature

PART I Introduction

1 Transnational activism in the EU and the UN Jutta Joachim and Birgit Locher Introduction Over the course of the past decade there has been a burgeoning amount of literature on the role of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in international relations. Scholars have examined their contributions to global governance, focusing on different issue areas ranging from the environment to development and human rights. In this respect their strategies or tactics (e.g. Beyers 2004; Rucht 2001; Burgerman 2001; Brühl 2003), their impact on agenda-setting (e.g. Locher 2007; Joachim 2007; Gordenker et al. 1995), and the creation of norms or their enforcement (e.g. Clark 2001; Klotz 1995; Keck and Sikkink 1998; or Price 1998) have been of particular interest. Furthermore, questions regarding the emergence of a global civil society (e.g. Kaldor 2003; Anheier et al. 2001; Boli and Thomas 1999; or Wapner 1996), the consequences for states’ sovereignty (e.g. Friedman, Hochstetler and Clark 2005), and the prospects for the democratization of international institutions (e.g. Dingwerth 2003; Nanz and Steffek 2004; Scholte 2004; Greven 2006) have also been addressed. Scanning this literature, two tendencies are evident: First, scholars, for the most part, have treated NGOs as independent variables. They have examined their impact on institutions or their potential for agency and conceived of NGOs as carriers of new ideas or norms. Studies that work from the opposite logic and analyse the effects of structural or institutional factors on NGOs are less common. Second, research regarding NGOs has primarily been based on single cases. Scholars have investigated their impact either in a particular organization or on certain issue areas. To this date, and apart from few exceptions,1 comparative research projects are scarce. While single cases offer a rich picture about the ways in which NGOs exert influence and highlight the intricacies of different policy areas, they tell us little about whether the patterns we are observing are unique or similar to those found in other organizations or issue areas. This collaborative project seeks to help fill these gaps in the literature. Contrary to existing research, we adopt an inside-out as opposed to an outside-in perspective, treating NGOs as a dependent variable. We are interested in how institutions affect the strategies NGOs employ. Our motives for this kind of inquiry are threefold: First, given that NGOs are increasingly active in more than one international governmental organization (IGO), we need to know more about the consequences. Do institutions matter for NGOs? And if so, what opportunities do they provide and what constraints do they impose? Does the involvement in a certain IGO contribute to a particular style of behavior, or do NGOs

Transnational activism in the UN and the EU

4

behave the same way regardless of the organization? Second, recent research on NGOs suggests that we may have overestimated the agency of civil society actors and underestimated the structural constraints they face. For example, Friedman et al. (2005) examined the role and influence of NGOs during UN special conferences and showed that non-state actors co-exist uneasily with states’ sovereignty at the global level. Another example would be J. Joachim’s study on women’s organizations in the United Nations which demonstrated that the influence of NGOs varies over time: their influence seems greater toward the end of a campaign than in the beginning when these organizations appear to encounter more structural obstacles. (Joachim 2007). Third, our project is engendered by more recent scholarship which conceives of IGOs as actors in their own right and vibrant microcosms (e.g. Barnett and Finnemore 2004; Dijkzeul and Beigbeder 2003) instead of empty vessels that mirror state interests. While scholars have investigated how the rules, norms, or the culture that prevail within organizations affect states and policies or lead to certain pathologies, to date we know little about how they reverberate with non-governmental actors. By adopting an inside-out rather than an outside-in perspective, we want to learn more about to what extent the institutions and structures in which NGOs are embedded are critical factors. How and under what conditions do they empower NGOs, and when do they constrain their behavior? To answer these questions, we compare the engagement of NGOs in the United Nations (UN) with their activities in the European Union (EU) across four different policy fields: environment, human rights, socio-economics and security. While both organizations have been studied mostly in isolation, they are ideally suited for a comparative project such as this. Both the UN and the EU are increasingly sought out by non-governmental organizations and exhibit interesting differences. Not only do the two organizations differ with respect to their scope, membership, and their rules and norms regulating NGO access, but also as to how much autonomy and independence their institutions have been granted by Member States. Hence, if institutional differences mattered, we would expect a great degree of variation between how NGOs behave in the EU and in the UN. However, and as we will discuss in greater detail in the concluding chapter, we find that the patterns of NGOs’engagement in the UN and the EU are more alike than different. In both organizations NGOs tend to form networks or platforms, rely on personal contacts and alliances with like-minded states for access, employ lobbying strategies instead of symbolic or polarizing action, and make consensual proposals backed up by scientific expertise instead of engaging in radical criticism. Moreover, when they encounter resistance from policy-makers, they shop for different venues linking up to the international level (in the case of the EU) or reaching down to the regional level (in the case of the UN) to mobilize support. We explain these findings with the fact that both the UN and the EU tend to regulate and constrain access to their institutions in similar ways. This introductory chapter is divided into four sections: In the first section, we elaborate on the inside-out perspective, drawing on the NGO literature that acknowledges the causal role of structural and institutional factors. In the second section, we discuss the theoretical framework upon which the individual case studies build. We define in more detail what we mean by NGO strategies, introduce the concept of political opportunity structure to capture the institutional context, and develop a set of hypotheses about how structural variations between the UN and the EU may influence NGOs. Finally, we

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conclude with a brief discussion regarding our case selection and provide an outline of the book. A inside-out perspective on NGOs Up until recently scholarship on non-governmental organizations has for the most part adopted an outside-in perspective, treating NGOs as independent variables and studying the influence these non-state actors have in IGOs. This perspective largely emerged from a new understanding of the relevant actors in international politics. Breaking with the notion that states are the only decisive agents in the international system, scholars have come to acknowledge that a multiplicity of actors is involved in global governance. Accordingly, scholars started to treat NGOs as actors in their own right, investigating their entrepreneurial role in bringing about change at the international level. By contrast, studies that adopt an inside-out perspective and examine the effects of institutions and structures on NGOs have been scarce. Nevertheless, some scholars do acknowledge the importance of systemic factors. For example, Boli and Thomas attribute the numerical growth of NGOs to the expansion of the international system, in general, and the emergence of a world culture, in particular. According to these authors, international non-governmental organizations “emerged in tandem with the universalization of the state … [and] grew concomitantly with the incorporation of peripheral regions into the interstate system and world economy” (Boli and Thomas, 1999:30). Furthermore, a number of scholars consider globalization a driving force behind NGOs shifting their focus to the international level in recent decades (e.g. Della Porta, Kriesi and Rucht 1999; Zürn and Walter 2005). While some emphasize the role of technical developments, such as internet and email, others view the negative externalities of globalization as primary causes for transnational networking and resistance (e.g. Anheier, Glasius and Kaldor 2001; Smith and Hank 2001; Edwards and Gaventa 2001; Brand et al. 2001). Rather than conceiving globalization as the major culprit for transnational activism, Tarrow (2005) identifies complex internationalism to be the institutional and informal framework within which it takes shape. Defined as “triangular relations among states, nonstate actors, and international organizations, regimes, and institutions” (ibid.: 19) internationalism, provides, according to Tarrow, a “coral reef” where transnational activists “lobby and protest, encounter others like themselves, identify friendly states, and, from time to time, put together successful global-national coalitions” (ibid.: 217). Reimann (2006) adopts a similar view, identifying international organizations as the reason for NGO growth. Focusing on the United Nations and the European Union, in particular, she finds the following factors to have contributed to the visible increase in numbers of these non-state actors: (1) a rise in patrons as well as programs that provide NGOs with material resources; (2) improved institutional access; and (3) an emergent pro-NGO norm among donor states and inter-governmental organizations. In addition to viewing systemic-level factors as critical for the formation of international NGOs and transnational networks, scholars have started to investigate the ways in which the growing complexity of the international system affects the nature of collective action on the part of civil society actors. O’Brien et al. (2000), for example,

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examine how social movements behave in what they call “complex multilateralism” and equate it with the presence of multiple related IGOs. Contrasting the activities of environmental, labor and women’s movements in the World Trade Organization (WTO), the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and the World Bank, they find different levels of access and different kinds of relationships. Similarly, Sikkink (2005) is interested in how non-governmental actors respond to an international environment which she calls “multilayered”; she identifies four different routes that they may pursue depending on the relative accessibility of each level. “Boomerangs” and “spirals” are most probable if activists encounter resistance at the national level, but receptiveness and influential allies at the international level. “Defensive transnationalism” occurs when activists have been forced to work internationally because significant decision-making has been moved into international institutions. Finally, transnational networks are likely to pursue an “insider/outsider strategy” when they encounter opportunities at both the national and international levels. That is, they will prefer to work at the domestic level, but keep international activism as a complementary or compensatory option. Finally, students of European integration have started to examine the effects of the growing opportunities non-state actors encounter at the European level (e.g. Imig and Tarrow 2001; Knodt and Finke 2005). While some suggest that not much has changed with respect to collective action, since NGOs still prefer working at the domestic rather than the supranational level (Marks and McAdam 1996; Roose 2003; Cram 2001), others observe that the multi-layeredness has varied effects: privileging formal and wellresourced organizations such as interest groups and NGOs, but marginalizing ones with more diffuse structures and goals such as social movements (Tarrow 1995; Harlow 1992). To summarize, a growing number of scholars acknowledges the impact of structural and institutional factors on non-governmental organizations. However, more detailed accounts of how these factors matter are still missing. This project is a first step in this direction, examining whether and to what extent NGO strategies vary across international organizations. NGO strategies In most of the NGO and social movement literature, the term strategy has been applied rather loosely. While some scholars equate it with the ways in which non-state actors accomplish their goals (for example, through lobbying, demonstrations, or public hearings), others associate the term with the resources that these actors draw upon, such as money, people or time. And still others conceptualize strategies as the ways in which activists define or frame their issues to attract attention for their concerns. Aiming for a more inclusive definition of strategies, which is our dependent variable, we employ the concept of packages that has been coined by social movement scholars Oliver and Marwell (1992:256). Strategy packages contain different elements from which NGOs can choose. For the purposes of this volume, we focus on two: “mobilizing resources” and “frames.” Mobilizing resources are “those collective vehicles, informal as well as formal, through which people mobilize and engage in collective action” (McAdam et al. 1996:3).

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They are the networks of NGOs, which help them make their voices heard, and draw attention to and gain acceptance for their issues. Of the resources that NGOs have available to themselves, previous studies (e.g. Joachim 2007) identified, among others, the following resources as particularly critical: (1) organizational entrepreneurs, defined as individuals who are experienced activists, who spearhead campaigns, have vision and charisma, and are willing to absorb the initial costs of organizing; (2) constituents, who lend credibility to a campaign, provide people power and enable NGOs to organize at different levels; and (3) experts, both scientists with technical knowledge and also victims who can speak from experience. In addition to mobilizing resources, “frames” are also an essential part of a strategy package and are employed by NGOs to convince politicians and the broader public of their issues. We distinguish between two types: issue frames and action frames. Issue frames refer to the ideological pronouncements of NGOs with which they “… assign meaning to … and interpret … relevant events and conditions to garner bystander support and to demobilize antagonists” (Snow and Benford 1988:198). Issue frames carry definitions of problems or offer solutions and so provide, according to Rein and Schön (1991:263), “a perspective from which an amorphous, ill-defined and problematic situation can be made sense of and acted upon.” Contrary to issue frames, action frames refer to the actual activities of NGOs. According to McAdam (1996:341), they are also an important contribution to the overall signifying work of non-state actors because “encoded in a group’s actions and tactics are a good many messages” which, in turn, influence the responses of potential supporters. NGOs can engage in institutional or in what some have referred to as lobbying strategies. That is, they can restrict their actions to written or oral statements based on wellresearched evidence, or they can engage in non-institutionalized forms of action. This latter form of action has also been called “voice strategies”; examples include organizing demonstrations, sit-ins, or other forms of protest. Regardless of whether it concerns issues or actions, framing is not free of conflict since the ideas or the behavior of NGOs frequently challenge those embedded in institutions or compete with those advanced by other groups. Depending on which frame NGOs choose, they may either generate wide-spread support of different actors or trigger opposition. The choice of mobilizing resources and frames may be driven by various factors, including normative concerns on the part of NGOs, the overall aims of these organizations, or the lack of alternatives. However, in this volume we are interested in the ways in which variation in institutional contexts influences the strategy packages that these actors rely upon. Political opportunity structures To capture structural and institutional factors (i.e. the independent variable) and their potential impact on the strategies of NGOs, we employ the concept of political opportunity structure. Contrary to other definitions of structure, that of political opportunity has several advantages: First, structure is broadly conceived. It is comprised of both formal elements, such as voting or participation rules, as well as informal elements, including norms, common practices, or institutional culture (Joachim 2003).

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Second, the concept of political opportunity structure is also a dynamic one. Because its constitutive elements can change over time, across institutions, or between issue areas, political opportunity structure allows us to assess when and under what conditions systemic factors matter (Tarrow 1998). Cognizant of the fact that the concept of political opportunity structure is also a “slippery” one,2 we limit our definition to what many social movement scholars consider the most essential aspect, namely access, i.e. how open or closed international governmental organizations are to NGOs. The UN and the EU have generally been characterized as relatively open political systems due to the numerous access points they exhibit. However, differences come to the fore if one compares the political opportunity structures and their constituent elements more closely, including the autonomy and independence enjoyed by the individual access points, the scope and the membership of the organizations, and the rules that regulate NGO participation. (1) Access points: In both the UN and the EU, there are numerous potential access points for NGOs, given the plethora of organizational bodies. These differ, though, in the autonomy and independence they have been granted by Member States as well as how open or closed they are to civil society organizations. With respect to the UN, the predominant access point for NGOs is the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) and its subsidiary bodies, such as the Commission on the Status of Women or, as Clark documents in this volume, the until recently existing Commission on Human Rights (now replaced by the Council of Human Rights). The secretariats of these bodies are particularly receptive to NGOs and actively solicit their input. Tasked with the preparation of meetings or reports, but short of staff, they frequently rely on civil society organizations and their expertise for input (Willetts 1996:49; Gordenker and Weiss 1996:21). The General Assembly, by contrast, is less open – a fact which NGOs have tried to change for many years (Alger 2002; Willetts 2000). Not surprisingly, the Security Council is the most insulated. Nevertheless, it too has started to consult NGOs on various issues in recent years (e.g. the Sudan or AIDS) (Alger 2002; Willetts 2000; see also Mingst, Chapter 2 in this volume). Finally, there are the various specialized agencies and subsidiary bodies of the UN; these, too, vary in terms of their accessibility. While agencies such as the UN Environmental Program (UNEP) or the UN Development Program (UNDP) have maintained extensive links with NGOs for quite some time, the World Bank, as Paul Nelson illustrates in this volume, has only recently opened up to civil society organizations. As a supranational multilevel organization, the EU offers access points that are distinct in character and quality. Potential access points for NGOs are the European Parliament (EP) and its committees, the European Commission and its Directorate Generals (DGs), the Council of Ministers, and the European Court of Justice (ECJ). Contrary to UN institutions, however, those in the EU enjoy a great degree of autonomy, particularly with respect to Common Market policies. While the Commission has the right to initiate legislation, decisions of the ECJ trump national law and have direct effects on EU citizens. None of the UN bodies possesses that kind of power. Furthermore, within the Council of Ministers decisions are reached on the basis of qualified majority voting instead of unanimity in a growing number of issue areas. Finally, since the ratification of the Maastricht Treaty in 1993, the EP has the right of co-decision.

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When compared with the other EU bodies, the Council of Ministers is the least accessible. It meets behind closed doors and its minutes or reports are not circulated. However, this does not prevent NGOs from trying to influence its policy processes through, for example, national governments, the rotating Council Presidency or the Committee of Permanent Representatives (COREPER), which prepares the agenda and the meetings of the Council. In contrast, the Commission and the EP are the most receptive to civil society organizations. Similar to the UN secretariats, the Commission actively solicits the input of NGOs and engages in what Mazey (1995:606) has referred to as “constituency mobilizing strategy.” It encourages the formation of NGO networks and platforms by providing seed money and financial support for their projects. There are several reasons why the Commission does this: First, endowed with the power to initiate EU legislation, but handicapped by a small staff, the Commission (like UN Secretariats) is highly dependent on outside expert advice. Second, being the most supranational institution and interested in further integration, it has an interest in enhancing its own power base and does so by nurturing its own constituency. Finally, the Commission encourages participation on the part of civil society organizations to counteract criticisms that have been levelled against the EU in recent decades, criticisms that it lacks legitimacy and suffers from a democratic deficit (Kohler-Koch 1996:203). Representing European citizens and being directly elected by them, it is not surprising that the EP is particularly receptive to civil society organizations. Members of Parliament engage in frequent exchanges with representatives of NGOs by inviting them to parliamentary sessions, hearings, or conferences. The accessibility of the ECJ, by contrast, is more limited. However, and as Greenwood points out in this volume (Chapter 7), it too has become more accessible for civil society organizations in recent years (e.g. Cichowski 2007; De Schutter 2006). Given the superiority and direct effect of European law, NGOs can sue their national governments or file a complaint with the European Commission. (2) Scope: The UN and the EU also differ with respect to their organizational scope. Until recently, International Organization textbooks have generally depicted the EU as an organization with limited aims but the UN as a multi-purpose organization. While this classification may have been correct when the EU was predominantly an economic organization, the opposite appears to be the case since the 1990s because, in 1993, the Member States agreed to extend their cooperation to more political areas, establishing the pillar structure on which the EU today rests: the Economic and Monetary Union (the first pillar), the Common Foreign and Security Policy (the second pillar), and Justice and Home Affairs (the third pillar). As a result of this movement from an exclusively economic to a political union, there is hardly any area of state activity today that the EU is not concerned with or has influence on. Moreover, in contrast to the UN, the regulatory activities of the EU rest on a unified legal framework. Even if one takes into account the activities of the specialized organizations of the UN or the state-like tasks that the UN performs today in war-torn countries, the scope of the EU is still more far-reaching. (3) Membership: We also can detect institutional differences when we turn to the membership of both organizations. The UN’s membership is heterogeneous. Its 192 members vary greatly in their political and economic systems, their culture, and their overall power position. This diversity among states often leads to so-called bloc-politics,

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with delegations voting according to their ideological and regional affiliation (Karns and Mingst 2004:106). By comparison, the membership of the EU is much more homogeneous, since it is limited to European countries that are liberal democracies. This does not mean that differences do not exist. Member States do have conflicting interests as a result of variation in their economic power or the political outlook of the parties in government. Moreover, the recent enlargement phase of the EU with the inclusion of twelve new countries from Eastern, Central and Southern Europe has also made consensus more difficult. Nevertheless, given the similarity of their political systems and general commitment to rule of law and democracy, the members of the EU are undoubtedly more alike than those of the UN. (4) Rules and Norms: Finally the political opportunity structures of the UN and the EU vary in terms of the rules and norms that regulate NGO access. Within the UN a formal accreditation system exists, though it is limited to ECOSOC and UN specialized conferences. While Article 71 of the UN Charter authorizes ECOSOC to grant consultative status to NGOs that work internationally, i.e. have sections in more than one country, Council resolution 1296 adopted in 1968 divides NGOs into three different categories: those with multifaceted goals and activities (Category I), those that specialize in a particular area of economic and social activity (Category II), and organizations with an occasional interest in UN activities (Roster) (Willetts 1996; see also Mingst, Chapter 2 in this volume). Once accredited, NGOs can sit in on public meetings, submit oral and written statements, and obtain UN documents. In the 1990s, consultative status requirements were amended with ECOSOC resolution 1996/31 establishing procedures for the accreditation of national and grassroots NGOs which thus far had been excluded, as well as extending the participation of NGOs to UN special conferences (Karns and Mingst 2004:231–32). Apart from these formal rules, informal practices developed during the 1990s in response to NGO pressure have contributed to more access. For example, while NGOs used to be confined to the visitor balconies to observe meetings, they are now allowed onto the negotiation floors. Moreover, it has become common practice among many governmental delegations to include NGO representatives on their delegations, giving them a chance to influence meetings more directly (Joachim 2007:29). In the European Union there is no such formalized accreditation like that in the UN – access rests on informal practices of consultation. Greenwood, in this volume (page 97), explains this void with the needs of the European Commission: “Given [i]ts notorious shortage of resources, need for allies in its search for fur ther European integration, and continual quest for democratic legitimacy” the Commission, according to Greenwood, is interested in participation being as broad-based as possible and, therefore, it rejects any formalized system. Nevertheless, Greenwood also points out that over time an informal accreditation system has evolved. For example, consultation rests on the principles of openness, accountability, effectiveness, and coherence. Moreover, as part of the “European Transparency Initiative”, the Commission has launched a public register for interested representatives, where the respective groups provide information about themselves (e.g. whom they represent, what their mission is, and how they are funded) and in return are alerted to consultations taking place in the policy areas they are interested in. Finally, the Commission also plans the adoption of a code of conduct for

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interested representatives which would contain clear and concrete rules about how groups ought to behave when representing their interests (European Commission 2008). In summary, significant differences exist between the UN and the EU. Although both organizations offer a large number of access points, they vary with respect to the rules that regulate access, their membership, their scope, and the autonomy and accessibility of their institutional bodies (see Table 1). We are aware that access may be determined not only by institutional factors, but can also be dependent on extra-institutional and less tangible aspects that form part of the political opportunity structure. For example, many scholars have pointed to the importance of symbolic or major political events (Keck and Sikkink 1998; Price 1998). These extra-institutional events may be broad-sweeping, such as the end of the Cold War, but they may also be more issue-specific with presumably more limited effects, such as the Dutroux-scandals in Belgium that helped NGOs to place trafficking in women on the EU’s agenda in the mid-1990s (Locher 2007). Moreover, the broader international realm can affect the political opportunity structure which civil society organizations encounter. Zito and Jacobs in this volume show that when a new EU chemical regulation (REACH) was discussed, NGOs faced a coalition of opponents that went well beyond the scope of the EU including major actors such as the US. In short, extra-institutional aspects matter – however, given our primary interest in the effects of institutional variation, we do not make them a central part of our analysis. Linking political opportunities and NGO strategies How do the constituent elements of the political opportunity structures in the UN and the EU affect the choices NGOs make with respect to strategies? Given the differences regarding the accessibility of the two organizations, we would expect NGOs to employ different mobilizing resources and framing strategies. With respect to the resources, we would anticipate that personal contacts (e.g. to individual Commissioners or Members of Parliament) as well as alliances with likeminded states matter more in the EU where no formal accreditation system exists. Therefore it might be easier for organizational entrepreneurs to gain access, i.e. NGOs with a long-time involvement in international organizing, well-established links to policy-makers and a good reputation. This does not mean that personal contacts are irrelevant in the UN. However, we would suspect that due to the formal accreditation system, they are a less critical resource. By contrast, a heterogeneous constituency would appear more vital in the UN than in the EU given the diverse membership of the organization. Several empirical studies of NGOs in the United Nations lend support to this point. Joachim (2007), for example, shows that women’s organizations were able to mobilize support among UN member states for reproductive rights and health when the originally northern dominated network of NGOs started to include southern women. Similarly, Morphet (1996) demonstrates that NGOs were able to forge a consensus among governments in support of sustainable development at the UN conference on Climate, Environment and Development in 1992 because northern and southern organizations were working together despite their differences. Scanning the empirical studies on the EU, there is little discussion about the need or the composition of constituents. Only in the wake of the recent EU enlargement

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have scholars paid more attention to this factor. Studying the NGO campaign on trafficking in women in the EU, Locher (2007), for example, found that the inclusion of representatives from source and transit countries made EU politicians more receptive to the issue. While these developments may signal a change in what types of resources NGOs may need in the future, overall we would nevertheless expect that a heterogeneous constituency mattered less in the EU prior to the accession of new members than it did in the UN. Finally, regarding the type of expertise, we would anticipate scientific information to be of greater importance in the EU than in the UN. Given the power and influence of supranational institutions such as the Commission, their primary interest lies with reliable information (Bouwen 2002). Furthermore, scientific information has been argued to be particularly pertinent within the EU due to the legal and technical matters with which the EU is concerned with, such as the harmonization of product standards or the alignment of visa regulations. This is not to say that scientific expertise does not matter in the UN; however, various case studies on NGOs suggest (e.g. Friedman, Hochstetler and Clark 2005; Joachim 2007) that testimonial knowledge of victims is much more accepted in the UN and sometimes even actively solicited by secretariats to get a better sense of the problem. With respect to the framing strategies, we also would expect to find variation due to the different opportunity structures of the UN and the EU. Given the hetero geneity of the membership and the broad scope of the UN, we should find NGOs to employ issue frames that are more ambiguous and that reflect the broader concerns of the UN, such as human rights, development, or security. Considering the homogeneous membership in the EU, by contrast, NGOs should be in a position to frame their issues in more concrete terms and in a more narrow fashion. Moreover, given that economics is still the overriding theme, we also would expect NGOs engaged at the European level to tailor their frames according to this organizational bias.

Figure 1.1 Linking political opportunity structure and NGOs’ strategy packages

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In terms of the action frames, several scholars have found that the EU privileges civil society organizations that employ institutional strategies and tends to marginalize groups which engage in voice strategies (e.g. Tarrow 1995; Marks and McAdam 1996:97–111). While some attribute the preference for lobbying to the lack of a formal accreditation system, others, by contrast, interpret it as a symptom of the financial support and seed money many NGOs receive from EU organizations, especially the Commission. In light of their dependency and without a guaranteed right to access, so the argument goes, NGOs abstain from non-institutionalized strategies that may be considered inappropriate and therefore reflect negatively on these organizations. By comparison, scholars studying NGOs in the UN more frequently report about voice strategies (e.g. Friedman, Hochstetler and Clark 2005). This suggests that the UN offers venues, such as special UN conferences, that permit and almost require activities that attract media attention, and, furthermore, that the UN is concerned with issues that lend themselves more to these types of framing activities. The case studies in the subsequent chapters are intended to shed light on the extent to which and the ways in which political opportunity structures affect NGOs in their choice of strategies. If variations in institutions mattered, we should find support for our hypothesis and evidence that civil society organizations employ different mobilizing resources and frames in the UN and the EU. As Figure 1 illustrates, we adopt an insideout perspective in this volume. Yet, this does not mean that we conceive of impact as being one-directional. To the contrary, many case studies in this volume also provide evidence that NGOs affect the institutional structure, prolong existing opportunities or open up new ones, and precipitate changes in decision-making procedures, norms and policies through their engagement in international organizations. However, given that a bottom-up perspective has been much more common and we know much more about how NGOs exert influence in international organizations, priority is given here to the ways in which institutions affect NGOs and their strategic choices. Table 1.1 Institutional differences between the UN and the EU with respect to access UN

Access points Large number of institutional bodies that can be targeted by NGOs; these bodies, however, possess little autonomy and vary in their openness Multipurpose organizations governing Scope activities in a broad range of issue areas Membership Rules governing access

Heterogeneous Formal accreditation system

EU

Large number of institutional bodies that can be targeted by NGOs; these bodies possess high degrees of autonomy, but vary in their openness Far-reaching governing activities in a broad range of issue areas based on a unified legal framework Homogeneous Access rests on informal practices of consultation

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Research design and case selection The focus of this edited volume is limited to specific non-state actors, a particular time frame and a certain range of policy fields. These choices have been driven by the research question, that is, the aim to determine the effects of varying institutional settings on NGO strategies. With respect to the actors, the case studies of this volume are exclusively concerned with NGOs as opposed to social movements, interest or pressure groups. That is, the case studies are interested in organizations which operate across state boundaries, are non-profit oriented, concerned with common goods issues (Wapner 2000), institutionalized, and are generally run by a professional staff (Kaldor 2003:86). However, the NGOs in the case studies may differ in the following respects: the aims and goals that they pursue (general vs. single-issue organizations); their form of organization, i.e. whether they are, for example, part of larger networks, federations, and platforms, or are more or less centralized; and their financial independence, i.e. whether they rely on governments or other donors to support their campaigns and to maintain themselves. With respect to the time span, we asked the contributors to this volume to cover the period from the beginning of the 1990s to the present. Triggered by the end of the Cold War, these years were marked by dramatic changes in the international system which provided opportunities for non-state actors to mobilize at the global level. First, the 1990s brought with them changes in technology: both email and internet became more widely accessible making it possible for NGOs to transcend national borders and to communicate globally with each other (Warketin and Mingst 2000; Keck and Sikkink 1998). Second, both the UN and the EU underwent changes in response to the fall of the Iron Curtain. While the latter moved from being solely an economic organization to also becoming a political union, the former made adjustments to its broader agenda. With military security no longer being the overriding issue, in the 1990s the UN gave greater priority to topics such as human rights, population growth, or the environment. With respect to the selection of the different policy fields, the varying impact of non-governmental organizations has been a decisive criterion for selection. The NGOs have been more visible and presumably more successful in influencing international negotiations in the fields of environment and human rights than they have been with respect to socio-economic or security matters. However, comparing NGO activities across different policy fields allows us to capture issue-specific characteristics of the political opportunity structure and how they may influence NGO activities. To ensure as much coherence and comparability across the organizations and issue areas as possible, we have asked all of the contributors to situate their particular cases within the overall issue cycle in the organization and to indicate how their case is unique or representative of how the general issue has evolved in the organization. Outline of the book The book is divided into two parts, one on the UN and one on the EU. Karen Mingst and Justin Greenwood respectively provide introductions to each of them, describing in greater detail the political opportunity structures of both organizations, how they have

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changed over time and how, in turn, NGO participation has evolved. Following these institutional chapters are the individual case studies. While Matthew Hoffman, Ann Marie Clark, Paul Nelson, and Simone Wisotzki examine how the institutional context of the UN affects the strategies of NGOs, Anthony R. Zito and Jamie Elizabeth Jacobs, Emek Uçarer, Paulin Cullen and Matthias Dembinski do so for the case of the EU. In the concluding chapter, the editors summarize the findings, discuss to what extent the behavior of NGOs within the two IGOs – the UN and the EU – is comparable, and draw out the implications of the evidence gleaned from the case studies. References Alger, C. (2002) ‘The Emerging Roles of NGOs in the UN System: From Article 71 to a People’s Millennium Assembly’, Global Governance, 8(1): 93–117. Anheier, H., Glasius, M. and Kaldor, M. (2001) Global Civil Society. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Barnett, M. and Finnemore, M. (2004) Rules for the World: International Organizations in Global Politics. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. Beyers, J. (2004) ‘Voice and Access: Political Practices of European Interest Associations’, European Union Politics, 5(2): 211–40. Boli, J. and Thomas, G. (eds.) (1999) Constructing World Culture: International NonGovernmental Organizations since 1875. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Brand, U., Demirovic, A., Görg, C. and Hirsch, J. (eds.) (2001) Nicht-Regierungsorganisationen in der Transformation des Staates. Münster: Westphälisches Dampfboot. Brühl, T. (2003) ‘Nichtregierungsorganisationen als Akteure internationaler Umweltverhandlungen. Ein Erklärungsmodell auf der Basis der situationsspezifischen Ressourcennachfrage’. Frankfurt and New York: Campus (Studien der Hessischen Stiftung Friedens-und Konfliktforschung, Volume 42). Burgerman, S. (2001) Moral Victories: How Activists Provoke Multilateral Action. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. Cichowski, R. (2007) The European Court and Civil Society. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Clark, A.M. (2001) Diplomacy of Conscience: Amnesty International and Changing Human Right Norms. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Cram, L. (2001) ‘Governance “To Go”: Domestic Actors, Institutions and the Boundaries of the Possible’, Journal of Common Market Studies, 39(4): 595–618. De Schutter, O. (2006) ‘Group Litigation before the European Court of Justice’, in: S. Smismans (ed.) Civil Society and Legitimate European Governance. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar: 89–115. Della Porta, D., Kriesi, H. and Rucht, D. (1999) ‘Social Movements in a Globalizing World: an Introduction’, in: D. Della Porta and H. Kriesi (eds.) Social Movements in a Globalizing World. New York: St. Martin’s Press: 3–22. Dijkzeul, D. and Beigbeder, Y. (2003) ‘Introduction: Rethinking International Organizations’, in: D. Dijkzeul and Y. Beigbeder (eds.) Rethinking International Organizations: Pathologies and Promise. New York and Oxford: Berghahn Books: 1–26. Dingwerth, K. (2003) ‘Globale Politiknetzwerke und ihre demokratische Legitimation. Eine Analyse der Weltstaudammkommission’, Zeitschrift für Internationale Beziehungen, 10(1): 69–109. Edwards, M. and Gaventa, J. (eds.) (2001) Global Citizen Action. Boulder: Lynne Rienner Publishers.

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Morphet, S. (1996) ‘NGOs and the Environment’, in: P. Willetts (ed.) The Conscience of the World: The Influence of Non-Governmental Organizations in the U.N. System. Washington: Brookings Institution Press: 116–46. Nanz, P. and Steffek, J. (2004) ‘Global Governance, Participation and the Public Sphere’, Government and Opposition, 39(2): 314–35. O’Brien, R., Goetz, A.M., Scholte, J.A. and Williams, M. (eds.) (2000) Contesting Global Governance: Multilateral Economic Institutions and Global Social Movements. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Oliver, P.E. and Marwell, G. (1992) ‘Consensus Movements, Conflict Movements, and the Cooptation of Civic and State Infrastructure’, in: A.D. Morris and C. McClurg Mueller (eds.) Frontiers in Social Movement Theory. New Haven and London: Yale University Press: 251–72. Pollack, M. (1997) ‘Representing Diffuse Interests in EC Policy-Making’, Journal of European Public Policy, 4(4): 572–90. Price, R. (1998) ‘Reversing the Gun Sights: Transnational Civil Society Targets Land Mines’, International Organization, 52(3): 613–44. Reimann, K. (2006) ‘A View from the Top: International Politics, Norms and the Worldwide Growth of NGOs’, International Studies Quarterly, 50(1): 27–44. Rein, M. and Schön, D. (1991) ‘Frame-Reflective Policy Discourse’, in: P. Wagner, B. Wittrock, and C. Weiss (eds.) Social Sciences and Modern States: National Experiences and Theoretical Crossroads. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press: 262–89. Reising, U. (1998) ‘Domestic and Supranational Political Opportunities: European Protest in Selected Countries 1980–95’, European Integration Online Papers (EIOP) 2 (5). Available online at http://eiop.or.at/eiop/texte/1998–005a.htm (accessed 13 April 2008). Risse, T., Ropp, S.C. and Sikkink, K. (1999) The Power of Human Rights: International Norms and Domestic Change. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Roose, J. (2003) Die Europäisierung von Umweltorganisationen: Die Umweltbewegung auf dem langen Weg nach Brüssel. Wiesbaden: Westdeutscher Verlag. Rucht, D. (2001) ‘Lobbying or Protest? Strategies to Influence EU Environmental Policies’, in: D. Imig and S. Tarrow (eds.) Contentious Europeans: Protest and Politics in an Emerging Polity. Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield: 125–42. Scholte, A. (2004) ‘Civil Society and Democratic Accountability’, Government and Opposition, 39(2): 211–33. Sikkink, K. (2005) ‘Patterns of Dynamic Multilevel Governance and the Insider-Outsider Coaliton’, in: D. Della Porta and S. Tarrow (eds.) Transnational Protest and Global Activism: People, Passions, and Power. Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield: 151–74. Smith, J.G. and Hank, J. (eds.) (2001) Globalization and Resistance: Transnational Dimensions of Social Movements. Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield. Snow, D.A. and Benford, R.D. (1988) ‘Ideology, Frame Resonance, and Participant Mobilization’, International Social Movements Research, 1: 197–217. Tarrow, S. (1995) ‘The Europeanisation of Conflict: Reflections from a Social Movement Perspective’, West European Politics, 18(2): 223–51. —— (1998) Power of Movement: Social Movements, Collective Action and Politics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. —— (2005) The New Transnational Activism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Wapner, P. (1996) Environmental Activism and World Civic Politics. Albany: SUNY Press. —— (2000) ‘The Normative Promise of Non-State Actors: A Theoretical Account of Global Civil Society’, in: P. Wapner and E.J.R. Lester (eds.) Principled World Politics: The Challenge of Normative International Relations. Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield: 261–74. Warketin, C. and Mingst, K. (2000) ‘International Institutions, the State, and Global Civil Society in the Age of the World Wide Web’, Global Governance, 6(2): 237–58.

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Warleigh, A. (2000) ‘The Hustle: Citizenship Practice, NGOs and “Policy Coalitions” in the European Union – The Cases of Auto Oil, Drinking Water and Unit Pricing’, Journal of European Public Policy, 7(2): 229–43. Willetts, P. (1996) ‘Consultative Status for NGOs at the United Nations’, in: P. Willetts (ed.) The Conscience of the World: The Influence of Non-Governmental Organizations in the U.N. System. London: Hurst and Company: 31–62. ——(2000) ‘From “Consultative Arrangements” to “Partnership”: The Changing Status of NGOs in Diplomacy at the UN’, Global Governance, 6(2): 191–212. Zito, A.R. (1998) ‘Comparing Environmental Policy-Making in Transnational Institutions’, Journal of European Public Policy, 5(4): 671–90. Zürn, M. and Walter, G. (2005) Globalizing Interests: Pressure Groups and Denationalization. Albany: SUNY Press.

Notes 1 See, for example, Friedman, Hochstetler and Clark 2005; Knodt and Finke 2005; Edwards and Gaventa 2001; Imig and Tarrow 2001; O’Brien et al. 2000; Warleigh 2000; Risse, Ropp and Sikkink 1999; Della Porta, Kriesi and Rucht 1999; Keck and Sikkink 1998; Zito 1998; Pollack 1997. 2 For examples of a critical discussion about the concept of political opportunity structure and its lack of specification, its ad hoc utilization or the absence of systematic analysis, see Reising (1998) or Gamson and Meyer (1996).

PART II Transnational activism in the UN

2 Civil society organizations in the United Nations Karen Mingst The United Nations has been the central piece of international governance since the end of World War II. It is the only international organization global in scope and nearly universal in membership. The UN is a complex system with many different units, programs, autonomous specialized agencies, and affiliated organizations. It functions as the central site for multilateral diplomacy, the convener of global con ferences, and the energizer of states and other international organizations to address the critical issues of the twenty-first century. Thus, the UN is both a mirror of the world and a catalytic agent for change One of the major features of the post-Second World War world is the increasing presence of NGOs which seek to expand their participation in the international policy process. Instead of being solely the providers of information, they push for greater involvement in international decision-making by raising awareness, framing the debate, consulting directly with governments and monitoring their activities, and by implementing the international agenda. For many NGOs, the opportunity to be where the states are is critical; after all, NGOs want to affect states’ policy. The UN is an attractive place in this respect. Not only is it possible to introduce initiatives and expose wrong doings, but it also holds the possibility for more informal interactions between NGOs and state representatives, NGOs and the UN secretariat, and among NGOs themselves. This relationship between the UN and NGOs has evolved over time. Generally, NGO access has improved over time, being marginal in the beginning to where UN bodies now talk about partnerships with NGOs – although this accessibility has become greater with those UN bodies and agencies concerned with social and humanitarian issues rather than those in the security or financial areas. These developments, while not uniform, are the result of the growing pressures exerted by NGOs on the UN system.1 NGOs and the prelude to the League of Nations NGOs have enjoyed a long and distinguished history prior to the establishment of a truly international governmental organization. During the nineteenth century NGOs played a key role in both the ubiquitous peace societies and the abolition of slavery, and in the planning for permanent international courts that formed the so-called Hague conference system of the 1890s. In Europe, too, NGOs spurred regional cooperation on functional issues.

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When the League of Nations was established, it reflected the ideas of NGOs, namely the League to Enforce Peace and the League of Nations Society. Although the League’s covenant contained only one provision for NGOs (Article 25, calling for the formation of voluntary national Red Cross organizations), its secretariat supported a bulletin on NGO activities and assigned a staff member to oversee relations with them. Moreover, many NGOs set up offices in Geneva to facilitate contacts with the League. NGOs participated in meetings addressing key issues, including minority rights, children’s rights, and welfare, but they did not have the right to vote. In those early years, an informal atmosphere governed the interactions between the League and the NGOs. And the NGOs themselves were informally organized, often run by committed volunteers with miniscule budgets. By the 1930s, however, NGO influence had generally diminished in League circles, as Member States failed to meet their collective security obligations. The United Nations: the early years By the time discussions about the post-war international order were underway in 1943, NGOs were once again key sources for ideas. At the founding conference of the United Nations in San Francisco in 1945, over one thousand NGOs attended and argued successfully for the inclusion of the phrase “We the people’s” in the Charter as well as other specific provisions to make that a reality. The major organ of access to the UN system was from the outset, and continues to be, the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC). This is no surprise given its mission to coordinate the UN’s economic and social programs, through its functional commission, regional commissions, and the specialized agencies. In addition to its coordination function, ECOSOC is charged with making recommendations, preparing conventions, and convening conferences. Under Article 71 of the UN Charter, ECOSOC is authorized to grant consultative status to NGOs, “concerned with matters within its competence.” Since the Council has been given this prerogative, the number of accredited NGOs has steadily risen from 40 groups in 1948, to 180 by the mid-1960s, to over 3,000 NGOs currently. Consultative status permits NGOs to attend ECOSOC meetings, propose agenda items, submit written statements, and testify before ECOSOC meetings and other commissions (if invited). In response to the rapid growth of accredited NGOs, UN Member States adopted resolution 1296 in 1968, dividing those with consultative status into three categories. Category I NGOs (General) include those with multifaceted goals and activities, reaching all areas of ECOSOC’s responsibilities; Category II NGOs (Special Status) are those that specialize in a particular area of economic and social activity, such as human rights or health; Category III NGOs (Roster) are organizations that may have an occasional interest in UN activities. ECOSOC is in many respects exceptional as far as access is concerned. No other UN organ maintains such a formalized relationship with NGOs. The Security Council (SC), where the major decisions on peace and security are taken, remained impervious to direct NGO influence. Access to the General Assembly (GA), too, was initially limited. However, over time, four NGOs – the International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, the International Committee of the Red Cross, the Interparliamentary

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Union, and the Sovereign Military Order of Malta – managed to obtain special privileges and are now allowed to participate as observers in all assembly sessions. A changing organization: the 1970s–1980s By the 1970s, the UN was a changed institution. The process of decolonization had expanded UN membership from 50 in 1945 to 141 by the mid-1970s and brought with it a change in the organization’s agenda. To address the new issues that demanded attention, the UN began to hold special conferences on particular topics such as the environment, women, human rights, population, or sustainable development. The 1972 Stockholm conference on the environment was the first of its kind. These types of meetings provided focal points for NGOs and their activities. During the Stockholm governmental conference, NGOs organized, what by now has become a common action frame, a parallel forum, with close to 250 organizations taking part. The Charter provided little guidance on the details of the secretariat and of the role of the secretary-general but, over time, a large international bureaucracy has emerged. This is centered in New York and Geneva, and has presence in cities around the world; for example, the UN Environment Program in Nairobi; the International Civil Aviation Organization in Montreal; and the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna. In 1975 the UN Non-Governmental Liaison Service (UNGLS) opened in New York, providing an advisory service for NGOs, in recognition that NGOs wanting to participate in UN activities would need information about where and how to participate. In the late 1980s, NGOs gained access to several committees of the GA. They could petition some assembly committees, notably the Third Committee (Humanitarian and Cultural) and the Second Committee (Economic and Financial). Since the GA is where the states are, we might think that all NGOs seek greater access to that body. However, access to the GA has become less critical, as its importance diminished by the end of the 1980s; this has prompted NGOs to find new access points and new sources of power. A new UN–NGO relationship: the 1990s and beyond During the 1990s the UN-NGO relationship once again underwent change in response to international developments. First, globalization came into full bloom and linked markets, cultures, peoples, and states in an unprecedented way. It also gave rise to new issues and led to an explosion of NGOs, both within and beyond states. Second, the communications revolution proved pivotal for the evolving relationship, enabling NGOs not only to transmit information to their constituencies and to the UN bodies, but also to develop online contacts with each other. Presented with and encouraged by these new channels for global activism, many NGOs underwent reforms in both their internal and external organization. They became professional NGOs with a paid staff and formed networks with like-minded groups. Finally, the end of the Cold War gave rise to a new era in which economic liberalism and democracy became the dominant approaches to governance. As Reimann explains:

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NGOs were now viewed as ideal institutions for the new mix of neoliberal economics and democratic theory promoted by the industrialized nations. On the one hand, as service providers that reached the poor, NGOs provided a safety net and an antidote to both state and market failure; on the other hand, as organizations with connections to local populations, NGOs were also seen as vehicles for democratization and a component of a thriving ‘civil society’ that needed to be nurtured. Reimann (2006:60) As in the 1980s, global conferences became the vehicle for NGO growth and political opportunities in the post-Cold War era. During the 1990s alone, the UN hosted nine global conferences in which scores of NGOs participated. They also took part in preparatory meetings where, according to one observer, “at least 60 percent of the final outcome of a UN global conference is determined” (Aviel 1999:159–60). However, although UN agencies actively promoted NGO presence at the conferences by providing travel funds or teaching lobbying skills, the rules for NGO participation varied widely. Some conferences, like the 1992 UN Conference on the Environment and Development, gave NGOs an expanded role in both the preparatory processes and the conference. As well as large and well-financed organizations, the 1400 NGOs taking part included for the first time many new groups pursuing grassroots activities in developing countries. They contributed to greater awareness about the interdependencies of issues, such as those between environmental protection and development; the creation of new norms and institutional structures; and in the follow-up to the conference, to the implementation of Agenda 21, the final conference document. In other conferences, like the 1993 Vienna World Conference on Human Rights, the rules on NGO participation, however, were more restrictive. NGOs were allowed little direct contact with delegates and did not participate in the drafting of the conference documents. In still others, like the Cairo International Conference on Population and Development (1994), NGOs joined state representatives on delegations. Since 2000, and with conference fatigue setting in, there have been fewer such gatherings and the rules for access have become more restricted. Yet there is agreement among many that the global conferences provided a critical symbolic and practical opportunity for NGOs to flourish and forge valuable networks for work in states and in the international bodies. Parallel to the ongoing conferences, Member States developed or modified existing UN rules and policies to accommodate growing NGO influence. For example, in 1996 they adopted resolution 116/31, which granted access to national-level NGOs and amended the existing roster system distinguishing NGOs according to their aims. During the same year, an NGO Liaison Office was established in Geneva and dozens of UN secretariats set up specific offices for NGO activities. These institutional developments inside the UN were mimicked by NGOs. Today many of them have permanent offices in New York or Geneva, and quite a few are only walking distance from permanent delegations or UN offices. As a result, halls and coffee shops inside the UN, as well as eating establishments in the immediate neighborhood, have become places for informal interactions between NGOs and state delegates and secretariat personnel. Information and

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expertise is passed on (largely through personal informal networks), activities are promoted, and UN programs are both officially and unofficially monitored. The SC, too, adapted its procedures. In February 1997, for the first time, it permitted representatives from Oxfam, CARE, and Doctors without Borders to speak on the crisis in the Great Lakes region of Africa. Further meetings followed. Humanitarian NGOs met with Council representatives in November of 1998 to argue for a renewed peace effort in the Sudan, and another group of NGOs participated in discussions about AIDS as a security issue. Due to the efforts of the NGO Working Group on the Security Council (comprised of Amnesty International, the Global Policy Forum, Earth Action, and the World Council of Churches, among others), civil society organizations have gained a more permanent voice in Council activities, particularly those related to peace-building and post-war reconstruction. Moreover, informal consultations between NGOs, the Council president, and Council members are now common practice and have given rise to expectations that they may ensure greater transparency in the near future (Alger 2002:100–103). The NGOs want to be where the action is: not only in the UN itself, but in the specialized agencies and the international economic organizations. In the case of the specialized agencies, NGOs have enjoyed and continue to benefit from privileged access because they have been given key operational responsibilities for implementing UN programs. The specialized agencies The UN has nineteen specialized agencies, each with their own Member States, secretariat, location, and budget. These specialized agencies provide additional access points for NGOs – in some ways, they have a longer history of involving NGOs. In the International Labor Organization (ILO), for example, representation of labor groups was institutionalized in its tripartite system from the very beginning. And in other specialized agencies, also, consultation with NGOs has long been an everyday reality. For example, UNESCO works closely with over 600 NGOs, leading one commentator to note that NGOs at the specialized agencies have “privileges that would be unthinkable at the UN” (Hoggart 1996:102–3). In general, it appears that NGO participation varies depending on the aims of the agency. The broader its functions in the social areas, the broader and deeper NGO participation; the narrower and more technical its tasks, the fewer NGOs are involved. The more that specialized agencies have taken on operational capabilities, particularly in the area of economic development and humanitarian relief, then the more NGOs have been contracted to provide services. For example, NGOs became key partners when the GA called on the UN Development Program to coordinate countrylevel development programs and began to emphasize participatory community developments in 1989. And nowhere has NGO involvement been more apparent than in the activities of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) during the 1990s crises in Somalia, Yugoslavia, Rwanda, and more recently in West Africa, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Darfur. Services were purchased by UNHCR and the World Food Program and delivered to the local population by, among others, the International Red Cross, CARE, and Doctors without Borders. However, other UN

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agencies also cooperate with NGOs. For example, the World Food Program, alone, maintains links to over 1100 NGOs. Nevertheless, NGOs are not just participants in operational activities. At the same time as they cooperate with each other to provide services in the field, they frequently compete for UN or donor-driven contracts. In fact, the main coalitions of humanitarian NGO – InterAction and the International Council of Voluntary Agencies, along with the ICRC – participate in the meetings of the UN’s Inter-Agency Standing Committee chaired by the undersecretary-general for humanitarian affairs. The UN High Commissioner for Refugees and the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs also meet regularly in New York and Geneva with the main operational NGOs in the field – NGOs such as CARE, the International Rescue Committee, Save the Children Federation, Oxfam, etc – because they depend on the talent, resources, and flexibility of the major NGOs to address crises. These same organizations have become sufficiently important that they command ready access to the secretary-general. The international economic organizations The expansion of NGOs and the increase in their access to the United Nations and its specialized agencies are just as apparent in the World Bank and, to a lesser extent, in the International Monetary Fund (IMF). None of them included any provisions for NGO participation when they were being established, not even for any advisory role. However, over time, changes in rules have contributed to greater involvement of NGOs. Some economic organizations have been more open than others, especially in some policy fields. Beginning in the late 1970s, women’s and environmental NGOs, in particular, began to lobby the World Bank (see Nelson, Chapter 5 in this volume), pushing for a women-in-development agenda and an environment bank conducting environmental impact assessments, respectively. NGOs also targeted major bank projects, including the big dams, but were hampered by the lack of access to bank documents for many years. Following the establishment of the Bank Information Center in 1987 and the turn to a more participatory development approach in the mid-1990s, the Bank has increasingly collaborated with and involved NGOs in the administration of bank projects. The changes in the World Bank’s approach reflect a more general shift toward civil society empowerment among development agencies – one that NGOs themselves have helped to foster. In contrast, the IMF has been relatively slow to develop formal contacts with NGOs. This can be in part attributed to the fact that environmental, social, and other governance issues are of lesser importance to the IMF, but also to the problem that monetary policies do not easily translate into simple explanations or slogans. Therefore, until the late 1990s, IMF contacts with NGOs, were largely perfunctory, with officials trying to satisfy civil society actors rather than engaging in real dialogue (O’Brian et al. 2000). Yet the IMF, like the other international economic organizations, has increasingly been subject to NGO pressures, especially during the Jubilee 2000/Plus campaign for debt reduction orchestrated by a wide range of NGOs, religious groups, trade unions, and business associations. Because of these pressures, debt reduction was negotiated for many of the poorest countries with the stipulation that the savings be put into poverty-reduction

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programs. In this case, the NGOs successfully mobilized a larger constituency, taking to the streets, and mounting a public relations campaign as a way to force the organization to change policy. Changing perceptions of the UN–NGO relationship Once perceived as actors with no formal power or even adversaries, NGOs are increasingly viewed as partners by those within the UN system. Nowhere is this more evident than in Secretary General Annan’s 1999 proposal for a Global Compact. Initially designed to bring multinational corporations into partnership with the UN system, the learning approach, the policy dialogues, and the partnership projects now also involve NGOs. Furthermore, the Millennium Development Goals propose a Global Partnership for Development, calling for all actors, including civil society organizations, to cooperate to achieve the goals. Moreover, the UN Fund for International Partnerships provides financial resources. While NGOs have been participating as partners in economic development and humanitarian aid for many years, partnership in the twenty-first century means a new conceptual shift in thinking about the UN’s role in the process. As articulated in the 2003 Cardoso Report, the UN should see itself as a convener of multiple constituencies, facilitating rather than undertaking operations. It must move beyond an intergovernmental organization and involve more actors, including local ones. Although NGOs would become core participants, both formally and informally, the Cardoso Report itself does not acknowledge the multiple ways NGOs already take part in UN activities, nor does it clearly differentiate among various sectors of civil society or admit to the legitimate concerns of sovereign states (Willetts 2006). While the partnership and global compact rhetoric permeates the UN system’s interactions with NGOs and multinational corporations, there is resistance. Some larger, more established NGOs worry about their influence being diluted by an influx of thousands of new NGOs. And some groups of states, notably the Non-Aligned Movement, oppose expanded NGO access. As Paul (1999) warned several years ago, “delegations feared changes that might weaken or eventually sweep away nation-states’ monopoly of global decision-making.” Recent interviews confirm growing resentment by governments fearing loss of their privileged position at the UN table. As one Latin American delegate noted, “these are realms reserved for governments and governments don’t want NGOs there. Earlier the participation of NGOs was no big deal. … But today they clearly want access to policy making. … and governments are resisting” (quoted in Puchala, Laatikainen and Coate 2007:84). Thus, while NGOs have been able to expand both the avenues of access and political opportunities within the United Nations system, tension will continue to persist between those who view the UN as mainly an intergovernmental body representing the states of the world and those who want to see the UN as a more democratic body representing the people of the world. NGOs are at the apex of this persistent tension.

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References Alger, C. (2002) ‘The Emerging Roles of NGOs in the UN System: From Article 71 to a People’s Millennium Assembly’, Global Governance, 8 (1): 93–117. Aviel, J.F. (1999) ‘NGOs and International Affairs: A New Dimension of Diplomacy’, in J.P. Muldoon, F.F. Aviel, R. Reitano and E. Sullivan (eds.) Multilateral Diplomacy and the United Nations Today. Boulder: Westview Press: 156–66. Hoggart, R. (1996) ‘UNESCO and NGOs: A Memoir’, in P. Willetts (ed.) ‘The Conscience of the World’: The Influence of Non-governmental Organizations in the UN System. London: Hurst: 98–115. Karns, M.P. and Mingst, K.A. (2004) International Organizations. The Politics and Processes of Global Governance. Boulder: Lynne Rienner. O’Brien, R., Goetz, A.M., Scholte, J.A. and Williams, M. (2000) Contesting Global Governance. Multilateral Economic Institutions and Global Social Movements. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Paul, J.A. (1999) ‘NGO Access at the UN’. Available online at http://www.globalpolicy.org/ngos/analysis/jap-accs.htm (accessed 15 August 2007). Puchala, D.J., Laatikainen, K.V. and Coate, R.A. (2007) United Nations Politics: International Organization in a Divided World. Upper Saddle River: Prentice-Hall. Smith, C.B. (2006) Politics and Process at the United Nations: The Global Dance. Boulder: Lynne Rienner. Reimann, K.D. (2006) ‘A View from the Top: International Politics, Norms and the Worldwide Growth of NGOs’, International Studies Quarterly, 50: 45–67. Willetts, P. (2006) ‘The Cardoso Report on the UN and Civil Society: Functionalism, Global Corporatism, or Global Democracy?’, Global Governance, 12(3): 305–24.

Notes 1 This article draws on material in Karns and Mingst (2004). For a detailed assessment of both how civil society and the private sector operates within the UN framework, see Smith (2006:109–38).

3 Where the states are Environmental NGOs and the UN climate change negotiations Matthew J. Hoffmann Introduction When the infamous US bandit Willie Sutton was asked why he robbed banks, he replied, “Because that’s where the money is.” The logic is similar for many NGOs interested in the governance of global climate change.1 For many nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), the United Nations (UN) represents a focal point for access to the UN Member States rather than just an actor to be lobbied. NGOs are certainly interested in influencing diverse rule-making processes (both formal and informal, and at multiple levels – global, national and local),2 but the UN is not perceived as a rule-maker in the climate change issue. Instead, NGOs go to the UN and UN-sponsored negotiations because of their importance to states, and because the institutional structures of the UN (especially the UN-sponsored negotiations) provide NGOs access to the states that make the climate change rules and treaties. Thus, NGOs go to the UN because that is where the states are, not because they desire to alter UN climate policy. This simple fact makes interacting with the UN on the climate change issue significantly different than interacting with the EU on climate or even interacting with the UN on other issue areas like human rights. Effectively, for climate change the UN has no substantive policy, and instead facilitates state-centric negotiations through the UN climate secretariat. Depledge (2007:48; 53) argues that the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) secretariat charged with organizing the climate negotiations is “semi-autonomous relative to the United Nations itself” and that it has “very little room for any independent contribution” to the dialogue on climate change (see also Busch 2006). Therefore the opportunities for influence being structured by the institutional context of the UN are access to states and the legally binding process of negotiating climate change treaties. NGOs must navigate the political opportunity structure (POS) defined by the UN’s institutional rules and the UNFCCC process to gain this access. In turn, it seems that the POS has a significant effect on how NGOs mobilize resources and frame their actions.3 The POS appears to have catalyzed and/or strengthened networking activities between NGOs as well as between NGOs and states. It also appears to have enhanced the worth of expertise and knowledge resources that NGOs possess, and influenced the action frames of voice, lobbying, and parallel forum participation deployed by NGOs. Much of this influence, however, comes in the form of a response to a lack of access to the most

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crucial aspects of the climate negotiations. NGOs have mobilized resources and utilized action frames as a way to overcome the obstacles presented by the institutional context of the UNFCCC process. This chapter begins with a brief introduction to UN activities in the climate issue and introduces the most important NGOs and NGO networks active in this policy area. Then, using the editor’s organizing framework, I detail the POS that NGOs face in the UNFCCC process, concentrating on access, membership, and formal and informal rules. The third section then turns to an analysis of how the POS has influenced NGO strategizing around mobilizing resources and framing in climate negotiations since 1992.4 The concluding section addresses questions of generalizability of the findings. Adressing climate change at the United Nations Climate change officially became an international policy issue in December of 1988 when the UN General Assembly (GA), at the behest of Malta, passed a resolution calling for cooperative action. By this time the international community, through the UN Environmental Program (UNEP) and the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), had already created the Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and charged it with building consensus on the science of, potential impacts from, and possible responses to climate change. In addition, a conference at Noordwijk, the Netherlands in November 1989 and the Second World Climate Conference in October of 1990 set the stage for the official negotiations of a framework convention. These negotiations took place through all of 1991 and into 1992, culminating in the UNFCCC, which was signed at the United Nations Conference on the Environment and Development in June of 1992 by 154 states. Subsequent to 1992, Member States taking part in the meetings of the conference to the parties (COP) of the UNFCCC worked on strengthening the global climate change agreement; the Kyoto Protocol was signed in December of 1997, and it came into force in 2005. Current multilateral work in the governance of climate change issue dually focuses on implementing the Protocol and negotiating the steps to be taken once the Kyoto mandate runs out in 2012. Climate change has not followed a neat policy cycle. Given the commitment to constant reassessment, Member States consistently return to the agenda-setting and factfinding stages of policy development. Concurrent to these activities they work to implement the provisions of extant agreements. For instance, currently states are implementing (some more than others) the provisions of the Kyoto Protocol while at the same time defining the post-Kyoto agenda and developing the scientific foundation for future negotiations. NGOs have been active in every phase of the multilateral climate activities, prodding governments to negotiate and implement ever more expansive actions to address climate change. Major NGOs like Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth, and the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) have lobbied for stringent action from the very beginning. Since 1989, environmental groups have spoken with a coordinated voice at the climate meeting through the Climate Action Network (CAN). To this day, CAN is the major focal point for environmental NGO coordinating (Newell 2000; Gough and Shackley 2001; Lisowski

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2005; Duwe 2001). It is a worldwide network of 365 NGOs with the goal of promoting “government and individual action to limit human-induced climate change to ecologically sustainable levels … through the coordination of information exchange and NGO strategy on international, regional and national climate issues.”5 Although the network is led by Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth and the WWF, it represents the very diverse NGO community in their efforts to address climate change. Opportunity knocking: the POS in climate change The approach of this volume goes beyond what NGOs do and asks how the POS channels their activity? NGO participation in the climate change negotiations, broadly speaking, is no longer questioned. Recent years have seen a radical shift in the acceptance of NGOs at UN-sponsored environmental negotiations (Raustiala 1997) and the climate change issue is no exception to this trend. While the GA resolution that launched the UNFCCC negotiations specified that NGOs “shall not have any negotiating role” (Depledge 2005:210), access to the UNFCCC process is taken for granted by NGOs. In fact, access is now so normalized that some question whether the role of NGOs has changed “from that of outside critical agents demanding issue recognition and action, to that of partners in developing workable frameworks and principles for implementing actions” (Gough and Shackley 2001:329). NGOs are allowed to address plenary sessions and make interventions during deliberations, and they are ubiquitous in the corridors during negotiations and in parallel forums. Even more pointedly, in the climate issue Environmental Defense (ED)6 does not see itself as acting in parallel with the UNFCCC process; rather, it conducts business as if it were a nation state and treats diplomacy very seriously.7 NGO access to UNFCCC meetings has evolved over time to the current state where it is assumed that NGOs will be significant participants. A broad conception of access, however, is not the real concern. The notion of opportunity structures directs us to question the kind of access that NGOs have, and how the type of access influences strategies and behaviors. A description of the POS – the parameters of NGO access – is thus in order. Access Points: Environmental NGOs have choices to make in how they engage the UN. Ostensibly, both within and across environmental issues, there are a host of specialized agencies, secretariats, and conferences that act as access points. However, in reality, access to the multilateral governance of climate change goes through the UNFCCC process, thus reducing the number of access points to one. The number of independent institutional bodies appears to be less important to NGOs than the scope and mandate of the institutional bodies themselves. Legal competence appears to be a key aspect of institutional structure, influencing venue choice and targeting strategies for NGOs. The UNFCCC process is where the states come to make the legally binding rules that are at the foundation of the global response to climate change, and the secretariat facilitates the logistics (and hence NGO access) for the negotiations. Thus, the number of useful access points considered by NGOs is determined by where binding rules are being made – in the case of climate, this means where states are gathered to negotiate treaties. There may be many points at which to access the UN, but NGOs are only interested in access points that have legal competence. Annie Petsonk

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bluntly noted that ED partakes in forum shopping and focuses its climate energy on entities that are legally empowered to make rules.8 ED only engages UNEP when there is a target of opportunity – either as a way to leverage UNFCCC proceedings or to pursue the goal of legally binding rules for climate change. Similarly, WWF is looking for climate standards to be set and puts its resources into forums that look to be the most likely places where that will happen.9 The National Environmental Trust (NET) also looks to the UN as a way to leverage its influence with a particular state – the US – moving them to work through the UNFCCC process and its legal competence to influence US regulations.10 Membership: This single access point is important not as a portal for influencing the UN itself, but because it is a political space where most states in the world gather. The membership is therefore heterogeneous. But the heterogeneity of the membership is more interesting than merely noting that states of the world differ because in the UNFCCC process heterogeneity exists in multiple dimensions. There are the palpable demographic differences in states’ wealth, size, and power that are usually classified as North–South differences. Beyond this there is heterogeneity in states’ stances on climate that cut across the demographic cleavages. There are North–North differences (for example, contrast the US with the EU), and South–South differences (for example, OPEC’s stance compared to that of small island nations). Finally, there are both information and resource asymmetries: the information asymmetries are especially with respect to scientific and technical issues; and the resource asymmetries are between, on the one hand, the rich and poor nations and, on the other hand, big and small delegations at the UN. Heterogeneity matters for two aspects of NGO strategizing and resource mobilization. The first is how NGOs mobilize resources to network with states. Diversity amongst states participating in the UNFCCC process provides NGOs access to actors with complementary purposes. NGOs are able to partner with like-minded state delegations and/or officials within delegations. Second, the UN’s heterogeneous membership, and especially the presence of large numbers of relatively resource- and information-poor Southern countries, enhances the worth of NGOs’ knowledge resources. The existence of diversity in state participants produces significant demand for something NGOs have in abundance – expertise – and influences how NGOs field and wield this resource. Heterogeneity is thus crucial because it provides opportunities for overcoming challenges presented by a POS that is relatively restrictive of substantive participation for NGOs. Rules and Norms: NGO access to the UN generally is governed by ECOSOC regulations. However, there are crucial climate-specific rules that specify how NGOs access negotiations and what they are allowed to do with their access. For example, observer status is defined by Article 7, Paragraph 6 of the UNFCCC, which states that: … any body or agency, whether national or international, governmental or non-governmental, which is qualified in matters covered by the Convention, and which has informed the secretariat of its wish to be represented at a session of the Conference of the Parties as an observer, may be so admitted unless at least one third of the Parties present object.11 Admission to UNFCCC negotiations is governed by a familiar accreditation process that includes an official request and provision of information about the scope, mandate,

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activities, and affiliations of the NGO. Six hundred organizations were afforded observer status for the November 2005 COP meeting in Montreal (NGOs, industry groups, think tanks, etc.) and over 750 organizations are currently accredited with the UNFCCC.12 While accreditation itself is easy, actual participation is more difficult. Two features of the UNFCCC rules deserve more detailed examination on this point. The first is the set of rules governing NGO activities at the meetings and the second is the constituency system. Although NGOs have been given greater and greater opportunities to participate in the COP meetings over time (Raustiala 1997), their role is still quite limited. Officially NGOs are allowed to (1) observe the negotiations; (2) address plenary sessions and make interventions during debates; and (3) provide information and views to the negotiating parties (sources and documents). However, this official access is tempered by both formal and informal obstacles. NGOs can observe the negotiations and intervene during debates, but “the rights of NGOs to observe proceedings diminish with the greater informality of the arena where the most important negotiations take place” (Depledge 2005:218; see also Carpenter 2001; Lisowski 2005). For example, at the crucial COP 3 Kyoto meetings in 1997, negotiators “met primarily in closed-door sessions from which NGOs were excluded” (Corell and Betsill 2001:95). NGOs are allowed to provide information for the negotiations, but only as supplementary documentation included on the UNFCCC website.13 This is classic state-centrism, and however significant the inroads made by civil society have been, access to and direct influence on the negotiations and treaty provisions is limited by the institutional context dominated by states (see UNFCCC 1996; 2004; 2005). NGO participation has also been channeled by a constituency system that emerged as an informal device in the early 1990s to group non-state actors together by substantive concerns, but is still used today. While the system started with three constituencies (environmental NGOs, business associations, and local government organizations), it has since then expanded to five (think tanks and indigenous groups) (Depledge 2005:214). The constituency system is “used by the [UNFCCC] secretariat to organize [NGO] participation in the negotiating process” (Depledge 2005:215). It tends to integrate diverse NGOs and facilitates a harmonization of their voices during the negotiations. These formal and informal rules may have the largest impact on NGO stra-tegizing and, indeed, form the context of participation. Most important are the rules that delineate the limited nature of NGO access to the most crucial aspects of the negotiations. This has catalyzed significant attempts by NGOs to partner with states and to utilize their expertise. To get their positions heard and into the record, NGOs often work with and even through national delegations. At the negotiations themselves, NGOs have had to develop more informal means of access and have “lurked in corridors hoping to corner delegates … searched trashcans and copiers in hopes of retrieving draft documents … and communicated via cell phones” (Corell and Betsill 2001:95; see also Betsill 2002:55). The limited access and constituency system has also been a catalyst for NGO–NGO networking, forcing the various organizations to pool their resources. Beyond decisions about resources, the rules also make certain action frames attractive. NGOs have employed both institutional and voice strategies, turning to diverse action frames for advocating their agendas in the face of a relatively restrictive POS.

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Answering opportunity’s knock: POS influence The POS is not determinative of everything that NGOs do in the climate negotiations. NGO strategies are often dependent on the type and individual characteristics of NGOs (Gulbrandsen and Andresen 2004:58). NGOs also independently form an issue frame, i.e. how they conceive the climate change issue and what they think a climate treaty should look like. NGOs’ constituents generally pre-exist the meetings and are not influenced by the POS. Finally, entrepreneurship is mostly aimed at states and their climate positions, though some effort is continually made to increase the quantity and quality of NGO access. Nevertheless, the POS does channel NGO strategizing in important ways in that it shapes NGO access to states in the negotiating process. Gulbrandsen and Andresen (2004:58) identify four bases of influence or resources that NGOs call upon: intellectual (expertise), membership (size of the NGO membership), political (access), and financial. While these resources are, for the most part, independent of the POS, the structure of the UNFCCC process does influence which of them are called upon when and how they are used. This section details how NGOs have adapted their resources and framing choices to the POS in the recent climate negotiations. At the heart of the POS are the rules limiting NGO participation in the most crucial aspects of the negotiations. This is the fundamental challenge that NGOs face and it is what drives most strategizing over resources and frames. However, when combined with other aspects of the POS like heterogeneous membership and rules governing constituencies and parallel forums, NGOs have found significant opportunities to advance their agendas. Mobilizing resources I: NGO–State partnerships and diplomacy One response to the context of restricted access has been the pursuit of state partnerships, networking facilitated by the heterogeneous membership of the UNFCCC process. Often these partnerships become focused on the South, allowing NGOs to leverage their resources and expertise and form mutually beneficial partnerships. In some cases NGO members even become accredited with state delegations – a very formal partnership. Gulbrandsen and Andresen (2004:60), for instance, note that at the 2001 COP meeting in Marrakech, the “Samoan delegation had a U.S. lawyer from FIELD [Foundation for International Environmental Law and Development] as legal advisor.” This deployment of resources in this particular institutional context allows NGOs to put forward their agenda and indirectly in-fluence not only states but the negotiations themselves. While the rules limiting participation create the obstacle that makes partnerships attractive (and at times even necessary), heterogeneity provides the opportunity to find willing partners, especially among Southern states. The following episode remembered by Annie Petsonk of ED helps to illustrate this point.14 ED considered the omission of tropical deforestation from the Kyoto Protocol to be a major flaw because it is the largest source of emissions in the South. Therefore, ED

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used the post-Kyoto COPs to get the issue included in the Protocol taking a number of steps: First, ED established the scientific necessity for considering subtropical deforestation. Second, it addressed the economic aspects of the issue, and stressed the large potential co-benefits available to Southern states if they could get credit for protecting their tropical forests. Finally, ED sought to ally with Southern states to get tropical deforestation on the negotiation agenda using both their status as recognized observer participants as well as their access to the negotiations, in combination with the expertise of the organization. For example, ED organized seminars and informal dinners for Southern negotiators as a way to convince Southern states to request that the issue be put on the negotiating agenda and it encouraged Papua New Guinea to work through the Kyoto Protocol negotiations to pursue credit for saving forests. The organization’s efforts were successful. In the COP meeting at Montreal in 2005, Papua New Guinea and Costa Rica, in line with their discussions with ED “proposed that parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) address emissions from deforestation and create incentives to reward developing countries for bringing these emissions under management” (Silva-Chavez and Petsonk 2006:18). Heterogeneity provides the openings for NGOs like ED to find like-minded states and get their mutual issues on the negotiating agenda when NGO access alone does not allow for such direct participation. Apart from forging alliances with states to gain access to COP negotiations, NGOs ramp up their interactions with states prior to UN conferences in response to the POS. Since there is always a possibility that civil society organizations are being marginalized and excluded from meetings, NGOs, according to Adam Tomasek of WWF, need to interact with states and convince them of their agenda before the conferences formally begin.15 This need to act before negotiations appears to push (at least some) NGOs to behave similarly to states, i.e. formulating diplomatic initiatives in advance of major meetings as a way to shape those meetings. According to Albin (1999:374) “only the most ‘state-like’ NGOs secured influence” at the original UNFCCC negotiations in 1992 (see also Raustiala 1997:74) and Petsonk claims that ED has given up on what she calls “stamp your foot diplomacy” (strictly haranguing states about environmental imperatives) in favor of a diplomatic style that pays attention to all the issues that nation states deal with.16 ED’s diplomatic initiatives begin with strategizing like-minded nation states, progress through cabling partners for support and briefing state partners, and culminate in diplomatic offensives timed to the COP meetings. Similarly, Greenpeace and the WWF produce significant briefing documents in advance of COP meetings in an effort to shape the agenda before the meetings begin (see, for example, Greenpeace 2006; WWF 2006). Mobilizing resources II: expertise Restricted access to the climate negotiations shapes how NGOs decide to spend their time and energy. However, that is not the only implication flowing from rules that limit participation. The institutional context also contributes to differential valuation of NGO resources. Across environmental issues mobilization of knowledge resources has been a generic NGO strategy, yet it is an especially pertinent one for an issue as complicated as

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climate change and when NGOs face a restrictive POS.17 The UNFCCC POS serves to enhance the value of NGOs’ knowledge resources and, as Corell and Betsill (2001:95) unequivocally state, “technical knowledge was NGOs’ most valuable resource” in the Kyoto negotiations. NGOs trade information resources and expertise with small and/or progres sive countries in exchange for access to the negotiations (Newell 2000:143). They act as information brokers, especially for Southern countries, creating a mutually beneficial partnership. For example, the WWF sees itself as filling an information vacuum in the South. It acts as a counselor helping to move the agenda of developing countries forward in UN negotiations. Thus it focuses on an educational role: discussing benefits for Southern countries, helping them understand what is available for them, and offering to help the South pursue development goals in the process.18 As Jennifer Biringer of WWF observed, NGOs find it critical to be there when things get settled. Because governmental delegates do not always have the expertise they require, NGOs such as WWF can exert influence – especially in concert with Southern countries that have the greatest need for information.19 Mobilizing resources III: NGO–NGO networking COP meetings provide convenient focal points for all involved actors in the climate governance process. Specifically for NGOs the meetings provide an excellent opportunity for NGO networking and for developing a united front. There is a sense that there must be a “take-home” message from the NGO community that cuts through the diversity of NGO positions.20 In this sense, UN conferences and COPs become crucial for NGO interactions and encourage network building. All the NGO officials interviewed echoed the importance of COPs for NGO networking. Biringer, when comparing the climate change issue with the efforts to address deforestation, reports that NGO coordination tends to fall apart if there is not a focal point like COPs.21 While the POS of the UNFCCC process and the constituency system facilitate such networking, it cannot be claimed that they influenced initial NGO networking in the case of climate change. As noted above, CAN formed in 1989 even before the UN-sponsored negotiations began in earnest in the early 1990s. However, even if the formation of NGO networks cannot be credited to the POS of the UNFCCC, a synergy has developed between NGO proclivities toward networking and the development of institutional rules. Because the COP rules do not allow for every NGO representative to give voice to their position, the POS provides a strong incentive for civil society organizations to harmonize their arguments and to present a united front using the constituency system. As Depledge (2005:215) observes, “the NGO constituencies tend to meet daily during the negotiating sessions to coordinate their work and exchange information.” During COPs, CAN members meet daily to share information and decide on lobbying strategies (Pulver 2002; Lisowski 2005; Newell 2000; Duwe 2001). The network is very active during the negotiations. At the 2006 COP in Nairobi, a bare sampling of CAN’s activities included interventions at a plenary session, a working group tasked with laying the groundwork for negotiating post-Kyoto agreements that warned nations of an

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impending gap after Kyoto expires in 2012,22 and hosting at least 17 informational side events.23 The networking encouraged by the constituency system and the rules limiting participation is not necessarily always in the best interests of the entire NGO community, nor is it easily achieved as the climate negotiations continue to grow in size and NGO participation. Part of the strength of global civil society is in its diversity of views on issues like climate change. An opportunity structure that forces or creates incentives for NGOs to harmonize a message is a potential way to marginalize specific NGOs and preclude their participation (especially smaller, Southern NGOs or more radical NGOs). As Carpenter (2001:320) notes “whereas a unified voice may have been simpler years ago, such an accomplishment would now [2001] prove difficult beyond general issues.” CAN tries, at least, to avoid harmful homogenization by encouraging constituent NGOs to participate in multiple ways (as long as their actions do not conflict with CAN’s priorities). Framing choices: multiple voices and side events Whether and to what extent the POS influences the content of NGO messages is not clear as most of the involved organizations arrive at these independently of the UNFCCC process.24 However, it can influence the action frames that NGOs choose for transmitting their messages. Three of these action frames – official interventions, in-situ reporting, and participation in side-events – are institutional strategies. However, NGOs do not restrict themselves to official participation: they employ protest, a voice strategy, as well. Moreover, the line between institutional and voice strategies can, at times, blur during the negotiations when official statements and reports shift to include more critical stances. The most traditional action frame is the use of official interventions in the debates and plenary addresses. While in many ways symbolic, it is a testament to how far NGOs have come in terms of their participation in multilateral forums that we now consider direct NGO participation so nonchalantly. This action frame is about conveying a persuasive message advocating progressive action on climate change. The plenary addresses, in particular, are opportunities to clearly lay out a common NGO vision for what needs to be done in the negotiations. For example, CAN’s high level intervention at the 2006 COP, called for “bold leadership in keeping with the scale and urgency of the challenge before us” and chastised the negotiators by arguing that “climate change is the greatest threat to human security we have ever faced. But we negotiate here and act at home as if we are committed to climate change, rather than to avoiding it.”25 The institutional strategy of official intervention is obviously available because of the formal rules of participation, but it is also structured by the constituency system as “speaking slots are allocated by the secretariat to the constituencies and then according to demand, with the aim of securing a representative range of speakers” (Depledge 2005:220). NGOs have also pursued an institutional strategy of in-situ reporting on the day-today activities of the negotiations, providing a useful service, if not a direct means of influence. The two most visible reporting services are CAN’s ECO, and the Earth Negotiation Bulletin (ENB) put out by the International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD). Both publications provide a daily account of the negotiations and

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the events happening within the NGO community. This action frame is not structured by formal rules, but rather arose because of a lacuna in state competencies, because “ongoing negotiations reporting is something governments cannot do easily – or effectively – on their own” (Raustiala 1997:730). Since this kind of reporting provides such a crucial service, it is also a wonderful tool to advocate NGO positions. ECO is “widely read by all participants” and it is thus useful as a “political forum for promoting [CAN’s] positions on a variety of issues” (Betsill 2002:53). While the ENB is not designed for advocacy, “many UN delegates, NGOs and UN staff who track environment and sustainable development policy consider the Earth Negotiations Bulletin to be essential reading.”26 It thus contributes significantly to the transparency of the negotiation process, a key NGO goal. The final action frame drawn from an institutional strategy is participation in parallel forums. This takes place outside the negotiating arena and has been growing in significance in recent years. Side events, as they are called in the UNFCCC process, have become a popular way for NGOs to provide their views to the UNFCCC negotiations. While “links between side events and the formal negotiations remain weak,” they have become an “important source of informal discussions and debate” (Depledge 2005:229). The growth of side events or parallel forums has been recognized across issues areas addressed by the UN (Friedman, Clark and Hochstetler 1998), and has been noted by Rosenau (1990; 1997) to be a crucial aspect of changes in world order. The side events are managed and facilitated by the UNFCCC itself. It organizes the application procedure, schedules the events, and publicizes them on its website.27 Side events run the gamut from discussion forums on technology transfer to regional-specific aspects of adaptation to climate change. For the 2006 COP in Nairobi, for example, there were 125 side events and 70 exhibits scheduled.28 While official participation has been growing and has been crucial, perhaps the most familiar action frame for many NGOs is based on a voice strategy, i.e. protest. At heart, many NGOs are still advocacy groups that rely on protest and demonstrations to draw attention to their causes. This is not obviously or directly influenced by the POS – Greenpeace will be Greenpeace no matter what the POS is like. However, in this case, the POS does not rule out protest activities and with limited means of substantive participation, protest is seen as a viable action frame by NGOs. Thus voice strategy (or protest) is often used in conjunction or in parallel with other actions frames. For instance, Greenpeace pursues action frames based on an institutional strategy through the production of briefings and leadership in CAN and it undertakes protest activities designed to garner media attention. At the Buenos Aires COP meeting in 2004, Greenpeace prepared at least seven briefing documents on technical and political issues relevant to the negotiations,29 gave CAN’s plenary speech,30 and “invited ‘climate refugees’ to board its giant Ark in the centre of Buenos Aires … a stark reminder to governments at the climate talks of the millions at risk from climate impacts.”31 Indeed, CAN as a whole sees the value in pursuing action frames based on multiple strategies. Pulver (2002:64) notes that “each member of CAN is encouraged to pursue all possible avenues of influence.” A crucial example of the protest action frame that accompanies one of CAN’s institutional strategies is their announcement of the “fossils of the day” in the COP negotiating sessions. Included as part of ECO, CAN “roasts” a couple of states each day for being the biggest obstacles to progress. For instance, one

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day at the 2006 COP in Nairobi, “Canada, USA and Australia were jointly awarded the only Fossil of the Day for blocking progress on the new mechanism of Technology Transfer proposed by the G77 and China.”32 Conclusion NGOs attend COPs through the good graces of the UN (Pulver 2002:60). The overarching fact of the UN POS in the case of climate change is that substantive NGO participation is limited and even discouraged in the most crucial aspects of the negotiations by formal and informal rules; the UNFCCC process is still dominated by states. This condition is not only familiar territory for NGOs, but has also served as a catalyst for a number of strategies to overcome this obstacle. NGOs have taken advantage of the access they do have as well as the heterogeneity of UNFCCC participants to enhance their role in the negotiation of multilateral climate treaties. They have concentrated on state partnerships, technical expertise, NGO networking, and diverse action frames to convey their message and attempt to influence the proceedings. It is necessary, however, to conclude with caution when discussing the effect of the POS. NGOs know what they want in the climate change negotiations. Many of their strategies are set well before negotiations and many are attributable to the characteristics of individual NGOs. In addition, the climate change problem itself drives NGOs to take certain actions, like focus on expertise and networking. So while it is safe to conclude that the POS has shaped and channeled NGO strategy and participation, these may be overdetermined phenomena in the climate case. The context of climate change discussed in this chapter also makes generalization potentially difficult. The POS of the UNFCCC is significantly different than that of UNEP or the EU on environmental issues. For one thing, both UNEP and the EU have substantive environmental policies, so NGO strategizing would be aimed at least in part at the organization itself, rather than solely at the state members of the organization. In the UN climate change negotiations, NGOs have significant strategizing and mobilizing to do to just get access to the actors that are making substantive policy, i.e. there is a second layer of institutional structure – in this case, a second layer of obstacles. The UNFCCC structure is akin to a shell that NGOs must crack before they can even attempt to influence the actors making the rules. In the case of UNEP and the EU, the strategies for gaining access and influence are in some ways fused – gaining access to the EU is getting into the policy process. Gaining access to the UNFCCC process is merely an entrée to interact with states. Yet, the findings of this chapter can apply to other UN-sponsored environmental negotiations. In many large-scale environmental negotiations, the UN is similarly an actor that facilitates the logistics of the negotiations and access to the negotiating parties, i.e. a shell without substantive environmental policies. The same kind of analysis done here can be used to understand how the POS defined by the secretariat or the negotiating process influences NGO strategies and resource mobilization. In the climate change case, and in other UN-sponsored negotiations, the UN POS is crucial not because NGOs want to influence UN environmental policy; rather, the POS is crucial in how it shapes NGOs’

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ability to get to where the states are – and where the states are making the rules that NGOs want to influence. References Albin, C. (1999) ‘Can NGOs Enhance the Effectiveness of International Negotiation?’, International Negotiation, 4: 371–87. Arts, B. and Verschuren, P. (1999) ‘Assessing Political Influence in Complex Decision-Making: An Instrument Based on Triangulation’, International Political Science Review, 20(4): 411–24. Betsill, M. (2002) ‘Environmental NGOs Meet the Sovereign State: The Kyoto Protocol Negotiations on Global Climate Change’, Colorado Journal of International Law and Policy, 13: 49–64. Betsill, M. and Corell, E. (2001) ‘NGO Influence in International Environmental Negotiations: A Framework for Analysis’, Global Environmental Politics, 1(4): 65–85. Busch, P. (2006) ‘The Secretariat of the Climate Convention: Make a Living in a Straightjacket’, Global Governance Working Paper No. 22. Available online at http://www.glogov.org/ (accessed in June 2007). Carpenter, C. (2001) ‘Businesses, Green Groups and the Media: The Role of NonGovernmental Organizations in the Climate Change Debate’, International Affairs, 77(2): 313–28. Corell, E. and Betsill, M. (2001) ‘A Comparative Look at NGO Influence in International Environmental Negotiations: Desertification and Climate Change’, Global Environmental Politics, 1(4): 86–107. Depledge, J. (2005) The Organization of Global Negotiations: Constructing the Climate Change Regime. London: Earthscan. —— (2007) ‘A Special Relationship: Chairpersons and the Secretariat in the Climate Change Negotiations’, Global Environmental Politics, 7(1): 45–68. Duwe, M. (2001) ‘The Climate Action Network: A Glance behind the Curtains of a Transnational NGO Network’, Review of European Community and International Law, 10(2): 177–89. Friedman, E., Clark, A. and Hochstetler, K. (2005) Sovereignty, Democracy, and Global Civil Society: State–Society Relations at UN World Conferences. Albany: SUNY Press. Gough, C. and Shackley, S. (2001) ‘The Respectable Politics of Climate Change: The Epistemic Communities and NGOs’, International Affairs, 77(2): 329–45. Greenpeace (2006) ‘How Much Climate Change Can We Bear?’ Briefing Paper. Available online at http://www.greenpeace.org/international/press/reports/how-much-climate-change-can-we (accessed June 2007). Gulbrandsen, L. and Andresen. S. (2004) ‘NGO Influence in the Implementation of the Kyoto Protocol: Compliance, Flexibility Mechanisms, and Sinks’, Global Environmental Politics, 4(4): 54–75. Keck, M. and Sikkink, K. (1998) Activists Beyond Borders. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. Lipshutz, R. (1996) Global Civil Society and Global Environmental Governane. Albany: SUNY Press. Lisowski, M. (2005) ‘How NGOs Use Their Facilitative Negotiating Power and Bargaining Assets to Affect International Environmental Negotiations’, Diplomacy and Statecraft, 16: 361–83. Newell, P. (2000) Climate for Change: Non-State Actors and the Global Politics of the Greenhouse. London: Cambridge University Press. Princen, T. and Finger, M. (1994) Environmental NGOs and World Politics. London: Routledge. Pulver, S. (2002) ‘Organising Business: Industry NGOs in the Climate Debates’, GMI, 39: 55–67. Raustiala, K. (1997) ‘State, NGOs, and International Environmental Institutions’, International Studies Quarterly, 41: 719–40. Rosenau, J.N. (1990) Turbulence in World Politics. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

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—— (1997) Along the Domestic-Foreign Frontier. London: Cambridge University Press. Silva-Chavez, G. and Petsonk, A. (2006) ‘Rainforest Credits’, Carbon Finance, 18, 18 December. Available online at http://www.carbon-financeonline.com/ (accessed June 2007). UNFCCC (1996) ‘Mechanisms for Non-Governmental Organization Consultations’, FCCC/ SBSTA/1996/11. —— (2004) ‘Promoting Effective Participation in the Convention Process’, FCCC/ SBI/2004/5. —— (2005) ‘Recent Developments in the United Nations on Relations with Civil Society’, FCCC/SBI/2005/5. Wapner, P. (1996) Environmental Activism and World Civic Politics. Albany: SUNY Press. World Wide Fund for Nature (2006) ‘Priorities for Nairobi: Charting the Course for a Safe Climate Post-2012’, Position Paper. Available online at http://www.panda.org/news_facts/publications/index.cfm?uNewsID=85500 (accessed June 2007).

Notes 1 Two caveats are necessary. First, this chapter discusses environmental NGOs as opposed to business associations or research organizations. Second, while acknowledging the extreme diversity in the environmental NGO population, this chapter provides a relatively abstract portrait of how the POS influences NGOs in general. 2 Wapner (1996) calls the drive to influence informal rule-making “world civic politics” and claims that it is a major area of NGO activity (see also Lipshutz 1996). Others focus on NGO influence on formal governmental rule-making (Keck and Sikkink 1998; Princen and Finger 1994). 3 I am cautious in my claims because NGO strategizing may be overdetermined. It is difficult to separate out the effects of institutional structure from those of the climate change problem itself. I return to this concern in the conclusion. 4 Works that analyze NGO influence on the negotiations include Arts and Verschuren (1999), Corell and Betsill (2001), Betsill and Corell (2001), Betsill (2002), and Lisowski (2005). 3 http://www.climatenetwork.org/about-can. 5 ED is a US-based NGO that works on a number of environmental issues and stresses a rigorous scientific and non-confrontational approach to advocacy. See http://www.ed.org/. 6 Interview with Annie Petsonk, International Counsel, Environmental Defense (2 September 2005, Washington DC). 6 Interview with Petsonk. 7 Interview with Jennifer Biringer, Manager of North American Forest and Trade Network, WWF (12 September 2005, Washington DC). Biringer mentioned an interesting counterfactual with WWF’s work on the forest issue. Here, without a binding treaty process, WWF focuses its attention elsewhere (especially the private sector). 8 Interview with Debbie Reed, Legislative Director, National Environmental Trust (12 September 2005, Washington DC). 11 Text of the UNFCCC: http://unfccc.int/essential_background/convention/background/items/2853.php. 10 http://unfccc.int/parties_and_observers.htm. 11 http://unfccc.int/parties_and_observers/ngo/items/2370.php. 12 Interview with Petsonk. 13 Interview with Adam Tomasek, Senior Program Officer, WWF (12 September 2005, Washington DC). 14 Interview with Petsonk.

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15 In general, Peter Newell (2000:142–43) argues “as groups acquire greater technical capability, at least in the eyes of governments, they are accorded greater access, derived from their ability to provide technical research input of immediate use to the negotiators.” 16 Interview with Adam Tomasek, WWF. Tomasek discussed this specifically in regards to habitat protection negotiations where WWF attempts to go into COP meetings with eight to ten state partners. 17 Interview with Biringer; see also Newell 2000; Gulbrandsen and Andresen 2004. 18 Interview with Tomasek. 19 Interview with Biringer. 20 http://www.climatenetwork.org/climate-change-basics/by-meeting/cop-12-nairobinovember-2006. 21 http://www.climatenetwork.org/nairobi/events-in-nairobi. 22 Gough and Shackley (2001:336) note that NGO strategies are often determined by the type of NGO under consideration. 23 http://www.climatenetwork.org/climate-change-basics/by-meeting/cop-12-nairobinovember-2006. 24 http://www.iisd.ca/about. 25 http://regserver.unfccc.int/seors/reports/exhibits_list.html. 26 http://regserver.unfccc.int/seors/reports/archive.html?session_id=COP12-MOP2. 27 http://weblog.greenpeace.org/climatesummit/documents.html. 28 http://weblog.greenpeace.org/climatesummit/more.html. 29 http://weblog.greenpeace.org/climatesummit/press.html. 30 http://www.climatenetwork.org/nairobi/fossil-of-the-day-1/fossil-of-the-day/day-8november-14-2006/.

4 Human rights NGOs at the United Nations Developing an optional protocol to the Convention against Torture Ann Marie Clark Introduction1 Human rights is a major area of activity for today’s UN, but human rights NGOs still face challenges to their efforts to join UN politics. Joachim and Locher (in Chapter 1 of this volume) suggest that the pattern of challenges, and NGOs’ responses, may better be understood by examining access points, the aims and scope of their targeted institution, the profile of the institution’s membership, and the rules and norms of access. This chapter applies the framework to a general description of human rights NGOs’ activities at the UN, and explores a case study of NGOs’ participation in creating a new human rights treaty protocol: the Optional Protocol to the Convention against Torture (OPCAT) (UN General Assembly 2002). Human rights NGOs at the UN: background Human rights NGOs were a small band in the early years of the UN. Nongovernmental organizations joined Australia, New Zealand, and the Latin American states to press for the inclusion of human rights provisions in the Charter at the UN’s founding conference in San Francisco (Lauren 1998:172–74). At the same time NGOs lobbied for their own formal access to UN activities (Buergenthal, Shelton and Stewart 2002:402), which was granted by means of consultative status. Today the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) is still a major access point for NGOs, and consultative status can be a “green light” for NGOs’ admittance to other UN activities. NGOs’ human rights politicking at the UN was limited in scope until the late 1960s. First, only a handful of groups with consultative status focused in a major way on what could be called human rights issues on a transnational scale.2 Second, NGOs at the UN were supposed to conduct themselves in a non-political manner, which meant that criticism of individual states – an important part of what we would now consider human rights activism – was taboo. (This taboo against specific criticism also extended to states’ own conduct.) Third, NGOs did not yet have the capacity to produce the public and independent human rights reports that they now regularly issue in tandem with their other activities (Clark 2001). In 1968, the first UN world conference on human rights was held in Tehran. In a small and sober preface to the festive activities and energetic coalition building that would

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surround later UN world conferences, a coalition of NGOs formed in anticipation of the Tehran meeting (Amnesty International 1968). In this period, human rights NGOs began to criticize problems in specific countries more actively, and thus, in UN terms, their activities became more “political.” Two new rules created new political opportunities for NGOs. ECOSOC Resolution 1235 (XLII) of 6 June 1967 established the principle that the Human Rights Commission (now the Human Rights Council) and its Subcommission on Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities (now the Subcommission on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights) could receive information on human rights violations as a matter of international concern. Three years later, ECOSOC Resolution 1503 (XLVIII) of 27 May 1970 created more specific language permitting the investigation of information about situations that evidenced “gross violations” or a “consistent pattern” of violations. For NGOs, the important thing about both resolutions was that they established a regular channel through which NGOs could submit specific information about individual countries, something that had rarely been possible before. Although the resolutions were created as a way to censure apartheid, they left the door open for activity on other issues and countries, not just apartheid and South Africa (Kamminga 1992:84). Investigations under Resolution 1503 considerations were supposed to be confidential, but a list of the countries considered is published each year (Buergenthal, Shelton and Stewart 2002). NGOs seized the opportunity, using the measures’ generality as a loophole for submitting information on many states’ human rights violations. NGOs’ new activism was not without backlash. Against a Cold War backdrop, some NGOs at the UN, including human rights NGOs, were accused of being fronts for government interests.3 Thus, in 1968 the UN also undertook its first review of consultative status procedures in an effort to rein in NGOs’ political ties and activ ities: the Committee on Non-Governmental Organizations (CONGO) became the gatekeeper for NGOs seeking access to the UN. Made up of state representatives, CONGO reviews NGOs already in ECOSOC consultative status as well as new applicants. NGOs must submit quadrennial reports on their activities, and rules permit the suspension or withdrawal of consultative status if an organization has received secret funding from a government, engaged in “‘political acts’ against governments,” or submitted an unsatisfactory report (Willetts 1996). Not surprisingly, states may use rules governing access against NGOs for political reasons and, as a consequence, it was probably harder for Human Rights Watch (HRW) to achieve UN consultative status in 1993 than it had been for Amnesty International (AI) in 1964. HRW’s application was blocked by hostile governments in CONGO before 1993 (Lewis 1991; Human Rights Watch 1994b). Another review of provisions for consultative status was completed in 1996 (UN Economic and Social Council 1996). This review was influenced, according to the UN, by the broad participation of NGOs in the United Nations’ issue conferences of the 1990s and in other parts of the UN system (UN Non-Governmental Liaison Service 1996). The new rules expanded the kinds of NGOs that could qualify for access. Now, domestic NGOs can receive “Roster” status. According to a loose criterion (see Table 4.1), as of 2003 almost 900 NGOs, something less than half of those with consultative status, claimed human rights as one of their fields of activity. The next section turns to a more specific description of the political opportunity structure for human rights NGOs wishing to engage in the development and promotion of

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legal standards of human rights through the UN structure. These NGOs form a much smaller subset of the consultative group. Political opportunity structures for the human rights issue at the UN and NGOs’ resources for mobilization Human rights NGOs’ formal political opportunity structure is much like that outlined more generally by Mingst (in Chapter 2 of this volume) in terms of the UN’s access points, aims, membership, and institutional rules. NGOs observe public meetings, submit agenda items, and make oral and written submissions at meetings, with some limitations depending on their level of consultative status (Buergenthal, Shelton and Stewart 2002:406). Consultative access also provides license for NGOs to lobby UN member states at the UN. The rest of this section focuses on details of the UN’s political opportunity structure with regard to the development and promotion of legal standards of human rights. Opportunity structures for human rights NGOs Access points: Multilateral human rights treaties are created and adopted at the United Nations. Some NGOs have participated in human rights treaty construction in ways that will be further addressed in the case study below. Once adopted, each treaty has a committee responsible for receiving states’ reports and reviewing their compliance. Since Resolutions 1235 and 1503 opened opportunities for NGOs to submit human rights information, additional ways of monitoring state behavior have developed, including UN special rapporteurs (individual investigators) and thematic working groups. Such officials or groups are established, usually for a specific time period with a renewable mandate, to gather information and investigate human rights violations concerning specific topics or country situations. The newer procedures and the treaty bodies themselves offer additional access points for NGOs, who regularly contribute information and criticism for consideration under both the thematic and treaty mechanisms. Even NGOs that do not have consultative status participate in such communications (Posner and Whittome 1994). The UN administration is generally friendly to NGOs. As Mingst mentions, the UN’s NGO-Liaison Office in Geneva coordinates NGO attendance at ECOSOC meetings and also serves as the administrative locus of information and support for NGOs in Geneva. Despite the UN’s attempts to include a broader range of civil society actors, some less experienced NGOs have expressed a sense that the UN framework still caters to their more experienced counterparts. A respondent to a UN survey observed that “many documents targeted at civil society miss the mark, simply because (much like this survey) they are to a large degree written for organizations that are already engaged in the UN process” (UN Secretary-General’s Panel of Eminent Persons on Civil Society 2003:12). In the human rights field, a Geneva-based NGO, the International Service for Human Rights, has since 1984 provided advice and training for “human rights defenders” new to the UN human rights process (International Service for Human Rights 2007).

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UN human rights treaties are usually drafted by ad hoc working groups. The process is relatively open to NGOs with expertise. During the drafting process, these NGOs may work closely with sympathetic governments in the working groups, providing advice, pressure, and even drafting language and legal commentary. However, as work moves the drafts closer to official proposals, NGOs’ access does not match that of states. NGOs lack official standing in such working groups, and rely on sympathetic or collaborative states to carry forward into official decisions any language reflecting the NGOs’ contributions. Here, the sovereign privilege of states as members of the UN reinforces a dual role for human rights NGOs: as both inside experts and outside advocates. Although expertise in the ins and outs of international legal standards is important for direct NGO participants in treaty drafting, the information flowing from their public networking forms a part of their resource base that becomes useful at particular times. The larger human rights NGOs that have public memberships or national sections are attuned to their publics, and are networked with smaller grassroots NGOs. At the formative stages of treaty drafting, NGOs use practical connections and experiences to inform expert negotiations and, as much as possible, make the treaty provisions relevant to their concerns. At the later stages of treaty adoption and implementation, NGOs occupy an advocacy role to lobby governments. Aims and scope: Accordingly, while the aims and scope of the UN’s human rights mandate is broad, within that mandate there are niches for different types of NGOs. The larger NGOs may do different kinds of work at different points, as determined by the opportunities inherent in the process, while others play only one or a selection of niche roles. While a handful of very specialized smaller NGOs have participated in the UN’s working groups, experts from the larger, global NGOs have occupied a substantial part of the standard-setting niche at the global level. Their larger capacity permits them to coordinate strategies aimed at different places in the political opportunity structure. Parts of their staffs conduct public issue campaigns, while other parts address the transnational norm-building enterprise. In his study of Amnesty International, one of the largest human rights organizations, Hopgood (2006:270) notes that “many senior … staff move in a transnational, rather than a local reality.” Even within the larger NGOs, some staff are wary of becoming “UN-ized” (ibid.) and seek to balance grassroots links with expert roles. Thus, they walk a fine line between working within the aims and scope of the UN, and seeking points of change in the structure. Smaller grassroots NGOs, on the other hand, often lack the resources and, sometimes, the desire to participate in drafting exercises, even though they may be enthusiastic participants at other kinds of UN human rights events (see Clark, Friedman and Hochstetler 1998). In another nod to the pattern of the UN world conferences since the 1990s, the Human Rights Council sponsors a parallel unofficial meeting during Council sessions that NGOs can use as a springboard for lobbying and networking with one another (UN Human Rights Council 2007). The niches that NGOs find and inhabit at the UN are patterned by variation in the purposes of different kinds of UN events and meetings.

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Table 4.1 Human rights NGOs at ECOSOC in 2003, as a proportion of all NGOs with consultative status* Consultative Category

Human Rights NGOs

Total NGOs

General 90 131 Special 662 1317 Roster 145 470 All 897 1918 Notes: The numbers in the Roster category exclude NGOs placed on the roster by virtue of their consultative status with other UN agencies. “Human Rights NGOs” in the center column are identified as those that list human rights as a “field of activity” in the UN Office at Geneva’s NGO database (UN Office at Geneva 2007). The numbers of “Total NGOs” in the right-hand column are drawn from Willetts (2003).

Membership: UN working groups are made up of state representatives, usually experts, who meet for several weeks per year. The membership in working groups for treaty-drafting is open to any member state of the UN that wishes to participate, and NGOs may observe. Although the members of such working groups are state representatives, at this level many are receptive to NGO participation and cooperation, particularly if NGOs can provide expert consultation and suggestions. For example, work on OPCAT began when the Human Rights Commission authorized an “open-ended working group” for the purpose. When the group’s mandate was renewed in 1994, the Commission acknowledged previous contributions from many different sources in addition to governments: United Nations bodies, the representative of the Committee against Torture, the Special Rapporteur on the question of torture, the representative of the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture, … the International Committee of the Red Cross, [and] other invited experts and non-governmental organizations. (UN ECOSOC, Commission on Human Rights 1994)

The commission welcomed further “observations and comments” on OPCAT from all of these entities and asked the UN Secretary General to “invite” them again “to participate in the activities of the working group” (ibid.). Rules and norms: In international human rights standard-setting, there is both a norm of including expert NGOs and an understanding that NGOs as a category represent the UN’s social constituency (as opposed to states’ sovereign interests) within the UN framework. In view of the fact that human rights NGOs have historically advocated norms that are politically challenging to sovereign prerogative, state representatives’ receptivity to NGOs’ concerns varies from state to state. Thus, NGOs need to identify and work with reliable state allies in the drafting process, even at the expert level. From the human rights advocates’ point of view, a few states (for example, the Netherlands and Sweden on the torture issue) have a record of forming reliable alliances with NGOs in the human rights cause; others do not. One problem for human rights is the very fragility and lack of standardization of NGOs’ strategic contacts with states and UN officials at work on human rights. Despite the norm of NGO involvement that has evolved in human rights bodies at the UN, the

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viability of the particular contacts through which NGOs conduct their politics varies subject to the commitment, competence, and heroics (or, sometimes, lack thereof) of specific UN staff, officials, and appointees, so that “when staff in UN agencies moves or changes the links break” (UN Secretary-General’s Panel of Eminent Persons on Civil Society 2003:7). In other words, the links are not formally institutionalized and are vulnerable to change in ways that regular bureaucratic practices may not be. Further, special rapporteur positions are not career postings; instead, they are usually short-term appointments. The effectiveness and inclinations of these individuals shape NGOs’ opportunities to a potentially significant but unpredictable degree. Responses to political opportunity structures: mobilizing resources and framing Given the political opportunity structure described above, what resources and strategies do human rights NGOs employ? The general structural challenges conditioning NGOs’ participation, resource needs, and choice of strategies can be quickly summarized as geography, expertise, and the maintenance of shared collective action frames to address human rights. For NGOs, each of these challenges is complicated somewhat by the global stretch of the UN. Geography: While the UN’s breadth opens many points of potential access for NGOs, the regular human rights meetings are held primarily in Geneva. The Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights is also located in Geneva. Although some travel assistance is available through the UN’s NGO-Liaison service, attendance costs can hamper the active participation of smaller NGOs, particularly those from developing countries. Expertise: Institutional know-how is a resource that NGOs must acquire in order to be active lobbyists and participants in open-ended working groups aimed at legal standard setting. Again, this part of the UN process requires money and training and so is skewed toward niches for more experienced and institutionally oriented NGOs. The NGOs that do show up at Geneva have become the standard-setting experts and are likely to have the bigger say in strategy coordination. Framing NGOs potentially increase the mobilizing resources available to them if they can use the UN to build the very legal standards that they might then invoke in specific circumstances. Thus, part of the framing challenge where new human rights legal instruments are concerned is to coordinate the invocation of human rights principles with the political struggles NGOs face not just at the UN, but at home. Tarrow (2005:60) notes the conundrum posed by activists’ efforts to build meaningful bridges from fights for local issues to activism at the global level. However, human rights NGOs may be quite experienced at invoking global frames at home.4 Thus, bridging is not terribly difficult for human rights groups, whose concerns differ somewhat from country to country, but are often already framed as human rights issues. For human rights NGOs the two major frames employed are, first, global human rights, and second, government monitoring.5 THE GLOBAL HUMAN RIGHTS FRAME: Framing human rights as an issue of global concern, and state behavior as a proper subject for external scrutiny, is a major pastime for human rights NGOs. Human rights are included in Article 55 of the UN Charter, but the principle that human rights pertain to all persons everywhere, i.e.

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universality, can be blocked by states’ claims that, because they are sovereign, treatment of their citizens and even interpretation of the meaning of human rights is a private affair. With few exceptions, NGOs across the globe have tended to agree on the need for a universal interpretation of human rights. Their agreement was illustrated at the 1993 UN World Conference on Human Rights when the universality principle came under attack from some states but was generally upheld by NGOs (Human Rights Watch 1994a; Friedman, Hochstetler and Clark 2005:58–60). Human rights advocates must frame human rights as global with regard to state sovereignty, because state sovereignty – also recognized in the UN Charter – can be invoked as a shield from external criticism. Thus, framing human rights violations in individual countries as problems affecting international peace and security for UN members has provided an important rationale for UN action. As NGOs have gained ground, they have worked to frame respect for human rights as an aspect of state legitimacy (Friedman, Hochstetler and Clark 2005:114; Hochstetler, Clark and Friedman 2000).6 Table 4.2 Strategies and niches for NGO participation in UN human rights standard-setting Strategy

Niche Role within the Government MonitoringFrame

(1) Analyze gaps in existing standards or implementation in light Expert and advocate of the universal human rights frame (2) Consult “experts, other NGOs, survivors” to agree on needed Expert and advocate changes (e.g., participate in norm drafting in light of the universal human rights frame) (3) Campaign for enactment of changes (e.g., promote adoption Advocate of new UN standards) (4) Campaign for government accountability using the standards Advocate and watchdog (5) Evaluation and revision Expert and watchdog

THE GOVERNMENT MONITORING FRAME: Although the UN charter recognizes human rights as key to international peace and security, it took years until scrutiny could be directed at individual states. In an extension to their UN-structured role as representatives of the UN’s social constituency, NGOs have come to see and portray themselves as monitors of states. State accountability is an important part of the government monitoring frame (Clark, Friedman and Hochstetler 1998:54–55), and the different niches available to human rights NGOs at the UN allow them to reinforce the government monitoring frame in different ways. The various NGO niches can be described as expert, advocate, and watchdog. Because NGOs at the UN are not on an equal footing with states, the ones that wish to engage the UN system on an expert level may work with states, but their expertise and their allegiance to the global human rights frame are the principles on which their importance in the process rests. The NGO experts are helping to create new rules that will assist them in their monitoring capacities. In their advocacy and watchdog niches, once standards are

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set, NGOs are likely to take a more confrontational stance. Then, expertise and information remain important credentials, but in their advocacy capacities NGO activists claim importance vis-à-vis states based on loyalty to human rights principles and advocacy for victims of human rights abuses. These expectations are still nested within the government monitoring frame. Notably, the variation in roles that NGOs take within the government monitoring frame is well integrated within some larger NGOs; smaller NGOs may participate in only one or a few of the possible types of activity. The government monitoring frame legitimates NGOs’ work at the UN, and also legitimates the fact that NGOs may switch roles depending on the phase of work. For example, in a manual for its activists, AI has explicitly characterized its strategy on international human rights law as a process comprised of the following steps: (1) analyze and find “gaps” in existing standards or implementation; (2) consult “experts, other NGOs, survivors” to “agree” on needed changes; (3) campaign to get governments to enact needed changes; (4) campaign to hold governments accountable using the stronger standards; (5) evaluate the process and suggest improvements (Amnesty International 2001b: 99). Table 4.2 builds on the steps articulated by AI to describe NGOs’ roles at each stage. The different niches available at the UN virtually require specialization; this can divide NGOs. However, a basic agreement about the global human rights frame (also enshrined in UN language) and about the importance of government monitoring can be expected to facilitate collaboration during different phases of UN activity. Case study: the development of the Protocol to the Convention against Torture (OPCAT)7 The following brief case study of OPCAT illustrates human rights NGOs’ approach to a particular part of the political opportunity structure at the UN. Since the discussion below is confined to NGOs’ drafting and ratification strategies, it omits any major discussion of uncertainties surrounding the projected operation of the treaty.8 In addition, the reader will notice that the NGOs occupying the “expert” niche in this part of the UN political opportunity structure are based in the global North; however, it is probably unfair to generalize about the overall heterogeneity of human rights NGOs’ participation at the UN based on the actors filling this particular niche. OPCAT is designed to strengthen the Convention against Torture (CAT), based on the idea that regular inspections of detention facilities will prevent torture. OPCAT provides for inspections in two ways. First, it establishes an international, “external” procedure for regular visits to places of detention. Second, parties to OPCAT must create their own national-level, “internal” inspections for detention facilities. The visits and the national mechanisms are to be supervised by the International Subcommittee on Prevention, which operates under CAT’s original monitoring body, the Committee against Torture. The story of how such a protocol developed is by no means straightforward, and provides an opportunity to employ the framework developed in this volume.

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Background and major actors in the OPCAT debate A protocol like OPCAT has treaty status and must be ushered through its own drafting and adoption process at the UN before being opened for ratification by member states. In the human rights field, treaty protocols are sometimes developed to enable states to commit to implementation mechanisms that supplement the “parent” convention or expand its scope in some way. Thus, OPCAT offers monitoring provisions that add to the provisions included in CAT. The debate over which monitoring provisions to adopt, and whether to include them in the main treaty or in a protocol, forms the substance of the case study below. Several monitoring options were available when the “parent” treaty, CAT, was being formulated in the late 1970s and early 1980s.9 The NGO experts and their state allies lined up behind one of two options. One, the “Swedish draft,” would require states to file reports and would also give the treaty monitoring body power to investigate further concerns. This was the favored course of Sweden, AI, the France-based International Association of Penal Law (IAPL), and the International Commission of Jurists (ICJ), based in Geneva. The second approach, sponsored by the Swiss Committee against Torture (SCAT, an NGO that changed its name in 1992 to the Association for the Prevention of Torture [APT]), envisioned a more active procedure that would involve visiting places of detention. It was nicknamed the “Swiss draft” and was modeled on the method of another well known monitor ing group headquartered in Switzerland, the International Committee of the Red Cross. The differences in opinion had to be settled in order for the anti-torture treaty to move forward. Importantly, opinions were conditioned on the fact that, given the UN structure, no matter how loyal its arrangements might be to the global human rights frame, the treaty also had to complement the existing human rights legal framework in a way that would be adopted and implemented by states. The strength of the Swiss draft was its potential for torture prevention, according to its proponents, but it was potentially the more intrusive approach and therefore likely to be unacceptable to many states. The strength of the Swedish draft was its similarity to existing treaties. Its proponents believed the consistency would raise the CAT’s likelihood of adoption (MacDermot 1979:31). Even with only a few actors involved, the NGO experts were not entirely in agreement and, given that the working group structure afforded NGOs – and, by extension, the global human rights frame – a somewhat unsteady seat at the states’ table, this lack of agreement could hinder achievement of a satisfactory outcome. The logjam over monitoring provisions was broken when Niall MacDermot, Secretary-General of the ICJ, proposed that the Swiss proposal for visitation be saved for an optional protocol, while going forward with the more conventional Swedish proposal. The major NGO actors and state sponsors reached agreement on the plan (Bolin Pennegård 1998:42).10 The strategy was then disseminated through a pamphlet issued by the ICJ together with SCAT (MacDermot 1979:34; 36). The reporting and monitoring strategy, rather than the preventative inspection strategy, became part of the original treaty, with the understanding that an optional protocol would be developed farther down the road. Right away, in 1980, a draft plan for the optional visitation protocol, which would become OPCAT, was put on record by Costa Rica, with the request that it not be raised for consideration until after CAT was adopted. The delay made logical sense, since the

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“parent” treaty was still under consideration, but it was also part of a deliberate strategy that acknowledged the need not to complicate the adoption process for CAT itself by provoking unnecessary contention over a new inspections procedure (Bolin Pennegård 1998:42). The agreed-upon version of CAT, without a protocol, was adopted and opened for signing in 1984. Having agreed that the time for a UN visiting mechanism on torture was not yet ripe, NGOs wasted no time in turning toward an opportunity structure that was more receptive: the European system. SCAT began to collaborate with the ICJ on a proposal within the Council of Europe (CE). Noël Berrier, head of the CE’s Legal Affairs Committee, said that Europe could “set an example … without waiting for the proposal to be implemented at [the] world level.”11 In 1983, the CE’s Parliamentary Assembly recommended the development of a European regional version of the visitation mechanism (Bolin Pennegård 1998:43). The global Convention against Torture entered into force in 1987, and in 1989, the European Convention for the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment entered into force (Council of Europe 1987), establishing a European Committee for the Prevention of Torture (EPT) empowered to visit places of detention. Now, behind-the-scenes drafting and NGO lobbying work would resume to resurrect OPCAT at the international level (Evans and Haenni-Dale 2004:25; Bolin Pennegård 1998:46). Formal versus informal opportunity structures In the area of standard-setting, NGOs have developed “work-arounds” conditioned by the political and participatory limits faced at the UN. NGOs have not controlled the formal UN opportunity structure, but they created their own informal opportunities during the delay on OPCAT. Between 1987, when the global CAT entered into force, and 1992, when the UN Human Rights Commission reopened the OPCAT working group, invited experts convened at unofficial workshops and meetings sponsored by the Austrian Committee against Torture, APT, and the ICJ. As a result, by the time the official working group convened, a draft that had been worked over by the main players was already on the table. In public, NGOs argued to the Human Rights Commission that the “detailed working practices” of the European arrangements already in operation “could serve as a useful model for a universal system” (Amnesty International 1992:3). The NGOs’ use of informal opportunities to circumvent formal limits on their participation in standard setting is evident as the OPCAT process progressed. A parallel Informal Drafting Group was established to meet in tandem with the official working group.12 According to one detailed account, most of the “substantive” work on OPCAT was done in the informal meetings (Bolin Pennegård 1998:26, fn. 40). The informal NGO participants consisted of the main players from the first efforts in the 1970s and 1980s (AI, APT, ICJ, and IAPL), along with Human Rights Watch, which entered the human rights standard-setting niche in the early 1990s after a decision to extend its work to multilateral forums (Human Rights Watch 1995: xxvi). Despite NGOs’ efforts, progress in the official working group slowed in the mid-to late 1990s, with very little movement toward government acceptance of a system of visitation. The sovereignty compromises required by a universal visitation system still loomed over the proposal, as did pragmatic concerns about funding and effectiveness that

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led even some advocates to question OPCAT’s feasibility.13 Amnesty International lamented the fact that “a small group of states … tried to undermine the principles underlying” the proposed system and noted that it would be making an effort to urge more governments (presumably sympathetic ones) to get involved (Amnesty International 1996:63). HRW warned that the visitation mechanism as proposed might not include public reports (Human Rights Watch 1998). AI and HRW’s notes appeared in their widely published annual reports, prepared in their advocacy capacity for the public audience. These large NGOs took up the advocacy mantle when opportunities for UN progress were blocked, critiquing states’ obstinacy and calling for their accountability before a public audience. In doing so they relied heavily on the government monitoring frame and, implicitly, the global human rights frame in calling for stronger procedures to stop torture. In 2001, Mexico proposed a solution to the stalemate: the establishment of national rather than international visits to places of detention (Evans and Haenni-Dale 2004:38–41). Such a plan had the potential to circumvent sovereignty objections by making governments responsible for their own visitation systems (ibid.). Critics, however, worried that a national inspection system would be manipulated by states. NGOs disagreed in their assessments of the new proposal: APT and two other groups, the International Federation of Christians against Torture (IFACAT) and the International Rehabilitation Council for Torture Victims (IRCT), were broadly supportive despite some criticisms of particulars; while AI, HRW and the ICJ made a joint, more critical statement to the working group (ibid.: 43, fn. 116). Despite the differences of perspective, other NGO statements at this juncture reveal an emphasis on their joint desire for a strong protocol. In an account of events at the 2001 session of the Human Rights Commission, AI reported that AI, HRW and the ICJ held “that the use of national mechanisms, rather than an international body, might lead to ineffective visits being made” and implicitly criticized the states at the 2001 session for not giving sufficient attention to the details of the new proposal (Amnesty International 2001a). Similarly, the International Service for Human Rights reported the joint concerns of AI, HRW and the ICJ to its own NGO audience, but noted that APT, too, “pointed out that the proposal had many flaws” (International Service for Human Rights 2001). The political opportunity structure presented by the UN drafting process gives states the final word. At this stage, with a new proposal on the table, the next move was up to NGOs’ state allies. Evans and Haenni-Dale (2004:41) note that the debate over Mexico’s proposal “galvanized” the European states that wanted to keep international inspections in OPCAT. Led by Sweden, they introduced new language with a role for both international and national inspection mechanisms. OPCAT would retain authorization for unannounced international inspections by its monitoring body, the International Subcommittee on Prevention (ISP), and these would complement national inspection mechanisms called National Preventive Mechanisms (NPMs), to be created by states when they joined OPCAT. The ISP would also advise states on the NPMs. The changes “borrowed and blended” the proposals “to win support (or more importantly, avoid rejection) from either of the principal camps” (Evans and Haenni-Dale 2004:43). OPCAT was adopted and opened for signing in 2002, and by 2006 had achieved the ratifications necessary for it to enter into force.

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Table 4.3 NGOs’ political opportunities and their fulfillment at the UN for the Convention against Torture (CAT) in 1984 and the Optional Protocol to CAT in 2002 Year/Treaty Instrument

Drafting Roles

Adoption and Post-Adoption Roles

1984 (CAT)

Expert observer status in cooperation with sympathetic states Public differences among NGOs (and governments) over treaty approach NGO involvement muted 2002 (OPCAT) Expert observer status in cooperation with sympathetic states APT takes lead Some public differences among NGOs over treaty approach during drafting But NGO involvement is publicized and used to legitimate process

Lobbying and publicity-generating role Primarily carried by Amnesty International Publicity-generating role NGO coalition of 11 groups to advocate adoption presents united stand by NGOs once text is adopted

At the adoption and ratification stages, NGOs united to lobby publicly for wide acceptance of the protocol. A coalition of eleven NGOs, comprised of AI, APT, HRW, the ICJ, IFACAT, the International League for Human Rights, the International Federation for Human Rights, the International Service for Human Rights, IRCT, the Redress Trust for Torture Survivors, and the World Organization against Torture, formed to throw their “full weight” behind OPCAT (Boeglin Naumovic 2004:55, n. 68). APT has since documented numerous kinds of contacts, both to push for broad ratification and to follow up on implementation. APT’s techniques have included letters advocating OPCAT; advocacy visits to countries, sometimes jointly with one or two of the other NGOs; and other kinds of cooperation with national, regional, and international NGOs, including AI’s national-level offices. APT reports contacts with government foreign affairs ministries and national human rights institutions, as well as cooperation with parliamentarians whom it describes as “OPCAT-friendly”. The NGOs’ advocacy visits often have included visits with groups likely to be designated as NPMs, such as existing prison monitoring groups (Association for the Prevention of Torture 2006). Conclusion What can we conclude about how political opportunity structures shaped NGOs’ activities at the UN on OPCAT, and in human rights in general? A comparison of early efforts to develop an implementation procedure for CAT with the later negotiations over OPCAT shows that, first, the roles offered for NGOs by the opportunity structure in the specialized area of treaty drafting have not changed a great deal (see Table 4.3). At both times, NGO observers achieved access based in large part on expertise. The larger NGOs blended their expert activity with mobilization of public support for action on torture, calling on the global human rights and government monitoring frames. Second, most of the same NGOs were involved at both times, with a few additions – and even these

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additional NGOs employed more or less the same repertoire of strategies. Third, the NGOs observed in the case study demonstrated growth in the ability to reflect upon and choose strategies appropriate to the niche they occupied at various points in the standardsetting process, while the global human rights and government monitoring frames provide a coherent way to coordinate their actions and relationships. When UN progress slowed, NGOs successfully exercised their repertoires at the European level, strengthening their alliances with sympathetic states and building a prototype for the global anti-torture protocol they had envisioned. Greater cooperation is evident among NGOs of differing sizes and approaches. Over time, NGOs had consistent disagreements, but by the end of the OPCAT story it appears that NGOs had learned how better to harmonize their distinctive goals, with jointly mobilizing common resources. Although APT was the historic supporter of the visitation approach as well as a major public face for the coordinating work on OPCAT, its documentation shows broad cooperation with other NGOs at the global and local level, as described above. Such cooperation is imperative if NGOs are to make the most of their access opportunities. Finally, although NGOs’ procedural opportunities for legal standard setting have not changed greatly, NGO involvement seems to have a stronger taken-for-granted quality among both states and NGOs. Sovereignty issues still, to a large degree, condition the choice of strategies for NGOs as they promote global human rights in a state-centric system. However, NGOs have trumpeted their involvement in the elaboration of OPCAT and have striven to bring the largely expert standard-setting processes out from behind closed doors. That kind of “advertising” was not a part of NGO repertoires in the 1980s. By extension, it can be argued that NGO involvement and support has become even more important to the successful establishment of legal human rights safeguards. References Amnesty International (1968) Amnesty International Report, 1967–68. London: International Secretariat. —— (1992) ‘New International Instruments: The Draft Declaration on the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance and The Draft Optional Protocol to the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading Treatment or Punishment’, Oral Intervention by Amnesty International, Statements to the 48th session of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights (Geneva, 27 January–6 March 1992). London: Amnesty International. —— (1996) Amnesty International Report 1996. London: Amnesty International. —— (2001a) ‘International Human Rights Standards and International Organizations’, Amnesty International Campaigning Manual, 2nd edn. London: Amnesty International —— (2001b) ‘Optional Protocol to the Convention against Torture: Time to Take a Stand on the Prevention of Torture’. London: Amnesty International. Available online at http://web.amnesty.org/802568F7005C4453/0/452F4887A022EE8580256AC5005185D7? Open (accessed 8 November 2006). Association for the Prevention of Torture (2006) ‘OPCAT Campaign, 2004–6: Progress Report’. Geneva: APT. Available online at http://www.apt.ch/un/opcat/OPCAT%20Progress%20Report.pdf (accessed 5 September 2005). Boeglin Naumovic, N. (2004) ‘History of the Optional Protocol to the UN Convention against Torture’, in: D. Long and N. Boeglin Naumovic (eds.) Optional Protocol to the United Nations Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading Treatment or

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Punishment: A Manual for Prevention. Geneva and San José: Association for the Prevention of Torture with the Inter-American Institute for Human Rights (IIHR). Available online at http://www.isn.ethz.ch/pubs/ph/details.cfm?lng=en&id=16020(accessed2June2007). Bolin Pennegård, A.-M. (1998) ‘An Optional Protocol Based on Prevention and Cooperation’, in: B. Dunér (ed.) An End to Torture: Strategies for its Eradication. London: Zed Books: 39–60. Buergenthal, T., Shelton, D. and Stewart, D. (2002) International Human Rights. St. Paul: West. Burgers, J.H. and Danelius, H. (1988) The United Nations Convention against Torture: A Handbook on the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading Treatment or Punishment. Dordrecht: Martinus Nijhoff. Clark, A.M. (2001) Diplomacy of Conscience: Amnesty International and Changing International Human Rights Norm. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Clark, A.M., Friedman, E.J. and Hochstetler, K. (1998) ‘The Sovereign Limits of Global Civil Society: a Comparison of NGO Participation in UN World Conferences on the Environment, Human Rights, and Women’, World Politics, 51: 1–35. Council of Europe (1987) European Convention for the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, in: E.T.S. 126 (Strasbourg, 26 November 1987), entered into force 1 February 1989. Evans, M.D. and Haenni-Dale, C. (2004) ‘Preventing Torture? The Development of the Optional Protocol to the UN Convention against Torture’, Human Rights Law Review, 4: 19–55. Friedman, E.J., Hochstetler, K. and Clark, A.M. (2005) Democracy, Sovereignty, and Global Civil Society. Albany: SUNY Press. Hertel, S. (2006) Unexpected Power: Conflict and Change among Transnational Activists. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. Hochstetler, K., Clark, A.M. and Friedman, E.J. (2000) ‘Sovereignty in the Balance: Claims and Bargains at the UN Conferences on the Environment, Human Rights, and Women’, International Studies Quarterly, 44: 591–614. Hopgood, S. (2006) Keepers of the Flame: Understanding Amnesty International. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. Human Rights Watch (1994a) ‘United Nations: The Vienna Conference’, New York: Human Rights Watch. Available online at http://www.hrw.org/reports/1994/WR94/Back09.htm#TopOfPage(accessed 1 June 2007). —— (1994b) ‘The Work of Human Rights Watch’, New York: Human Rights Watch. Available online at http://www.hrw.org/reports/1994/WR94/Back-10.htm#TopOfPage (accessed 1 June 2007). —— (1995) Human Rights Watch World Report 1995. New York: Human Rights Watch. —— (1998) Human Rights Watch World Report 1998. New York: Human Rights Watch. International Service for Human Rights (2001) ‘Standard-Setting Work’, in: Analytical Report of the 57th Session – Geneva, 19 March to 27 April 2001. Geneva: ISHR. Available online at http://www.ishr.ch/About%20UN/Reports%20and%20Analysis/CHR%2057%20%20Standard.htm (accessed 9 November 2006). —— (2007) Untitled Introductory Material, Geneva: International Service for Human Rights. Available online at http://www.ishr.ch/ (accessed 2 June 2007). Kamminga, M.T. (1992) Inter-State Accountability for Violations of Human Rights. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Lauren, P.G. (1998) The Evolution of International Human Rights: Visions Seen. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Lewis, P. (1991) ‘Faction in U.N. Panel Blocks a Rights Group’, in The New York Times, 3 February: 11. MacDermot, N. (1979) ‘How to Enforce the Torture Convention: A Draft Optional Protocol’, The Review of the International Commission of Jurists, 1979:31–36. Posner, M.H. and Whittome, C. (1994) ‘The Status of Human Rights NGOs’, Columbia Human Rights Law Review, 25: 269–90.

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Smith, J. (2008, forthcoming) Global Visions, Rival Networks: Social Movements for Global Democracy. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Tarrow, S.G. (2005) The New Transnational Activism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Tolley, H.B. Jr. (1994) The International Commission of Jurists: Global Advocates for Human Rights. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. UN ECOSOC, Commission on Human Rights (1994) Res. 1994/40. ‘Question of a Draft Optional Protocol to the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment’, 4 March 1994. UN Economic and Social Council (1996) ECOSOC Res. 1996/31 adopted 25 July 1996, ‘Consultative Relationship between the United Nations and Non-Governmental Organizations’. UN Non-Governmental Liaison Service (1996) ‘ECOSOC Concludes NGO Review’. Available online at http://www.globalpolicy.org/ngos/docs96/review.htm (accessed 3 March 2004). UN General Assembly (2002) Res. A/RES/57/199 adopted 18 December 2002, ‘Optional Protocol to the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading Treatment or Punishment’, reprinted in 42 I.L.M. 26, 2003. UN Secretary-General’s Panel of Eminent Persons on Civil Society (2003) ‘UN and Civil Society Relationship: Questionnaire on NGO Opinion’, New York: UN. Available online at http://www.un-ngls.org/survey_report.doc (accessed 3 March 2004). UN Human Rights Council (2007) ‘Information/NGO Participation: First Information Note for NGOs (as of 9 May 2007)’. Available online at http://www.ohchr.org/english/bodies/hrcouncil/ngo.htm (accessed 2 June 2007). UN Office at Geneva (2007) NGO Database. Available online at http://www.unog.ch/ under ‘NonGovernmental Organizations’ link (accessed 23 May 2007). Willetts, P. (1996) ‘The Conscience of the World’: The Influence of Non-Governmental Organisations in the UN System. Washington DC: Brookings Institution. —— (2003) ‘List [of] Non-Governmental Organisations in Consultative Status with the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations, as of August 2003’. Available online at http://www.staff.city.ac.uk/p.willetts/NGOS/NGO-2003.HTM (accessed 23 May 2007).

Notes 1 I would like to thank Jay McCann, Anja Mihr, Jackie Smith, David Weissbrodt, and the editors of this volume for helpful comments. Bezaeit Dessalegn and Clair Schaler provided research assistance for Table 1. 2 Early human rights NGOs included, in chronological order according to the year they gained consultative status, International League for Human Rights (1946), International League for Human Rights (1946), Anti-Slavery International (1950), International Commission of Jurists (1957), Amnesty International (1964), and a few women’s, labour, law, and religious groups that would have counted such issues as part of their agenda. 3 For more information, see Tolley (1994) and Hopgood (2006). 4 The direction of influence is not exclusively transnational to national. Recent and forthcoming work examining the ways local NGOs use and change the frames “provided” by international campaigns include Hertel (2006) and Smith (2008, forthcoming). 5 The government monitoring frame is introduced by Clark, Friedman and Hochstetler (1998). 6 For a general study of how the principle of accountability for human rights in international law developed, see Kamminga (1992). 7 The primary sources consulted for the case study are, in the main, publicly available documents and secondary commentaries that detail NGO strategies and UN activity. 8 These concerns are succinctly laid out by Dennis (2003:371–74).

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9 For more information on the provenance and content of CAT’s multiple drafts, see Burgers and Danelius (1988). 10 MacDermot’s own explication of the strategy is available in MacDermot (1979:31–36). 11 Berrier, quoted in Bolin Pennegård, A.-M. (1998). She cites Council of Europe doc. AS/Jur (33) 18, 9 September 1981, para. 13. 12 In UN parlance, informal meetings are meetings in which unrecorded discussions are held and whose results are then reported to the formal body—in this case, the open-ended working group. 13 On this note, Bolin Pennegård reports that NGOs collaborated with the South African government to propose establishing a fund to help needy states to implement OPCAT (Bolin Pennegård 1998:51). The fund is mentioned in Article 26 of OPCAT, and provides for the possibility of contributions to the fund from states, intergovernmental organizations, NGOs, and other “private or public entities” (UN General Assembly 2002).

5 Political opportunity structures and nonstate influence Making the case for transparency at the World Bank Paul J. Nelson Introduction The international governance of economic affairs has changed significantly since 1990, with new institutional arrangements for creating and enforcing trade rules and significant changes in the roles of the IMF and, to a lesser extent, the World Bank. As Keith Griffin (2003) argues, the institutions and practices of governance have not matched the demands and opportunities created by economic globalization, and this institutional failing is a factor in the growth of global inequality. It is not surprising, therefore, that the governance of the World Bank itself, and its role in broader economic governance, attracts interest from scholars and activists alike. This chapter traces the changing frames and mobilization strategies used by NGOs to advocate greater transparency at the World Bank. I argue that these strategies are shaped both by the distinctive political opportunity structure presented by the World Bank as well as by new pressures and opportunities that arose for NGOs with the broadening of interest in the issue. Policy making and policy implementation at the World Bank have specific, distinctive characteristics that condition and limit NGO influence and sometimes produce unintended consequences. The political opportunities open to NGOs vary across issue areas, as do the identities of the NGOs involved. Concerned with issues ranging from economic, to social, environmental and financial policy, the World Bank has become a focal point not only for a diverse set of NGOs (e.g. environmental, human rights, labour, and development) but also for social movements and consumer organizations. The issue which has become central to the structure of the NGO–World Bank interaction is that of transparency, or information disclosure policy in World Bank parlance. It plays a role in almost any of the policy issues that NGOs contest with the Bank. Information policy entered the Bank’s active agenda through the efforts of environmental advocates in the early 1990s, and is a key governance reform for advocates seeking to monitor and influence economic, environment, social or human rights policies at the Bank. In the remainder of this chapter, I identify five distinctive structural and governance features of the World Bank that must be taken into account to understand the political opportunity structure for NGOs. This analysis of the political oppor-tunity structure and a brief review of the mechanisms and history of civil society interaction with the World

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Bank set the stage for the analysis of the issue of information disclosure. The chapter concludes with some reflections on the broad range of factors, including the political opportunity structure at the World Bank, that appear to shape NGOs’ strategies and agendas. The World Bank’s distinctive political opportunity structure The World Bank’s membership and voting structure, the informal patterns of decisionmaking and governance, and also its broad and changing aims distinguish it from many UN and EU bodies. This section outlines the Bank’s unique structural features and their potential significance for NGO engagement. Membership: the asymmetrical governance and US domination Governance of economic affairs through the World Bank is marked by asymmetry which derives, on the one hand, from members’ unequal voting power (distributed through a weighted formula based on capital contributions) and, on the other hand, from the Bank’s ability to exert leverage over borrowing member countries but not over wealthy members. On issues such as tariff reform or agricultural subsidies, for example, the World Bank exercises modest influence over most borrowers, and substantial leverage over some, through policy conditions and loans. In contrast, its influence over the US, EU and “Part 1” country governments is negligible. The World Bank plays important roles in governance of certain areas of global development, finance, and environmental policy. On issues such as debt relief and finance for development, where the World Bank is sometimes assigned global coordinating roles, it implements policies that are truly global in scope. A second set of issues is agency-wide and therefore has an impact across the Bank’s borrowing countries, though may also set directions for other development donors. Bank-wide policies on involuntary resettlement and information disclosure are examples. A third category of issues involve the World Bank in implementing international norms in individual country cases, as when it finances the construction of an energy plant or protections for a rainforest reserve. These three categories of governance functions present different opportunities and strategies for NGOs. While all of the World Bank’s member governments are represented in its decisionmaking bodies, and are potential actors in its policy decisions, the United States plays a dominant role in World Bank governance. The formal power of the US government, in a system of voting power proportional to shares owned, as well as the informal influence wielded by the US Treasury and a heavily US staff is widely recognized (Woods 2001; Wade 2001a; 2001b). This structure and dominance has shaped the political opportunity structures for NGOs: it has encouraged campaigning in areas where US support could easily be won (for example, environmental policies or information disclosure) and limited NGOs’ effectiveness over economic policy – structural and adjustment, and trade.

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Aims and scope: aid donor and an international financial institution The World Bank is both an international organization of its member governments and a development finance organization and, as such, is an influential part of the donor- and state-dominated aid industry. As an international organization with substantial influence over some member governments, the World Bank is of interest to NGOs with policy advocacy agendas. But as an aid donor financing some $20 billion in development programs annually, it also attracts interest from NGOs seeking contracts to help implement projects. Tvedt (2003) argues that NGOs’ interactions with donors need to be re-examined. He rejects the idealization of NGOs as part of a global civil society, agents of change at state and donor agencies; rather, he argues, most development NGOs are integrated and subsumed into a state and donor-dominated aid system. The reality in the case of the World Bank, I will argue, is mixed: NGOs, collectively, relate to the World Bank as a target, both as a source of influence and as the source of $20 billion in annual loans. Rules and realities of access The World Bank’s approach to civil society is highly instrumental and strategic. Unlike many organs and specialized agencies of the UN system, the World Bank has no system of formal observer status for NGOs, rarely involves them in its governing bodies, and has developed its working relationship with NGOs largely on an ad hoc and strategic basis. The World Bank has adapted strategically and often skilfully to changes, including those brought about by NGO activists. The organization itself – its management, governing bodies, and in some cases groups of its staff – must be seen as strategic actors with their own well-defined objectives in dealing with NGOs and other civil society organizations. Although the World Bank itself is far from monolithic, it has succeeded in identifying and separating out the NGOs and factions with which it will (and will not) enter into discussion, and it has advanced its own objectives, finding NGOs that can replace state agencies in implementing portions of Bank-financed projects. The Bank’s funding cycle creates a unique set of opportunities for influence. The World Bank’s main lending window, the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, is financed by long-term capital contributions from its members and through the sale of bonds on international financial markets. In contrast, the low-interest window that lends to the poorest countries, the International Development Association (IDA), receives most of its capital from triennial funding replenishments negotiated among its donor countries. The US government and US-based NGOs are particularly aggressive in using these IDA Replenishment negotiations to impose policy conditions, holding out the realistic threat that the US Congress will not fund the US contribution without any evidence of “good faith” in implementing US-supported policies. The World Bank has a complex set of institutional links, in headquarters, country offices and in cyberspace, to inform, debate, and cooperate with NGOs.1 At headquarters, the NGO and Civil Society Unit coordinates and facilitates the various links to NGOs with support from an active External Affairs unit. A “civil society coordinator” in each regional division in headquarters supports the work of civil society liaison contact

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persons in the country and regional offices (World Bank 2000a). But these official links give an incomplete picture of the varied relationships that exist. There is a wide variety of ongoing contacts with NGOs through project cooperation, project conflict, standing consultative mechanisms, invited consultations on Bank-wide policy, formal appeals such as to the Independent Inspection panel, and Bank-brokered meetings of citizen groups with governments. NGO involvement in implementing World Bank-financed projects grew rapidly during the 1980s and 1990s when many governments’ service delivery capacities were shrinking. Fewer than ten percent of projects between 1973 and 1988 were reported to involve an NGO, but the Bank (2007a) reports that one-half of projects approved in 1990 and 70 percent in 2006 involved an NGO in some role (World Bank 2007a). The Bank has actively encouraged this collaboration by creating NGO liaison units, publicizing “good practice,” maintaining a database of NGOs, and managing trust funds to facilitate NGO involvement (World Bank 2000a). NGO involvement in projects is highly variable, often implementing a single project “component,” or receiving small grants through Emergency Social Funds (ESF) or Social Investment Funds (SIF) (World Bank 1999; 2007a). Because the World Bank provides no single mechanism for NGO grievances, civil society organizations have adopted a variety of strategies, raising issues through the media, in protests at project sites, in communications to Bank staff, and in letters to senior management. Project conflict involves deliberate efforts by local, national and/or international NGOs to challenge and revise or block a project. Local resistance to government development projects has a long history, but international pressure intensified in the early 1980s, when environmental NGOs began singling out World Bank projects for high-profile criticism over environmental policies, involuntary resettlement, and indigenous peoples’ rights (Fox and Brown 1998). Resistance to World Bank-financed infrastructure projects has been the most visible form of NGO criticism and has led the Bank to give attention to environmental and social issues involved in major infrastructure projects. Advocacy has blocked projects, provoked amendments to others, and helped to motivate the creation of an independent inspection panel to which affected communities can appeal (Umaña 1998). Conflict has also raised questions among practitioners and scholars about the legitimacy, transparency, and accountability for international NGOs that engage in advocacy at the Bank (Jordan and Van Tuijl 2006; Edwards 2000). Consultation This the most rapidly growing form of engagement, and NGOs now participate in dozens of World Bank advisory committees, ad hoc consultative meetings, public discussions and commentary on policy papers and research publications, and other forums. Almost no public document is prepared without some form of public consultation, transforming World Bank policy making from a relatively closed process as recently as the mid 1980s, to one that invites a great deal of public discussion (World Bank 2007b). Consultations rarely have a formal role in governing the Bank, which carefully limits its commitment to act on the positions expressed. In consultations on sector policies, for example, “the principal [sic] is to carry out open-minded consultation, not to enter into

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negotiation on text with external parties” (World Bank 1998:15, n22). Consultations cover controversial policy issues, technical details of project interaction (procurement rules, cash flow to contracting NGOs), and even the development of publications that represent its position in the “marketplace of ideas.” A standing NGO–World Bank Committee was maintained by the Bank and some 25 NGO participants from 1982 until it was quietly shelved in favor of an annual, thematic World Bank–Civil Society Forum (World Bank 2001; Joint Facilitation Committee 2004). Appeals to the Independent Inspection Panel are the most fully institutionalized mechanism for citizen and NGO involvement, with rules explicitly establishing the World Bank’s responsibilities, the panel’s investigative powers, and, for each appeal to the panel, a timetable of investigation, decision, and reporting by the panel, management and the Board. The panel has received 42 requests for investigations. Five full investigations have been conducted, three projects have been blocked or cancelled, and the prospect of an investigation has led to significant changes in several others (Clark, Fox and Treakle 2003; World Bank 2005). The Bank’s affiliate, the International Finance Corporation (IFC), established a separate, somewhat less independent, Compliance Advisor/Ombudsman (CAO) in 2000 (International Finance Corporation 2000; 2003). How this political opportunity structure at the World Bank has shaped NGOs’ strategies is the subject of the next section. NGOs, advocacy, and information disclosure at the World Bank NGOs’ sustained advocacy in five areas – sustainable development, dams and resettlement policy, transparency and accountability, structural adjustment, and debt relief – sets the context for the transparency issue.2 On these and other issues (for example, anti-corruption initiatives, the Bank’s own governance and voting rules, or opposition to the privatization of drinking water and sanitation systems), NGOs have drawn on diverse strategies.3 These cases suggest that one element of the opportunity structure – the support of G-8 country governments, particularly the United States – is not only a dominant factor in NGOs’ choices of strategies, but also the measure of influence they are likely to achieve. Advocacy Advocacy for environmental reforms has blocked specific projects, and put in place environmental impact assessments and procedural safeguards to reduce harmful environmental impacts. The NGOs involved lobbied the US Congress, published highly critical reports on the projects, and built support among other NGOs including the German Urgewald and Ecologist in Great Britain, to put restrictions and safeguards on World Bank lending that would protect river basins, preserve tropical forests and biodiversity, and promote new priorities in energy lending. More confrontational strategies have led to new sector policies in fields such as energy, forestry, mining, and pesticide use, as well as involuntary resettlement related to major infrastructure projects. How extensively these transform the Bank’s lending, and how to interpret its new, higher profile as source and arbiter of environmental knowledge

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in development, is the subject of hot debate (Goldman 2005). Spear-headed by environmental NGOs and supported by indigenous peoples’ organizations and human rights activists, project-focused and confrontational strategies drew public attention to major dam projects and involuntary resettlement, and forced management to adopt a series of policy reforms, including a systematic internal review in 1994. In all of these cases, environmental NGOs exploited support within the US Congress and government, and worked closely with a relatively small group of supporters within the Bank’s professional staff (Rich 1994). Moreover, they benefited from the Bank’s public discussion of weak performance results in the 1990s, prompted by an unprecedented public review of the Sardar Sarovar dam project in India (Morse and Berger 1992; Khagram 2004). Sustained public attention and staff leadership within the World Bank (Fox 1998) have encouraged the implementation of social and environmental safeguards in projects involving resettlement, but the safeguards remain unevenly applied and enforced. In the aftermath of the World Commission on Dams’ 2000 Report, much of the international NGO campaign is focused on the World Bank’s failure to implement the commission’s findings (International Rivers Network 2004). In the first years of the new century, structural adjustment was the top priority issue for many development NGOs and trade unions in the Bank’s borrowing countries, and for critical social movements and NGOs from the 50 Years Is Enough! Network in 1994 to the anti-globalization protests. But their strategies did not provoke fundamental change in the World Bank’s prescription of privatization, austerity, exports, deregulation, and the addition of “safety net” welfare and jobs programs, nor did qualifying adjectives (“broadbased” or “sustainable” growth) change the tilt of World Bank development strategy toward market-dominated solutions. Without strong staff support inside the Bank, the Japanese government and other member governments have also been unable to upset the strategy favored by the United States and supported by corporate and financial sector constituents (Wade 2001a). A growing movement for debt relief in the late 1990s, led by church-based organizations and European development NGOs, had greater success. The debt campaign won support from the British government and benefited from both new leadership at the Bank in 1995 and from concerns at the Bank and among its G-8 members about impending defaults on loans by highly indebted, poor countries. The 2005 endorsement of broader debt forgiveness for 18 countries owes much to a decade of work by a global Jubilee network of social movements and NGOs, and an earlier decade of ground-laying research and advocacy by NGOs led by Oxfam GB and the Brussels-based European Network for Debt and Development (Eurodad) (Donnelly 2002). Information disclosure and transparency: framing the issue Information disclosure was a central issue in the course of NGO engagement with the Bank on environmental, infrastructure, structural adjustment, and accountability issues. In addition to its strategic importance for understanding NGOs’ strategic choices, information disclosure is a case where NGOs’ adaptation to the Bank’s political opportunity structure is decisively important.

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Transparency is “a process by which information about existing conditions, decisions and actions is made accessible, visible, and understandable” (Report of the Working Group on Transparency and Accountability 1998); it “enables others to evaluate the policies or performance” of the institution(s) involved (Florini 2000). The proposition that Multilateral Development Bank (MDB) loans should be widely disclosed is relatively new, and contradicts the long-standing expectation that sovereign clients’ transactions be private and confidential. The long history of high-profile protests against errant projects created the perception that new transparency and accountability measures were needed, and the historic US government role at the Bank favored norms of transparency that were largely grounded in US political culture. Privacy rights and banker-client privilege long governed the handling of World Bank information. The MDBs frequently referred to borrowing members as clients, and protected negotiations between them, allowing governments to announce planned projects and loans when governments saw fit. This vocabulary shifted in the 1990s, with member governments increasingly referred to as “partners” or “principal partners” in development (World Bank 1998). The campaign for transparency at the World Bank has been almost entirely carried out through formal lobbying of donor country governments and of the Bank itself, with little direct mass mobilization. But while the frame of transparency activists relies directly on institutional rather than “voice” strategies, transparency advocates’ arguments are indirectly linked to virtually every NGO advocacy initiative at the World Bank, and these links lend support to the calls for transparency. Better and earlier access to information about projects and national policy discussions, for example, could support NGO and civil society challenges to infrastructure projects, strengthen their information base in discussions of structural adjustment, and allow more effective monitoring of the implementation of social and environmental safeguards. The impetus for transparency in the World Bank has come from the perception, driven by NGO advocacy, that Bankfinanced projects and operations too often have deleterious effects on communities or social groups, and that access to information would improve the quality of lending and provide citizens with a reasonable opportunity to protect themselves. NGOs had several options in constructing an issue frame. Given its supposed positive effects on the operation of markets and the implementation of projects, transparency has been advocated as an element of democratic practice, an element of “good governance,” a duty related to the human right to information, and as a prerequisite for effective oversight and monitoring. While traces of each of these themes can be detected over the period 1990–2005, three have been particularly strong: transparency as a tool for monitoring, as an element of good governance (especially in the United States), and as an obligation to fulfil the human right to information. The framing changed from the early 1990s, when NGOs were placing the issue on the agenda and pressing for the new policy, to the 2000s, when NGOs defended the policy and attempted to expand its coverage. In the early 1990s NGOs leaned heavily on the value of transparency for monitoring World Bank lending and for implementing a US-supported freedom of information value. But by 2005 the dominant frame was more clearly international, referring to the right of affected people to have access to information about planned government projects, to the effects on corporate accountability (through corporate projects backed by the

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International Finance Corporation), and to newly created international standards for freedom of information. Putting transparency on the agenda From the beginning of the 1980s, growing attention to environmental and human rights impacts of World Bank lending created pressure for greater disclosure and recourse. A 1989 information policy favored disclosure in principle, if no compelling reason[s] existed to keep information confidential; yet, in practice, the World Bank protected its relations with member governments by maintaining con-fidentiality. Yet despite management’s efforts, project documents often fell into the hands of NGO critics. The US government routinely distributed project documents for comment and review to USbased NGOs in Washington, a practice which some board members criticized as privileged access (Stokes 1993). By the early 1990s, NGOs had begun to generate proposals for structural and institutional changes. Calls for transparency and proposals for an ombudsman (Christensen 1990; Bradlow 1993) were strengthened by a critical independent review of the Sardar Sarovar dam project (Morse and Berger 1992) and an internal review of the quality of the lending portfolio (World Bank 1992b). But the immediate motivation came when a US Congressional committee threatened to withhold funds for the IDA replenishment until a new policy was in place.4 In September 1993 the Board created a new disclosure policy and a standing three-member panel to receive requests for investigations. NGOs put transparency and accountability on the agenda, and while they could not control the response, the disclosure policy and inspection panel did come close to implementing the NGOs’ proposals. Counterproposals and attacks from within the World Bank and its Board have been successfully fended off by internal and external governmental and NGO supporters (Shihata 1994; Fox 2000). In the agenda-setting and policy decision stages, NGOs relied on two frames: (1) promoting transparency as a tool to oversee a lending portfolio of questionable quality, and to detect problem projects with serious environmental and social consequences; and (2) the view, in the United States, that freedom of information was an essential element of democratic practice that the US government was willing to promote. These frames were well-suited in light of the political opportunities that presented themselves. Not only did they feature a public relations and substantive crisis regarding the Bank’s lending practices, but also a US government more than willing to put pressure on the Bank. Nevertheless, starting in the late 1990s, when NGOs sought to secure implementation and to defend and expand the mandate, a shift in framing strategies became necessary. Monitoring implementation, broadening NGO interest With the promulgation of a disclosure policy in 1993 the policy process entered an implementation phase. The Bank’s handbook on information disclosure provided detailed guidance for releasing (and withholding) documents, or summaries thereof. As with other policy domains, important decisions are made at headquarters, though effective

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implementation depends on daily decisions by staff in an increasingly decentralized global structure. To monitor implementation, NGOs have employed, among other mechanisms, informal ad hoc inquiries to test staff’s compliance; collaborative work with World Bank staff on issues such as the translation of documents; public reporting that highlights the restrictions on information available for projects that involve corporate investments;5 and applying a set of “principles on freedom of information legislation,” compiled by the London-based NGO Article 19. As implementation proceeded and the cast of advocates grew larger and more diverse, NGOs modified their framing of the issue. It was no longer sufficient to address a US audience committed to freedom of information and suspicious of the Bank. Instead, the framework broadened to emphasize the right of affected people to information about project or policy plans, the importance of transparency for good governance, and the need to comply with internationally accepted principles for disclosure. Ongoing pressure from transparency advocates helped to motivate an organizational review of the information disclosure policy in 2001, and a new, somewhat strengthened disclosure policy was adopted in 2002. This policy expanded disclosure to include some documents related to structural adjustment loans, although not to versions as early in the process of negotiation as NGO advocates desire (World Bank 2002a; 2002b; Bank Information Center (BIC) 2002). Most of the substantive changes in the 2002 policy are relatively subtle, and many of the advocates’ demands were not met. But the World Bank review leading up to the new policy was an important window of opportunity for advocates. The coincidence of the review with the growth of international and national NGOs and movements on freedom of information helped to produce a broader coalition of interest in the World Bank’s policy than had existed previously. By the mid-1990s, the issue of transparency had gained some legitimacy inside the institution and among a small, well-informed group of NGOs. Ten years later the internal World Bank information disclosure rule had become a focal point for a broad set of citizens’ organizations, human rights NGOs, and development and environmental advocates. Moreover, Washington-based advocates were able to muster more than 500 endorsements from organizations based in 100 countries on a proposal that the World Bank release project documents in an early draft stage (Bank Information Center 2002). Although most of these NGOs simply signed on to a statement, rather than devoting major staff or other resources to the transparency agenda, the breadth of support is remarkable when compared to that in the mid-1990s, when Washington-based disclosure advocates were still struggling to persuade NGOs based in the poor countries to adopt the disclosure agenda at all. A growing set of international NGOs joined this expanded monitoring and advocacy effort. In addition to the Washington-based Bank Information Center and the Environmental Defence and Center for International Environmental Law, active on the issue since the early 1990s, significant reports and analysis on the World Bank came from the London-based NGO Article 19, the International Federation of Journalists, Washington-based freedominfo.org, whistleblower.org, and Friends of the Earth International (2005). In the borrowing countries, NGOs such as Freedom of Information Mexico (LIMAC) are pressing for disclosure relevant to Bank-financed projects (McIntosh 2006).

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A “Global Transparency Initiative” (GTI) was launched in 2004, funded by the Ford Foundation and Novib. This brought together eight organizations focused on reform of the international financial institutions and on freedom of information, to institutionalize and coordinate the growing collaboration among NGOs in these two areas. The GTI not only released an international charter for freedom of information at the World Bank and other International Finance Institutions (GTI 2006a) but also a scorecard on World Bank performance against these standards (GTI 2006b). Three trends are important here. First, there is a significant shift in the principal interests of the NGOs involved. In its early stages, the advocacy was led almost entirely by NGOs specializing in World Bank issues, who embraced transparency as a strategy to promote reform. Yet by the early 2000s, substantial roles were being filled by freedom of information specialists choosing to make the World Bank a part of their advocacy agendas. This shift reflects both the expanded interest in information policy in the international political arena, and the conviction that the World Bank’s information policy and conduct are influential in shaping international norms and the reception of those norms in the Bank’s borrowing countries. Second, the advocacy agenda in the 2000s focuses on reinforcing and expanding the disclosure policy. It calls for the disclosure of documents related to structural adjustment loans and for making information more readily accessible by providing translation under some circumstances (on translation see World Bank 2002c; on accessibility see Nelson 2001). Third, the monitoring effort has focused on one institutional member of the World Bank, the International Finance Corporation (IFC), which lends to and guarantees loans for private sector companies. The IFC is subject to the same social and environmental safeguards that apply to the World Bank’s public sector lending, but its information disclosure rules are less liberal and more protective of corporate borrowers (Nelson 2003). Much of the most aggressive advocacy to implement and strengthen the disclosure standards has focused on cases where corporate misconduct is alleged, and where affected communities had no access to project plans (Center for International Environmental Law 2000; Bank Information Center 2005; Sarin et al. 2006). Here, the World Bank transparency debate intersects with another strand of the freedom of information movement: the effort to force greater corporate disclosure of transnational activities, of payments to governments related to extractive industries, and of labour rights and conditions, health and safety, pollution, and corporate security arrangements. Conclusions: opportunities and strategic choices in NGO politics The recent experience of NGO advocacy on social and environmental policy at the World Bank demonstrates the importance of the institutional context when theorizing NGOs’ roles as political actors. Political opportunity structures and the mobilization strategies chosen by international NGOs are strongly shaped by the Bank’s organizational features; they vary with the issue area and across time; and they are heavily shaped by the G-8 member countries, particularly the United States. In general, advocacy at the World Bank has succeeded where the United States was strongly supportive or, in the case of debt

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relief, with leadership from the British government. In cases where their support has been absent, as was the case with debt issues, popular mobilization became important. The case of information disclosure is atypical but revealing. It is wise to be careful in generalizing from the World Bank case. Given its unusual mandate and governance structure, and the high level of interest and favor it has attracted from G-8 governments, especially the US, it differs from other UN bodies. Nevertheless, there are important theoretical and empirical lessons to be gained from this case, which bear on the themes of this volume. In some instances, NGOs’ issues frames and action frames more closely conform to the pattern hypothesized at the EU, particularly in their strong reliance on information and on insider politics. Yet the importance of a diverse NGO constituency, including organizations based in the global South, for mobilizing support in the Bank, has more resemblance with what we find in the UN. Three findings stand out. First, NGOs’ action frames and mobilization strategies are distinctive. They are linked to strategies and frames in other issue areas and other international organizations. Unlike campaigns on debt relief or structural adjustment, advocacy for disclosure involved almost no mass mobilizations. Instead, it was underscored by protest against a World Bank project or annual meeting. Disclosure advocates relied heavily on freedom of information norms. Although they were strongly associated with the US government, NGO interest in disclosure has spread rapidly through much of the world, and been embraced as part of a more cosmopolitan democratic agenda. Making and maintaining disclosure policy is a multilevel political process. It involves advocacy and monitoring in different places, including the headquarters of the World Bank, the US and EU governments, national settings and, at times, the local project level. The reform process has been iterative, with new reforms following the 1994 policy in 2002 and 2005. Since the creation of the disclosure policy, NGO advocates have learned a good deal about the specific, detailed features that are needed to make disclosure effective, including translation, availability in local project areas, and access to draft documents during planning processes. The campaign has also attracted the attention of information rights specialists, particularly the NGO Article 19, who have helped to articulate a set of international norms, outside of the Bank’s sphere of control, to which an international organization can be held accountable. Second, NGO advocates are heavily dependent on governments to advance and implement their agendas. In the case of the Bank, this dependency has meant expanded influence for the US government and for the Bank over its borrowers. This observation supports Pasha and Blaney’s (1998) claim that civil society activists rely almost entirely on governmental or inter-governmental agencies for influence. When international NGOs call for the World Bank to withdraw from funding a project, as they did in the case of India’s Sardar Sarovar dam project, they can find themselves victorious (funding for the dam ended in 1994), but without the external leverage that World Bank involvement may have provided. As to the broader NGO record at the World Bank, NGOs have had a measure of influence over several of the issues reviewed above. Yet, they have generally been more successful when they promoted reforms that called for an expansion, not a curtailment, of World Bank involvement. In these cases, the Bank has responded to environmental and social criticism by, for example, accepting new roles in national environmental planning,

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managing the Global Environment Facility, financing pollution abatement, supporting micro-finance lending, poverty assessments, and post-conflict rehabilitation. Third, NGOs are highly diverse and their involvement in an issue, even at a single institution such as the World Bank, may shift quickly. In the case of transparency, the growing involvement of international NGOs specialized in information disclosure helped to shift the issue frame from a US-focused emphasis on monitoring the Bank and promoting good governance, toward international norms and human rights. Finally, NGOs’ choices of frames and mobilization strategies are largely shaped by the political opportunity structures presented by the institutions they target. However, international NGOs are also influenced by the smaller, less well-financed NGOs and social movements that join a campaign. The move during implementation toward international standards and toward access to information at the sites of World Bankfinanced projects demonstrates the variety of factors, in some circumstances, that can direct the agendas and priorities of international actors. References Amenga-Etego, R. and Grusky, S. (2005) ‘The New Face of Conditionalities: The World Bank and Water Privatization in Ghana’, in D.A. McDonald and G. Ruiters (eds.), The Age of Commodity; Water Privatization in Southern Africa. London: Earthscan: 275–90. Article 19 (1999) ‘The Public’s Right to Know’, International Standards Series, June 1999. Available online at http://www.article19.org/docimages/946.html (accessed 12 March 2006). —— (2001) ‘World Bank Information Disclosure Policy Violates International Standards’, Press Release, 19 February 2001. Available online at http://www.article19.org/docimages/945.htm (accessed 12 March 2006). Bank Information Center (2002) ‘Development Bank Transparency Issues and Opportunities for 2002–3’, Bank Information Center, March 2002. Available online at http://www.bicusa.org/ (accessed 10 October 2006). —— (2005) ‘BIC Recommends Stronger Transparency Standards for IFC’. Available online at http://www.bicusa.org/ (accessed 11 March 2006). Bradlow, D. (1994). ‘International Organizations and Private Complainants: The Case of the World Bank Inspection Panel’, Virginia Journal of International Law 34: 553. Center for International Environmental Law (2000) (eds.) ‘Profiling Problem Projects: Making the Case for Change at the International Finance Corporation’. Available online at http://www.ciel.org/ifcproblemprojects.html (accessed 13 June 2001). Chamberlain, C. (1998) ‘Public Access to Information: The State of Disclosure at the Multilateral Development Banks’. Washington DC: Bank Information Center Christensen, E. (1990) ‘Green Appeal: Proposal for an Environmental Commission of Enquiry at the World Bank’. Washington: Natural Resources Defense Council, September 1990. Christian Aid (2003) ‘Struggling to be Heard: Democratizing the World Bank and IMF’, London: Christian Aid. Clark, D., Fox, J. and Treakle, K. (2003) Demanding Accountability: Civil Society Claims and the World Bank Inspection Panel. Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield. Donnelly, E.A. (2002) ‘Proclaiming Jubilee: The Debt and Structural Adjustment Network’, in S. Khagram, J.V. Riker and K. Sikkink (eds.) Restructuring World Politics: Transnational Social Movements, Networks, and Norms. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press: 155–80. Edwards, M. (2000) NGO Rights and Responsibilities: ANew Deal for Global Governance. London: Foreign Policy Centre.

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Florini, A. (2000) ‘The Politics of Transparency’, paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the International Studies Association, 17 March 2000, Los Angeles. Fox, J. (1998) ‘When Does Reform Policy Influence Practice? Lessons from the Bank Wide Resettlement Review’, in J. Fox and L.D. Brown (eds.) The Struggle for Accountability: The World Bank, NGOs and Grassroots Movements. Cambridge: MIT Press: 303–44. Fox, J. and Brown, L.D. (eds.) (1998) The Struggle for Accountability: The World Bank, NGOs and Grassroots Movements. Cambridge: MIT Press. Fox J. (2000). ‘The World Bank Inspection Panel: Lessons from the First Five Years’, Global Governance, 6(3): 279–318. Friends of the Earth International (2005) ‘International Financial Institutions Campaign: Mechanisms for Civil Society Control’. Available online at http://www.foei.org/ifi/complaints.html (accessed 10 June 2007). Global Transparency Initiative (2006a) ‘Transparency Charter for International Financial Institutions: Claiming our Right to Know’, September 2006. Available online at http://www.ifitransparency.org/doc/charter_en.pdf (accessed 6 October 2006). Global Transparency Initiative (2006b) ‘Assessing World Bank Openness: A Transparency Scorecard’, September 2006. Available online at http://www.bicusa.org/en/Article.2963.aspx (accessed 10 June 2007). Goldman, M. (2005) Imperial Nature: the World Bank and Struggles for Social Justice in the Age of Globalization. New Haven: Yale University Press. Grusky, S. (2001) ‘This is WATER We are Talking About! GATS/Water: IMF Forces Water Privatization on Poor Countries’, February 2001. Available online at http://www.nadir.org/nadir/initiativ/agp/free/imf/water.htm (accessed 10 October 2006). International Finance Corporation (1998) ‘IFC’s Policy on Disclosure of Information’, September 1998. Washington DC: IFC. —— (2000) ‘Compliance Advisor/Ombudsman’. Available online at http://www.ifc.org/cao/terms/body_terms.html (accessed 10 October 2006). —— (2003) ‘Compliance Advisor/Ombudsman: Annual Report 2002/03’. Washington DC: IFC. International Rivers Network (2004) ‘The World Bank at 60: A Case of Institutional Amnesia?’, Available online at http://www.irn.org/ (accessed 6 October 2005). Joint Facilitation Committee (2004) ‘Update Note on the Joint Facilitation Committee’. June – October 2004. Available online at http://www.civicus.org/new/media/Update%20note%20on%20the%20Joint%20Facilitation%20 Committee%20OCT0411.doc (accessed 3 April, 2006). Jordan, L. and van Tuijl, P. (2005) NGO Accountability: Politics, Principles and Innovations. London: Earthscan. Khagram, S., Riker, J.V. and Sikkink, K. (eds.) (2002) Restructuring World Politics: Transnational Social Movements, Networks, and Norms. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Khagram, S. (2004) Dams and Development: Transnational Struggles for Water and Power. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. McIntosh, T.J. (2006) ‘New Steps Toward IfiTransparency: The Use of Domestic Remedies’. IFTI Watch Update, 20 January 2006. Available online at http://www.freedominfo.org/(accessed 10 October 2006). Morse, B. and Berger, T. (1992) Sardar Sarovar: Report of the Independent Review. Ottawa: Resources Futures International. Nelson, P. (2001) ‘Globalization, NGO Advocacy, and International Financial Policy: Unlearning Lessons from Lobbying the World Bank?’, April 2001. Boston: Oxfam America. —— (2003) ‘Multilateral Development Banks, Transparency and Corporate Clients: ‘Public-Private Partnerships’ and Public Access to Information’, Public Administration and Development: 249–57. Pasha, M. and Blaney, D. (1998) ‘Elusive Paradise: The Promise and Peril of Global Civil Society’, Alternatives, 23: 417–50.

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‘Report of the Working Group on Transparency and Accountability’ (1998). Washington DC: International Monetary Fund, Rich, B. (1994) Mortgaging the Earth. Boston: Beacon. Sarin, R., Reisch, N., Kalafut, J. and Slack, J. (2006) ‘Tarnished Gold: Mining and the Unmet Promise of Development’. Washington DC: Bank Information Center and others. Shihata, I. (1994) The World Bank Inspection Panel. Washington DC: The World Bank. Stokes, B. (1993) ‘Reinventing the Bank’, National Journal, September 18: 2232–36. Tvedt, T. (2003) ‘Development NGOs: Actors in a Global Civil Society or in a New International Social System?’, Voluntas 13(4): 363–75. Umaña, A. (ed.) (1998) The World Bank Inspection Panel: The First Four Years (1994–1998). Washington, DC: The World Bank. Wade, R. (2001a). ‘Showdown at the World Bank’, New Left Review, 7 (January – February 2001): 124–37. —— (2001b) ‘The US Role in the Malaise at the World Bank: Get Up, Gulliver’, typescript, 24 August 2001. Woods, N. (2001) ‘Making the IMF and the World Bank More Accountable’, International Affairs, 77(1): 83–100. World Bank (1992) ‘Effective Implementation: Key to Development Impact’, Report of the Portfolio Management Task Force. 22 September 1992. —— (1993) ‘Policy on Information Disclosure’. Washington DC: The World Bank. —— (1998) ‘Overview – NGO World Bank Collaboration’. Washington DC: The World Bank. —— (1999) ‘World Bank Briefing Note on Social Funds’. 27 October 1999. Washington DC: The World Bank. —— (2000a) ‘NGO Liaison Officers/Civil Society Specialists Located at Resident Missions’. 15 February 2002. Washington DC: The World Bank. —— (2000b) ‘World Bank–Civil Society Relations Fiscal 1999 Progress Report’. Washington DC: The World Bank. —— (2001) ‘World Bank–Civil Society Collaboration – Progress Report for Fiscal Years 2000 and 2001’. Available online at http://siteresources.worldbank.org/CSO/Resources/ProgRptFY0001.pdf (accessed 5 October 2007). —— (2002a) ‘The World Bank Policy on Disclosure of Information’. June 2002. Washington DC: The World Bank —— (2002b) The Disclosure Handbook. World Bank Operations Policy and Country Services, December 2002. Washington DC: The World Bank —— (2002c) ‘A Document Translation Framework for the World Bank Group.’ On file with the author. —— (2005) ‘Inspection Panel: Panel Requests’, October 5, 2005. Available online at http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/EXTINSPECTIONPANEL/0,menuPK:64132 057~pagePK:64130364~piPK:64132056~theSitePK:380794,00.html (accessed 12 June 2007). —— (2007a) ‘World Bank–Civil Society Engagement: Review of Fiscal Years 2005 and 2006’. Washington DC: The World Bank. —— (2007b) Consultations with Civil Society: A Sourcebook. Washington DC: The World Bank.

Notes 1 A fuller review of these mechanisms in Nelson (2001) is the basis for this section. 2 The discussion of NGO advocacy draws heavily on Nelson (2001). 3 On voting rights at the World Bank, see Christian Aid (2003); on water, see Grusky (2001), Amenga – Etego and Grusky (2005).

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4 The Subcommittee on Multilateral Development Banks of the House Committee on Banking was then chaired by Representative Barney Frank (Democrat, Massachusetts). The author was present at meetings with Frank and his staff in which NGOs stressed the high priority they assigned to the information and inspection panel policies. 5 The IFC asserts that “the presumption in favor of disclosure is limited by the need to avoid material harm to the business and competitive interests of IFC’s clients. … IFC … has a duty to its clients to respect their confidential business information” (IFC 1998:8).

6 Negotiating human security at the UN Transnational civil society, arms control and disarmament Simone Wisotzki Introduction For much of the twentieth century, security was considered to be the primacy of the states. Owing to several developments, however, traditional notions of security have become contested. First, aiming for a broader agenda, the Brandt and Brundtland Commissions developed alternative definitions of security (Wyn-Jones 1999).1 Second, the end of the Cold War set in motion a systemic shift leading to, among other things, the eruption of numerous violent intra-state conflicts (Kaldor 1997). And third, there are newly emerging security threats such as environmental degradation, poverty, malnutrition, and diseases. All of these developments have led to a more individualized security concept which appeared under the label of “human security.” By linking people’s security with development perspectives, it was intended to address the root causes of intra-state conflicts (MacFarlane and Khong 2006). Apart from giving rise to a different notion of security, the end of the Cold War also provided civil society organizations (CSOs) with additional leverage in the security sector. Not only were they increasingly contracted by states to support peacekeeping missions and humanitarian interventions (Weiss and Gordenker 1999:409–23), but they also became more generally involved in the governing of security matters at the United Nations (UN) – albeit less through official and formal channels of the organization than through informal ones. In this chapter I explore how precisely this has happened. I begin with a general description of the political opportunity structure (POS) that civil society organizations confront in UN institutions concerned with issues of peace and security. This is followed by an analysis of the political process leading up to the Programme of Action on the Illicit Trafficking of Small Arms and Light Weapons in All its Aspects (PoA). Negotiated in 2001, and followed by two implementation conferences in 2003 and 2005 as well as a first review conference in July 2006, the Programme presents an interesting qualitative case study with a within-case variance. Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) lobbying for strong arms-control regulations encountered not only varying degrees of access to the four conferences, but they also were confronted with a strong opposition from pro-gun organizations and shooting societies, which also represent global civil society. In the remainder of this chapter, I focus on how the diverse community of NGOs

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dealt with these specific circumstances and what strategies they relied upon to influence the PoA. Political opportunities in the security sector: NGOs at the United Nations The UN has a long history of working with non-governmental organizations, although the degree of interaction has varied across the diverse issue areas. While CSOs have enjoyed greater involvement in social and development matters over the years, they have virtually been absent from the security realm. Peace societies were among the first to become involved in this issue area, starting in the late nineteenth century and linking the issue of peace to the problem of armament and militarism (Atwood 2002:6; 1997). While governments considered issues of peace and security to be their unique province throughout the Cold War, the fall of the Iron Curtain provided, in many ways, a window of opportunity for both the UN and NGOs to change this form of state practice. Particularly crucial in this respect was the Human Development Report released in 1994 by the UN Development Programme (UNDP), for it was this report that introduced the concept of “human security.” Stressing the need for individual security in zones of conflict where states were no longer able to protect citizens’ rights and to ensure their personal welfare (UN Human Development Report 1994; Wyn-Jones 1999), the concept differed from previous definitions of security. It linked security to other issue areas, such as human rights and sustainable development. For the NGOs, “human security” provided a means to gain access to different UN bodies and to strengthen their quest for legitimacy. A broader meaning of security strengthened the credibility of their arguments and contributed to their norm-building activities in the security sector (Thakur and Newman 2000; Fisher 1999). CSOs became valuable partners for a UN which, in the early 1990s, was confronted with a growing number of regional crises and intra-state conflicts, and which found itself involved in ever more peacekeeping and post-conflict recovery missions (Duffield 2001:22). Given that many NGOs had already been present in zones of conflict for quite some time “struggling to feed the hungry, care for the sick, shelter the homeless and protect the vulnerable” (Paul 2004:3),2 UN agencies as well as donor states started to rely upon Medicins sans Frontiers, Medico International, and World Vision, as well as others, for post-conflict reconstruction efforts and solicited their input in fighting the root causes of war. The same CSOs saw themselves confronted with the humanitarian tragedy caused by the superfluous numbers of landmines, small arms, and light weapons in these zones of conflict (Price 1998:613–44). Although the causes of such conflicts could not be linked directly to the availability of these weapons, their vast numbers did increase the danger of escalation and the violence. Therefore, NGOs increasingly paid attention to the problem of illicit trafficking of small arms and landmines, and sought normative solutions on a global scale by putting these issues on the international agenda. Moreover, in the process of reforming the UN system and adjusting it to post-Cold War challenges, the participation of NGOs in UN deliberations was once more addressed. While the 1996 ECOSOC reforms eased the entry of national NGOs and aimed to

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facilitate the access for NGOs from the Southern region, other important questions such as regular NGO participation in the General Assembly (GA) or the Security Council (SC) soon became highly politicized (Brühl 2003:49; McAdam et al. 1996). For example, some developing countries resisted the idea of NGOs gaining access to the General Assembly, while the United States vehemently opposed any attempt to allow CSO participation in Security Council meetings. Although Member States recognized the contributions of NGOs in conflict prevention and post-conflict reconstruction in core UN documents (e.g. the Millennium Declaration of 2000), they were still unwilling to honor and reward their efforts by granting them more participation rights. Even NGO access to UN conferences and institutions still impinges on ad hoc regulations enacted by Member States. The heterogeneous membership of the UN, in particular, constitutes a major obstacle to more liberal participation rules that would put the relationship between states and CSOs on firmer grounds. Nowhere has this become more evident than in multilateral arm-control negotiations. Compared to negotiations on other issue areas, such as environment, NGO access to disarmament deliberations clearly lags behind (Caroll 2002:15; Smith 1999:139–72; Keck and Sikkink 1998). For example, while the Conference of Disarmament (CD) has become the main venue for negotiations on arms control, particularly with respect to weapons of mass destruction (WMD), and Geneva the “hub of world’s disarmament activities” (Rissanen 2002:31), NGO access to these negotiations has been highly restricted. Most inter-governmental deliberations take place behind closed doors, such as in the cases of the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) of 1993 and the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty which was adopted in 1995, and also in the case of the Ad Hoc Group (AHG) which was established to facilitate agreement on a verification protocol to the 1972 Biological Weapons Convention (BWC). The limited access hampered NGOs attempts to obtain relevant information, and hence prevented them, in part, from both understanding the complexities of the arms control negotiations as well as identifying differences in governments’ positions. It also contributed to a decline in interest on the part of many CSOs regarding these issues. Only very specialized expert NGOs were able to follow these negotiations from the outside (Johnson 2000). Confronted with closed doors negotiations and restricted participation, NGOs have adjusted their strategies. They have approached governmental representatives in corridors or invited them to specially organized events. In 2001, for example, NGOs defended the BWC protocol against harsh US criticism by launching a “counter-offensive,” trying to gain public and governmental support for the verification protocol (Rissanen 2002:33). Expert NGOs, such as specialists at the Department of Peace Studies at Bradford University in Great Britain or the Federation of American Scientists (FAS) in Washington DC, provided delegates with thorough analysis of the various aspects of the emerging verification protocol. Furthermore, the London-based VERTIC3 successfully lobbied the European Parliament by cooperating with the Centre for European Security and Disarmament (CESD) in Brussels. These activities illustrate that second-track deliberations become a viable alternative for NGOs when direct access is denied. In this respect, Geneva has not only become a “hub of disarmament” for states, but also for NGOs, particularly those that are members of the NGO network in the Geneva Forum

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and which invite state delegates to thematic sessions on certain aspects of arms control and disarmament.4 While arms control and disarmament negotiations are one way for NGOs to obtain access, political opportunities for NGOs also opened up at other levels. Since the SC covers issues of peace and security most prominently, NGOs have continuously looked for ways to take part in deliberations between states. Some countries, such as Great Britain, have been quite receptive and relied on the practice of contracting NGOs for post-conflict rebuilding efforts, such as in the case of Sierra Leone. In 1995 the Global Policy Forum took the lead, forming the NGO Working Group on the Security Council, and so moving from rather individual contacts between NGOs and Security Council Member States to more regular and institutionalized relationships. Intended to provide a “mechanism for off-the-record dialogue” between around 30 NGOs and Council members (Hill 2002:28), the Group gives NGOs the opportunity to ask questions and gain insight into the meaning behind the wordings of resolutions. Moreover, Ambassador Arria of Venezuela created the so-called “Arria formula” in 1999, based upon which NGOs provide expertise in parallel to thematic sessions of the Council. Since then, this approach has been applied quite a few times: for example, in preparation of SC resolution 1325 “Women, Peace and Security” on October 23, 2000, civil society was given the opportunity to voice its concerns to the SC Member States. While granting NGOs at least some informal access to the most restricted UN body, initiatives like the ones just described, are not without problems. The Arria formula helps to illustrate this point. It suffers from heavy restrictions which have been imposed by Member States: the meetings are highly structured, some delegations only send their junior staff, and, from time to time, NGO representatives are rejected by Council members (Hill 2002:30). These examples illustrate how the POS of the UN constrains the work of NGOs. Nevertheless, when direct access is denied, NGOs can employ more informal strategies to get into contact with UN Member States. They exploit the vast opportunities and venues the UN provides in this respect. They meet with delegates, organize side events, and distribute information material on different issues. In the case of multilateral arms control negotiations, NGOs have benefited from Member States moving outside the UN framework. Frustrated by lowest-common-denominator decisions due to states’ diverse positions, like-minded states under the leadership of Canada, for example, took the lead in the case of the Antipersonnel Mine Ban Treaty. They established an alternative negotiation forum where NGOs were not only granted access to the plenary, but even the right to take the floor during states’ deliberations. The Ottawa Treaty of 1997 was concluded with the active participation of the NGO network “International Campaign to Ban Landmines” (ICBL) within one year (Anderson 2000; Wisotzki 2003).5 This kind of “new diplomacy” provided both sides, small and middle powers as well as the NGO community, with an advantageous POS (Cooper, English and Thakur 2002; Rutherford, Brem and Matthew 2003). For NGOs, the coalition with diplomats offered them the chance to get access to and have a voice in the negotiations; for like-minded states, support from NGOs meant more legitimacy and influence (Deitelhoff and Wisotzki 2004:7) Since the landmine case has already been extensively covered (see, for example, Cameron, Lawson and Tomlin 1998), the following sections will be devoted to the Small Arms Action Programme. This was negotiated, implemented, and reviewed within the

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framework of the UN, and so one can expect that its result will stand in clear contrast to the Mine Ban Treaty, which was established outside the UN framework. Following a description of the specific POS of the UN conference on small arms, I will discuss how its various aspects influenced the strategies of the transnational NGO network. The political opportunity structure: negotiating the SALW Action Programme When the global ban on anti-personnel mines was successfully concluded, NGOs and a group of like-minded states started to reflect upon the possibilities of negotiating another treaty which would seek to limit the illicit flow of small arms and light weapons (SALW). While a ban on these types of weapons was not achievable due to their legitimate use for the self-defence of states,6 the envisaged regulations sought to limit the proliferation of SALW on a global scale. These weapons had already been widely dispersed during the Cold War, with the two superpowers granting Third World countries military aid in exchange for their support and loyalty. With the fall of the Iron Curtain, the problem of the illicit proliferation of SALW became more severe. In their effort to reduce their military arsenals, NATO and former Warsaw Pact states sold these weapons to developing countries and, by doing so, increased the proliferation problem, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa. Thus the regulation of SALW became more urgent (Krause 2005:105–14). The institutional setting of the Small Arms conferences: restricted access and middle power initiatives Already in 1995, the UN General Assembly requested Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali to establish an expert group to prepare a report on the problem of SALW. The experts strongly recommended a normative framework to regulate the problem of uncontrolled proliferation on a global scale. Responding to the report, Member States adopted GA resolution 54/54V in late 1999, calling for a conference to be held in July 2001 where the Programme of Action on the Illicit Trafficking of Small Arms and Light Weapons in All Its Aspects should be negotiated (Greene 1997; Kheradi 1996). Conditions for NGO access were extensively debated during the course of the preparatory committees (PrepComs) of the PoA Conference. While some states such Canada, Norway, and those belonging to the European Union, supported an official role for NGOs similar to the one during the anti-personnel mine negotiations, other delegations, including China and Algeria, feared that certain NGOs – particularly human rights organizations – would gain “undue influence” and therefore sought to limit their access (Batchelor 2002:39). Given these controversies, it took until the third PrepCom before a compromise was reached regarding the conditions of NGO access. While NGOs already accredited with ECOSOC were allowed to participate in the conference without question, other “relevant” NGOs needed to apply first for accreditation by proofing their independent status and their thematic involvement. However, following these general conditions for “participating” in the conference deliberations, NGO access became once again more restricted: while NGOs were allowed to follow the general sessions from the

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balcony, they were excluded from the actual thematic sessions where the substantive negotiations took place. Although the institutional setting of the PoA Conference limited the political opportunities of the NGOs to some extent, they received support from certain states which had already been pro-active and sympathetic to civil society activities during the anti-personnel mine negotiations. States such as Canada and Great Britain started to include NGO members in their delegations; these NGOs, in turn, used their privileged status to report back to the NGO community. This reliance on influential state allies became an alternative opportunity path for civil society seeking access to the diplomats’ deliberations. Furthermore, meetings between delegates and representatives of NGOs outside the conference room became a common activity. Member States had also unanimously voted for a special session for NGOs to address the Conference. While allowing NGOs to share their views and make proposals, interactions such as these did not prevent the two-week conference from ending with a rather weak final document. The Programme of Action on the Illicit Trafficking of SALW reflected a lukewarm compromise that fell short of what many NGOs had hoped for. Because compliance mechanisms were missing from this politically binding document, implementation was to be ensured through two special conferences in 2003 and 2005, before the first review conference would be convened in 2006. Access for NGOs to these events varied considerably. While NGOs were allowed to fully participate in the governmental meetings in 2003 and 2005, their participation at the first review conference was once again more restricted. The varying political opportunities at the different UN conferences prompted NGOs to adjust their strategies accordingly. While some of the grassroots organizations preferred informal meetings and lobbying activities with governmental delegates to make their voices heard, the more established NGOs concentrated on providing written expertise on the subject. Also, a growing number of states put NGO members on their delegations to participate in the 2006 review conference. Strategies of non-governmental organizations: negotiating the SALW control regime In May of 1999 the International Action Network Small Arms (IANSA) was founded and, similarly to the ICBL, started to exert pressure on states to resume negotiations on control of small arms.7 At least in the beginning, IANSA was dominated by NGOs and think tanks from the Northern hemisphere which focused almost exclusively on the scientific aspects of the problem. However, over the years, NGOs from small-armsinfested regions such as Central Africa also became members. Today IANSA consists of more than 500 NGOs and exhibits regional diversity with members from nearly one hundred countries.8 While IANSA remained the umbrella organization, NGOs in different regions were encouraged to form regional networks, as, for example, in Latin America or West Africa (Gamba 2001). The network IANSA works along the following principles: (1) raising awareness to the “global threat to human security caused by small arms”; - (2) giving the victims of small-arms violence a voice; - (3) supporting the work of their members; - and (4) fostering NGO networking and supporting regional networks.

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While IANSA itself and its member NGOs concentrated their activities mainly on the PoA conferences, they also targeted crucial states and regional organizations such as the European Union. In the run-up to the PoA conference of 2001, the network organised several meetings with states outside the UN system (Gamba 2001). The Geneva Forum, for example, regularly invited experts, bureaucrats, and decision-makers to second-track talks to exchange information on diverse aspects of illicit trafficking of SALW. Nevertheless, the core of IANSA’s activities clearly focused on the conference. To assist its members in receiving accreditation, the London-based network opened up an office in New York. Overall, IANSA members relied on a series of diverse strategies during the conference. Faced with restricted access, the NGOs opted for indirect approaches to attract states’ attention prior to the multilateral negotiations, including generating public awareness of the problem of uncontrolled SALW proliferation as well as constituencybuilding and campaigning in their home states. To mobilize the public, IANSA gave the issue a “human face,” telling personal stories about victims of gun violence (IANSA 2001). In addition, network members organized various events such as the Hague Appeal for Peace, where small arms were burnt in a symbolic “flame of peace.” This “two-level approach” of being active at both the international as well as the national level was replicated by many IANSA members in order to persuade states to closely cooperate with the NGO-network (Putnam 1988). Moreover, the network provided an additional platform for its members to exchange views and find common positions in order to gain more leverage for persuading states to follow through on their positions. The different backgrounds of the associated NGOs also allowed IANSA to pursue a broad repertoire of strategies. While the British-based expert NGOs, in particular, provided thoroughly researched background information material on various aspects of the SALW problem and offered normative solutions to how these could be addressed (Basic et al. 2001), lobbying NGOs tried to meet states’ delegates outside the UN plenary hall. IANSA also drafted its own version of the Programme of Action and presented it to governmental delegates at the beginning of the PoA negotiations in 2001 (IANSA 2001a). While these activities were welcomed at least by some states, the network’s quest for a legally binding treaty on SALW control received strong opposition, not only from crucial delegations such as the United States, but also from a loose network of sports and shooting societies of different nationalities. Represented by the World Forum on the Future of Sport Shooting Activities (WFSA), diverse gun lobby groups defended the interests of their members in the PoA negotiations, most prominently the US-based National Rifle Association (NRA). The firearms community was eager to prevent any regulations which would have limited the legal trade with small arms and restricted private gun ownership (Batchelor 2002:38). Although states had decided at the PrepCom to allow both networks – IANSA and WFSA – to address the delegates during the negotiations in a special session,9 IANSA members also found other ways to communicate with sympathetic states. For example, they organized informal meetings with state parties or individual delegates where they circulated their ideas (Hirsch 2002:201), and they organized thematic side-events during lunchtime where they provided additional information and aired proposals, such as a model convention on arms brokering. Events such as these facilitated not only the

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exchange of knowledge between NGOs associated with IANSA, but also between them and Member States, particularly since WFSA members were denied access to the States. By the time of the biennial state meetings in 2003 and 2005, both networks had considerably grown and diversified. IANSA had attracted new members, including NGOs working in the health sector of SALW-infested countries. Also, WFSA had diversified its membership on a regional scale and tried to intensify its influence by targeting powerful states such as Russia or South Africa. At the biennial meetings in 2003 and 2005, similar to the PoA conference in 2001, NGOs were granted special sessions to address governmental delegates and permitted to listen to state liberations (IANSA 2001a; 2003). Although access to the review conference of the PoA in 2006 was once more restricted, a greater number of states had decided to include NGOs on their delegations.10 Moreover, compared to 2001, the strategies of the various NGOs and the network IANSA had become considerably more professionalized.11 Apart from obtaining support from a media expert which helped IANSA members to get into contact with their national newspapers, radio and TV stations, the network as a whole had also become more effective in organizing symbolic events such as the “Million Faces Campaign,” during which citizens and celebrities expressed their support for an Arms Trade Treaty (ATT). Nevertheless, similar to the previous conferences, IANSA’s efforts were met with strong opposition by WFSA which had been able to enlist the support of the US delegation for its campaign against any form of domestic gun control. Framing strategies Because NGOs do not have the material power to change norms, they mostly rely on their communicative power. By providing causal arguments, NGO networks adopt the role of “norm entrepreneurs,” setting new “standards of appropriateness” (Lose 2001; Risse 2000). Framing sometimes implies a simplification of social reality and the “world out there” (Benford and Snow 2000:614). The nature of an argument can play an important role in the effort to persuade states to change their views and sometimes even their belief systems. NGOs tend to rely on “injustice frames” and on the “power of morality” (Hasenclever 2001). Their motivations for doing so often reflect a mixture of personal experience, empathy and commitment to the ideal of a “shared perception of common humanity” (Finnemore and Sikkink 1998:898). The NGO network IANSA used its communicative power to reframe the issue of small arms. It stressed the misuse of this category of weapons and how they countered global efforts of development, human security and human rights. In addition, the network argued for a holistic non-proliferation approach that would go beyond the usual aims of arms control. This approach was justified with the “massive human costs” and the “abuse of human rights” caused by the trafficking of small arms (IANSA 2001b). Overall, IANSA played a critical role in identifying and documenting the different dimensions of the small arms problem. The network strongly drew on injustice frames, such as the human suffering or human rights abuses through uncontrolled SALW proliferation. Strong testimonies from humanitarian aid workers and gun violence victims helped IANSA to strengthen the credibility and authenticity of its arguments. IANSA highlighted the misuse of such weapons, while accepting the legitimate use of small arms and light weapons in regular

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armies and in the police. To persuade governments that action was needed, the network connected disarmament with broader frames, including human rights, health costs, and the deprivation of development. It also stressed the human security aspect of SALW misuse by pointing, on the one hand, to injuries, death, forced displacement, and declining access to basic human needs (Small Arms Survey 2002:155), and by demonstrating, on the other hand, the linkage between the proliferation of SALW and underdevelopment (Small Arms Survey 2003). Negotiations at the UN sometimes seem to be far removed from the gloomy reality of communities in affected countries where the “barrel of the gun” rules. IANSA, however, reminded states of their responsibilities for people’s security by providing facts and figures, giving the issue a “human face,” and by personalizing the individual suffering. The network presented eye-witnesses from war-torn countries, such as Uganda where a physician appealed to diplomats by telling personal stories about the severe suffering of under-aged gun-victims. Despite the fact that IANSA members were able to connect their arguments to the already existing discourse of human security, their efforts were being hampered by effectively organized pro-gun societies, such as the US-based National Rifle Association (NRA) and other sports and shooting organizations in the US, Canada and Europe. While a broad majority of state representatives sympathized with arguments put forward by IANSA, the United States challenged the NGO discourse and questioned the need for domestic gun control by referring to the arguments of WFSA. In the end, both paragraphs on gun control and the wordings on banning SALW transfers to non-state actors were deleted from the draft-PoA in 2001. While a broad majority of states was in favour of including these regulations into the Action Programme, the US was unwilling to compromise during the negotiations. Given the consensus rule of the UN, the disagreement among Member States resulted in a lowest-common-denominator decision. Conclusion Certain institutional factors clearly influence the work of NGOs at the United Nations. In the case of SALW, the POS constrained NGOs’ activities and led them to adjust their strategies. In the past, the security sector had been closed off to NGOs. However, this changed with the end of the Cold War. Particularly within the UN system, the movement away from state-centric definitions of security to ones that placed greater emphasis on the safety and well-being of the individual created opportunities for NGOs to gain access to institutions concerned with security matters. Also, the increased efforts of the UN in peacekeeping and post-conflict recovery allowed NGOs to play a more prominent role as contracting partners. In addition, ongoing institutional reforms made the UN more accessible for NGOs. While NGOs have not yet managed to achieve more formalized consultation rights in the GA and the First Committee, they had some successes in the most clandestine UN body – the SC – albeit on a different level. NGOs are now informally consulted by SC members. Although largely ad hoc in character and strongly controlled by SC members, these consultations facilitate the work of NGOs, providing them with inside information about policy processes and opportunities to feed in their own views. The greatest obstacle that remains in terms of access, however, is the

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reluctance of states to place relations on firmer ground when it comes to security. This not only applies to states with a poor human rights record, which fear being criticized in public by NGOs and therefore want to restrict their access, but, interestingly, also to ones with a strong civil society home-constituency, such as the United States. While the broadened meaning of security has increased the legitimacy for NGOs to approach the UN system, it has not resulted in more formal participation rights for these non-state actors. Direct access remains limited, particularly with respect to the Conference on Disarmament or the various UN conferences on arms control. Although more generous access rules are not unprecedented, as the anti-personnel mine case demonstrates, they are, however, most often applied when states meet outside the UN framework. Restrictions to access are also at times circumvented by states which include representatives of NGOs on their delegations. While this well-established form of “new diplomacy” is advantageous to both sides, and helps NGO networks to gain relevant information on the proceedings of multilateral negotiations, it has given rise to questions regarding selection criteria and legitimacy (Brunnengräber, Klein and Walk 2002; Scharpf 1998). On what grounds are certain NGOs chosen by member states while others are denied such privileged status? The case of the small arms negotiations shows that NGOs do not remain passive when confronted with limited participation rights; instead they respond by adjusting their strategies. In the case of the PoA, for example, gaining public attention became decisive for grassroots organizations, particularly in established democracies where the electorate remains an important mobilizing factor. Even NGOs in the Southern hemisphere relied on public strategies, although they did so more in the aftermath of the PoA negotiations, to ensure the implementation of the action programme. By contrast, scientific NGOs and think tanks preferred to target governments more directly by offering their oral or written expertise. What all of these NGOs had in common, despite their differences and regardless of their location or focus, was that they pursued a two-level strategy of reaching out to states at both the domestic and the international level, and they employed frames that resonated with the human security discourse. In addition to going public, the NGO network IANSA responded to the limited access by relying on a series of informal strategies, such as lobbying delegates at the Vienna Café outside the main UN plenary hall or by initiating side-events on thematic issues. However, its norm-building efforts were opposed by WFSA. Backed by the United States, the network of national rifle associations and shooting societies managed to keep the regulation of private gun ownership out of the action programme. The institutional view on NGOs allows for a fresh look and undisguised perspective on the question of global governance and civil society (Makinda 2000). It becomes evident that even in a globalized world, states continue to dominate security politics. NGOs become partners when states need to outsource certain tasks or when NGOs help to provide background information for drafting policies. Although some states are interested in including NGOs in multilateral negotiations, the majority of governments still perceives the UN as an inter-govermental organization and, hence, are eager to impose restrictions on access. Even if interactions between NGOs and UN Member States have considerably increased in the security realm since the end of the 1990s, an extension of their formal participation rights does not appear likely any time soon.

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References Anderson, K. (2000) ‘The Ottawa Convention Banning Landmines: the Role of International Nongovernmental Organizations and the Idea of International Civil Society’, European Journal of Internation Law, 11(1): 91–120. Atwood, D. (1997) ‘Mobilizing Around the United Nations Special Sessions on Disarmament’, in: J. Smith, C. Chatfield and R. Pagnucco (eds.) Transnational Social Movements and Global Politics: Solidarity Beyond the State. New York: Syracuse University Press: 141–58. —— (2002):‘NGOs and Disarmament: Views from the Coal Face’, in: NGOs as Partners: Assessing the Impact, Recognizing the Potential. Disarmament Forum No. 1: 5–14. Basic, International Alert, and Saferworld (2001) ‘Combating the Illicit Trade in Small Arms and Light Weapons: Enhancing Controls on Legal Transfers’, Biting the Bullet Briefing 6. London, UK. Batchelor, P. (2002) ‘NGO Perspectives: NGOs and the Small Arms Issue’, in: NGOs as Partners: Assessing the Impact, Recognizing the Potential. Disarmament Forum No. 1: 36–42. Benford, R.D. and Snow, D.A. (2000) ‘Framing Processes and Social Movements: An Overview and Assessment’, Annual Reviews of Sociology, 26: 611–39. Brühl, T. (2003) Nichtregierungsorganisationen als Akteure internationaler Umweltverhandlungen. Frankfurt: Campus. Brunnengräber, A., Klein, A. and Walk, H. (eds.) (2002) NGOs als Legitimationsressource. Zivilgesellschaftliche Partizipationsformen im Globalisierungprozess. Opladen: Leske and Budrich. Cameron, M.A., Lawson, R.J. and Tomlin, B.W. (1998) To Walk Without Fear: The Global Movement to Ban Landmines. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Caroll, S. (2002) ‘NGO Access to Multilateral Fora: Does Disarmament Lag Behind?’, in: NGOs as Partners: Assessing the Impact, Recognizing the Potential. Disarmament Forum, 1: 15–26. Cooper, A.F., English, J. and Thakur, R. (2002) Enhancing Global Governance: Towards A New Diplomacy. New York: United Nations University Press. Deitelhoff, N. and Wisotzki, S. (2004) ‘The Power of Persuasion. New Diplomacy in Multilateral Negotiations’. Paper presented at the Millennium Annual Conference ‘Facets of Power in International Relations’, London, 20–31 October 2004. Duffield, M. (2001) Global Governance and the New Wars: The Merging of Development and Security. London and New York: Zed Books. Finnemore, M. and Sikkink, K. (1998) ‘International Norm Dynamics and Political Change’, International Organization, 52(4): 887–917. Fisher, C.S. (1999) Nongovernmental Organizations and Nuclear Disarmament: Lessons from the 1990s. Unpublished manuscript for PRIF Annual Conference ‘NGOs in World Politics’. Florini, A.M. (ed.) (2000) The Third Force: The Rise of Transnational Civil Society. Washington: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Gamba, V. (2001) ‘The Bamako Process’, in: IANSA Newsletter. UN Conference on Small Arms, July 2001:16. Greene, O. (1997) ‘Tackling Light Weapons Proliferation: Issues and Priorities for the EU’, Saferworld Report, April 1997. Hasenclever, A. (2001) Die Macht der Moral in der internationalen Politik. Militärische Interventionen westlicher Staaten in Somalia, Ruanda und Bosnien-Herzegowina. Studien der Hessischen Stiftung Friedens-und Konfliktforschung, 36, Frankfurt: Campus Verlag. Hill, F. (2002) ‘NGO Perspectives: NGOs and the Security Council’, in: NGOs as Partners: Assessing the Impact, Recognizing the Potential. Disarmament Forum, 1: 27–30.

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Hirsch, J. (2002) ‘The Democratic Potential of Non-Governmental Organisations’, in: J. Anderson Transnational Democracy: Political Spaces and Border Crossings. London and New York: Routledge: 195–213. IANSA (2001a) ‘United Nations Conference on the Illicit Trade in Small Arms and Light Weapons In All Its Aspects’, Statement by Non-Governmental Organisations, July 16: 1–53. —— (2001b) ‘Focusing Attention on Small Arms. Opportunities for the UN 2001 Conference on the Illicit Trade in Small Arms and Light Weapons in All Its Aspects’, Working Paper July 2001:1–25. —— (2003) ‘The Biennial State Meeting in 2003’, Working Paper July 2003:2–33. Johnson, R. (2000) ‘Advocates and Activists: Conflicting Approaches on Nonproliferation and the Test Ban Treaty’, in: Florini, A.M. (ed.) The Third Force: The Rise of Transnational Civil Society. Washington: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Kaldor, M. and Vashee, B. (1997) Restructuring the Global Military Sector: New Wars. London and Washington: Pinter Publishers. Keck, M.E. and Sikkink, K. (1998) Activists beyond Borders: Advocacy Networks in International Politics. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. Kheradi, S. (1996) ‘Workshop on Micro-Disarmament: Defining a New Item on the Disarmament Agenda’, Disarmament, 19(2): 31–32. Krause, K. (2005) ‘Small Arms, Big Killer’, in: P. Heinbecker and P. Geoff (eds.) Irrelevant or Indispensable? United Nations in the 21st Century. Waterloo: Wilfried Laurier University Press: 105–14. Lose, L.G. (2001) ‘Communicative Action and the World of Diplomacy’, in: K. Fierke and K.E. Jörgensen (eds.) Constructing International Relations: The Next Generation. New York and London: M.E. Sharpe. MacFarlane, S.N. and Khong, Y.F. (2006) Human Security and the UN. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Makinda, S. (2000) ‘Recasting Global Governance’, in: R. Thakur and E. Newman (eds.) New Millenium, New Perspectives: The United Nations, Security and Governance. New York: United Nations University Press: 163–81. McAdam, D., McCarthy, J.D. and Mayer, N.Z. (1996) Comparative Perspectives on Social Movements. Political Opportunities, Mobilizing Structures, and Cultural Framing. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Price, R. (1998) ‘Reversing the Gun Sights: Transnational Civil Society Targets Land Mines’, International Organization, 52(3): 613–44. Paul, James (2004) ‘NGOs and the Security Council’, in: Global Policy Forum. Available online at http://www.globalpolicy.org/security/ngokgrp/gpfpaper.htm (accessed 12 June 2007). Putnam, R.D. (1988) ‘Diplomacy and Domestic Politics: The Logic of Two-Level Games’, International Organizations, 42(3): 427–60. Rissanen, J. (2002) ‘NGO Perspectives: NGOs at Geneva Negotiations’, in: NGOs as Partners: Assessing the Impact, Recognizing the Potential. Disarmament Forum, 1: 32–35. Risse, T. (2000) ‘Let’s Argue. Communicative Action in World Politics’, International Organization, 54(1): 1–39. Rutherford, K.R., Brem, S. and Matthew, R.A. (2003) Reframing the Agenda. The Impact of NGO and Middle Power Cooperation in International Security Policy. Praeger: Westport. Scharpf, F.W. (1998) ‘Demokratie in der transnationalen Politik’, in: U. Beck (ed.) Politik der Globalisierung. Frankfurt: Suhrkamp: 228–53. Small Arms Survey (2002) Counting the Human Cost. Project of the Graduate Institute of International Studies, Geneva. —— (2003) Development Denied. Project of the Graduate Institute of International Studies, Geneva.

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Smith, J. (1999) ‘Global Civil Society, Social Movement Organisations, and the Global Politics of Security’, in: M. Alagappa and T. Inoguchi (eds.) International Security Management and the United Nations. Tokyo and New York: United Nations University Press. Thakur, R. and Newman, E. (2000) New Millenium, New Perspectives: The United Nations, Security and Governance. New York: United Nations University Press. The Conference of NGOs in Consultative Relationship with the United Nations (CONGO) (2003) ‘UN System and Civil Society – An Inventory and Analysis of Practice’, Background Paper for the Secretary-General’s Panel of Eminent Persons on United Nations Relations with Civil Society. Available online at http://www.ngocongo.org/files/un-civil_societybackground_paper1.doc (accessed 12 June 2007). United Nations (1994) Human Development Report. A/Res/49, 123. Available online at http://www.un.org/documents/ga/res/49/a49r123.html (accessed 12 June 2007). Weiss, T.G. and Gordenker, L. (1999): NGOs, the UN and Global Governance. Boulder: Lynne Rienner. Wisotzki, S. (2003) ‘The Ban on Anti-Personnel Mines. A Case of Effective Persuasion’, VWAbschlussbericht für das Projekt ‘Arguing and Bargaining in Multilateral Negotiations’: 1–49. Wyn-Jones, R. (1999) Security, Strategy and Critical Theory. Boulder: Lynne Rienne.

Notes 1 In the 1980s, both Commissions developed blueprints for a global society in which justice, peace and security would prevail. The Commissions were to make recommendations on ways of breaking through the existing international political impasse in North-South negotiations for global development. 2 In the UN “Background Paper for the Rightly,” NGOs are mentioned to have already provided assistance in humanitarian crises in the late 1970s in Kampuchea and in 1984–85 in Ethiopia (The Conference of NGOs in Consultative Relationship with the United Nations 2003). 3 The Verification Research, Training and Information Centre (VERTIC) promotes effective verification as a means of establishing confidence in the implementation of international disarmament treaties. See http://www.vertic.org/. 4 The Geneva Forum consists of different NGOs, all of which are based in Geneva. Of them, the Quakers are particularly prominent, and known for providing venues for informal consultations between diplomats and civil society. The Geneva Forum primarily focuses on arms control and disarmament issues. 5 See http://www.icbl.org/. 6 While preparing for the PoA negotiations, states often referred to UN Charter Chapter VII, Article 51 which guarantees states the inherent right of individual or collective self-defense. 7 Former members of the ICBL were among the founding members of IANSA 1999 at Brussels. 8 See http://www.iansa.org/ (accessed 9 July 2007). 9 More than 40 of IANSA’s members were able to address the conference and to highlight different aspects of the problem of illicit trafficking of SALW (IANSA 2001b). 10 The author was invited to participate in the conference as part of the German delegation. 11 In particular, various NGOs from developing countries had ceased to exist while new civil society organizations had emerged. Moreover, the costs associated with attending the PoA conference restricted NGO participation from the Southern hemisphere.

PART III Transnational activism in the EU

7 Institutions and civil society organizations in the EU’s multilevel system Justin Greenwood The way in which the political opportunity structure of the EU shapes the wider system of interest representation implies a debate about the extent to which it is unique, or whether it is just a highly distinctive set of general characteristics which are recognizable from other political systems. The landscape and nature of EU interest representation share a number of factors in common with most political systems in reflecting systemic political opportunity structures. There are also debates familiar to all systems about whether civil society organizations may be systemic agents of input legitimacy (derived from opportunities for participation) or output legitimacy (“winning by results”). Each of these has its EU specific elements, and the rather sui generis nature of the EU, with its blend of intergovernmental and supranational authority tiers, makes such elements unique. What is distinct about the EU is the degree of intensity of institutionalization of organized civil society, with systemic reliance upon and hence empowerment of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) to perform core functions of input and output legitimacy. The essence can be captured by established terminology such as “empowered pluralism” or “neo-pluralism,” where potential asymmetries of power between producer and non-producer interests are addressed by state action in favor of the latter. But its origin lies in deficits in structures of representative democracy arising from the EU’s transnational nature, the need for the scope of the EU to be accompanied by democratic underpinnings, and the ways in which the EU’s extreme manifestation of multilevel power structures exacerbate established tendencies for consensual politics. In overview, the EU multilevel system poses a series of challenges and opportunities for civil society organizations. Ease of access in political systems typically results in pluralistic and competitive lobbying, and the EU is no different. The inability of any one type of actor to secure monopolistic access weakens the power of producer interests and provides corresponding opportunities for NGOs. Deprived of the nourishing power of “state recognition,” business groups turn to narrow specialism as an organizing device, resulting in a landscape of fragmentation and competition. Ease of access also enhances the ability of political institutions to insulate themselves from pressures. This insulation is a natural property at the EU’s multilevel decision-making system, with institutions able to modify demands by pointing to the need to find compromises (Grande 1996). Everyone can find something from a highly consensual system of decision-making, yet no one type of interest is able to routinely dominate in such circumstances. The political opportunity structure varies greatly with the policy cycle, the pillar involved, and the distribution of powers between the supranational bodies. Thus, the Commission’s agenda setting and monitoring powers, together with the ability of

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organized interests to supply it with input and output legitimacy and to act as demand agents with Member States, make it a natural and foremost venue for organized interests. And whilst the European Parliament’s (EP) status as champion of representative democracy makes it a more equivocal venue, its abilities to co-decide on Common Market issues with the Council of Ministers and to hold the Commission accountable make it a substantial and compelling venue. Finally, the Council’s role in decisionmaking phases and its inter-governmental composition make it more a venue of late intervention through domestic input for organized interests in the European Community pillar. The Common Foreign and Security Policy pillar is unsurprisingly, but not exclusively, populated by governmental players (see Dembinski, Chapter 11 in this volume), although the more shared agenda of Police and Judicial Cooperation in Criminal Matters pillar together with the Council’s primary role in these pillars makes it the more natural venue for NGOs to seek influence. At another point in the policy cycle, the European Court of Justice (ECJ) also provides a venue for cases brought in the name of an individual directly affected by a measure and a means to challenge national measures (Cichowski 2007). However, the inadmissibility of third parties (such as interest groups) has limited the activism of organized civil society through jurisprudence to finding appropriate cases, or to challenging national provisions. Legal activism has not been uncommon in selected fields, particularly in gender equality and (to a lesser extent) in environmental fields; in some circumstances legal activism has even expanded the political opportunity structures and resulted in system democratizing effects (Cichowski 2007). However, it is not a typical feature of EU interest representation, nor has it been a causal variable for collective action (ibid.). The accreditation system The distinctiveness of the EU environment is also shaped by an explicit denial of a de jure accreditation system. Instead a de facto accreditation system is emerging for citizen interest groups to act as agents of checks and balances; this is based around narrowly defined criteria of funding transparency, extent of funding, and geographic representativeness. An estimated 1500 civil society groups are now constituted at the EU level (Greenwood 2007), joining a variety of other actors constituted at various levels in a kaleidoscope of EU interest representation. The involvement of civil society groups in the EU has followed a general pattern. Consistent with the EU’s economic origins, producer interest groups emerged with the start of the European Economic Community in 1957. With a few earlier exceptions, citizen interest groups incrementally arrived on the scene from the 1970s onwards. The number of citizen interest groups gathered pace when the EU began to expand beyond its initial economic brief, and from the 1990s onwards when attempts were made to give the EU some serious democratic underpinnings. In general, civil society organizations have therefore responded to EU competencies and to dominant agenda frames (dubbed “co-evolution,” see Eichener and Voelzkow 1994; Kohler-Koch 1996). Nevertheless, as it is outlined later, there are exceptions when some organizations have been avant-garde of such competencies, setting up an EU policy office with the hope of contributing to the formation of such competencies. These cases mainly relate to

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activism by international movements, or by EU institutions (particularly the European Commission) in establishing such international movements. The first of these were notably in the environment field; examples include the European Environmental Bureau (EEB), which was created in 1974 by the European Commission in search of an interlocutor and political partner grounded in civil society, and various international environmental movements which arrived on the Brussels scene in the 1980s, attracted by the environmental impact of single market measures. These coalesced a decade later into a loosely coordinated family of environmental organizations with different specialisms, a concept later to be repeated in other domains. Whilst the Commission has a similar record of stimulating the formation of interest groups in the business domain, there was nonetheless a relatively patchy landscape of NGOs until the 1992 Treaty on European Union (TEU), when political integration added new pillars to the Economic Community Pillar. Two Declarations annexed to the TEU noted the importance of dialogue with NGOs, and the role of transparency in strengthening the democratic nature of the institutions. These paved the way for efforts to achieve a “civil dialogue,” ultimately through organized civil society, and for a range of procedural democracy measures aimed at equipping interest groups with the means to perform core democratic functions, both as agents of accountability on EU political institutions and upon each other. These two stimuli to the development of EU NGOs are briefly summarised below. The “civil dialogue” momentum arose from a joint initiative of one of the Commission services and a key chair of an EP committee to establish the European Social Platform as an agent to bring about a vision of a European Civil Dialogue (see Cullen, Chapter 10 in this volume). Ultimately, this organization attracted other EU organizations in the social policy field into membership, and gave rise to a “family structure” of NGOs at the EU level. Later other family concepts emerged or consolidated in the human rights, development, arts and culture, women’s representation, and public health fields, to join the established environmental family. By 2003, this concept had matured to the level of a formation of a “family of families” umbrella organization, largely hosted by the European Social Platform. These highly institutionalized groups have come to represent a core of inner-circle NGOs at the EU level, and have sought to preserve this inner sanctum status by providing endorsement for a system of group accreditation,1 described later. Outside of these lie others which have found alternative niches in the EU–NGO community, including the European Citizens’ Action Service (ECAS) and other organizations more orientated toward direct links with citizens compared with organizations whose membership is primarily that of other associations. A key reality of EU NGOs is that most are associations of national or other European associations. Procedural democracy measures were grounded in a 1997 treaty protocol on the need for the Commission to consult widely and publish consultation papers. A series of reflection papers from the European Commission between 1997 and 2001 actively linked these to the potential of interest groups, seeking to articulate and develop a notion of a “participatory democracy” strand to the EU (European Commission and Council of the European Communities 1997; European Commission 2000), conceptualized as a means of addressing core systemic problems of representative democracy. These problems center upon the absence of public space, borne of the EU’s consensual policy-making orientation (rather than the adversarial party politics of a government in power and

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opposition), the lack of recognizable parties in the European Parliament, the absence of an EU-wide media, and the lack of a “we” feeling (Hrbek 1995). The role for interest groups in the EU’s participatory democracy was systematized and institutionalized following the Commission’s 2001 White Paper on Governance.2 This paper led to a wide range of initiatives, including: (1) the legal right of access to documents;3 (2) consultation standards (which include consultation on the form of consultations);4 (3) a web-based single-access public consultation portal (mostly including published responses to consultations) accompanied by reports on what impact consultation responses made upon final policy choices;5 and (4) transparency initiatives including web-based registers of experts and policy advisers,6 consultative and advisory committees,7 and interest groups (linked in a March 2007 measure to consultation incentives, described later). Together, these measures significantly empower civil society organizations by making decision-making open and accessible. They are designed to equip elites, such as interest groups, as accountability agents in the absence of wider public participation. For instance, former Commission President Romano Prodi placed a register of his correspondence on the internet; this enabled interest groups to use simple access-to-documents procedures (most documents are made available within 15 working days of asking for them) to acquire correspondence and place them in the public domain as systemic accountability checks. The institutionalization of the various roles that civil society organizations play in the EU came with Article (47) in the (unratified) 2005 Treaty Establishing a Constitution for Europe. This Article codified prior practice in declaring that “the institutions shall … give … representative associations the opportunity to make known and publicly exchange their views in all areas of Union action” and that “the institutions shall maintain an open, transparent and regular dialogue with representative associations and civil society.” Outside of the twin development stimuli of the “civil dialogue” and procedural democracy measures were a number of other factors which impacted upon the growth of the EU–NGO sector. These include the development of structured dialogues between different services of the Commission and civil society organizations, most notably the Directorate-General (DG) Trade, and DG Development (where one interest group, the European NGO Confederation for Relief and Development (CONCORD), acts as the appointed umbrella structure to organize the dialogue), and the degree of legal activism reviewed earlier. By around 2005, citizen interest groups accounted for around one-third of all interest groups represented at the EU level (Greenwood 2007). Since its inception the European Commission has been deeply responsible for the formation and maintenance of such groups constituted at the EU level. Its notorious shortage of resources, need for allies in its search for further European integration, and continual quest for democratic legitimacy and agents capable of performing democratic functions, have led the Commission to stimulate the formation of a wide range of interest groups and to divert around two percent of the EU annual budget (around 2000 million each year) through NGOs (Kallas 2005).8 These needs have led it to continually reject any formal system of accreditation in the interests of achieving its needs through providing as wide a level of access as possible – even though, as is outlined later, there are traces of de facto practice which appear to favor certain types of groups. The Commission is like most bureaucracies in valuing the expert resources which outside interests bring to public policy-making, but the difference lies in the relatively

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limited level of resources it can provide for in-house expertise in informing policymaking. Most Commission officials are generalists by training, and there is a chronic shortage of Commission staff resources relative to most comparable administrations, largely due to unwillingness on the part of Member States to fund an expansionistseeking administration likely to challenge their prerogatives. Nugent has calculated that the EU institutions employ 0.8 staff for every 10,000 European citizens, set against 300 per 10,000 population in the Member States (Nugent 2003:118). Whilst civil society input can enhance output legitimacy, it is conceivable that the involved organizations may grow dependent upon the support of the EU. However, the checks and balances build into the EU’s multilevel decision-making system work against any such tendency. The empowerment of interest groups themselves to play such roles also enhances systemic checks on the possibility of routine domination by one type of interest. The lack of input (participative) legitimacy has led the European Commission to seek engagement with organized civil society as a significant means to address this problem. However, as more recent research suggests, because most EU NGOs are organizations of associations (such as national or other European associations and/or, in the case of business associations, of companies), this strategy has not proven very successful in engaging citizens in the Member States in EU politics. EU groups spend little time in engaging their members in EU affairs. As one interview respondent from a leading EU environmental group put it: … while ideally it would be good to get people involved, time pressures mean that the most effective use of my time is to get on with advocacy. In the end my role is not to encourage the most participatory governance, but to ensure the best results for the environment. (Sudbury 2003:90) Groups have also been used by the Commission as a channel of political communication to Member State governments, with mixed results in terms of achievements in securing the expansion of EU competencies in the treaties. A typical pattern has emerged from one of the more expansionist-oriented services of the European Commission, DG Employment and Social Affairs (DG EMP). This pattern involves a topic on which there is likely to be popular public support for political action, such as extending equality provisions for women and people with disabilities, or anti-racism measures, and often with a conference event coinciding with a themed European Year of Action. From this impetus, then, an interest group is likely to emerge, which is funded and actively supported by the Commission during its subsequent nurturing phases.9 The aspiration on the Commission’s part is that the group will one day be strong enough to carry demands for more integration to the doors of Member States, who, when presented with an irresistible case, will agree to further specific EU competencies in a forthcoming treaty. Precisely this pattern appears to have happened in connection with the expansion of provisions for equality in the Treaty of Amsterdam, where (in a story told by the former secretary-general of the group, see Helfferich and Kolb 2001) the Spanish member of the European Women’s Lobby (EWL) successfully encouraged the government of Spain to propose the relevant clause which finally appeared in the Treaty, and built some degree of popular support for the measure by taking a road-show around the Member States.

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These roles help explain the centrality of organized civil society to EU level policymaking. A long standing statement of the European Commission position remains displayed on the EU’s official web site as current practice, reads that: The Commission has always been an institution open to outside input. The Commission believes this process to be fundamental to the development of its policies. This dialogue has proved valuable to both the Commission and to interested outside parties. Commission officials acknowledge the need for such outside input and welcome it. (Secretariat of the European Commission 1992:3) Beyond the social field, the Commission has also been active in stimulating and nurturing the groups in a wide cross-section of activity. In business domains, the Commission has stimulated the formation of groups in key sectors which did not exist, while additional support is provided for trade unions and NGOs in the form of EU funding. The European Social Platform receives 90 percent of its income in this way.10 It is not unusual for NGOs to receive most of their funding from EU political institutions; in fact, many European Social Platform members receive most of their funding through this route.11 Financial support from EU political institutions assist some citizen interest groups to achieve significant resource levels, either as supplements to those they derive from their status as worldwide movements, such as the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) with around 25 staff in their Brussels office, or as mainstay support, such as the European Youth Forum (EYF) and the EWL, with up to 20 staff in a Brussels office (Geyer 2001). Many such groups have a “sponsor” department and have been heavily institutionalized into the Commission services. “Revolving door” relationships are notable in DG Employment and Social Affairs with the European Women’s Lobby (Mazey 2000; Cichowski 2007) (similar to the institutionalised relationship with the European Social Platform) and with the European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC) (Martin and Ross 2001). A similar relationship also exists between DG Environment and a group of ten environmental organizations (including Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth, and WWF) known as the “G10” (Rucht 2001). The reality for groups is that Brussels politics is founded on institutionalized dialogue, leaving those groups which might in other settings be seen as classical “outsiders” to adopt “insider” strategies. The ETUC and the Committee of Professional Agricultural Organisations in the EU (COPA) are rare examples of organizations which have successfully mixed insider tactics with voice strategies, such as mass mobilization. However, given the high transaction costs of drawing large numbers of potential supporters who are highly dispersed geographically across the Member States, mass mobilization is rare. Many protest events tend to therefore be symbolic, drawing upon a circle of organizations which are already well-established in Brussels. In consequence, groups like ETUC have chosen the route of institutionalization, finding a patron in DG EMP to the extent that one well-placed commentator famously dubbed it “union lobby organisation, old style” (Ross 1994). Institutionalization at these levels raises questions about the independence of groups. Paradoxically, citizen groups tend to see such funding instead as a guarantor of their independence in that it prevents them from seeking otherwise compromising sources of

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funding from other potential donors such as business organizations. The European Social Platform, for instance, recently issued a press release accusing in its headline the European Commission President of “killing the dream of Europe” (Fazi and Smith 2006:20). As the introductory chapter by Joachim and Locher makes clear, mobilizing resources include far more than fiscal resources, and here NGOs have the advantage over business interests in political action because they are able to call upon a network of committed volunteers, and to build upon and develop popular frames such as “a Europe of the citizens.” Institutionalization seems to be the fate of initially “radical” groups (see Kirchner 2006), illustrated by a recent case in which a new commissioner on the search for a high profile agenda proved “receptive” to the ideas of such groups (de Clerck 2007), resulting in classic lobbying behavior by such groups and a subsequent high-level Commission initiative. The 2007 Commission European Transparency Initiative (ETI) contained much of what the NGOs campaigning for it had been seeking by way of lobby regulation. The passage of the measure ironically challenges the core contention of its mover NGOs that the system is loaded towards corporate interests and served to illustrate the essential pluralist responsiveness of the system, particularly where NGOs have the ability to use irresistible frames such as transparency. The ETI is the latest procedural democracy measure concerned with making exchanges between the European Commission more systematic and transparent by empowering NGOs as agents of system accountability, on the one hand, and by addressing the potential for imbalances with producer interests, on the other hand. The ETI asks civil society players (including commercial consultants and law firms) to sign up to a public, web-based “transparency register” involving funding disclosure, and in the case of interest groups, membership disclosure. Additionally, those who sign the register will be asked to sign a (yet to be drafted) code of conduct. Whilst the system is voluntary, it proposes to treat those who are not signed up as “individual responses” during consultation exercises rather than collective input. These factors make the initiative a relatively narrow system of lobby regulation, as yet leaving untouched wider issues of NGO regulation involving issues of public accountability when groups cross the boundary from “voice” into participation in public policy (Greenwood and Halpin 2007). The register will build upon the legacy of the Consultation, the European Commission and Civil Society (CONECCS) database hosted by the Commission (web-based from 2002 to 2007). Over time, this database developed from a ‘telephone directory’ concept to one with an increasing number of access criteria, including the requirement to demonstrate a threshold of geographic representativeness through having members from at least three Member States. This has been linked to the prospect of “tiers” of consultation privileges in Commission consultation guidelines, although there is little evidence of it being operationalised (Greenwood and Halpin 2007). The ETI Green Paper has developed this concept through opting for “consultation alerts” for registered groups and by the prospect of downgrading contributions from non-registered groups to the status of ‘individual contributions’ to be treated on a par with viewpoints submitted by individual private citizens (European Commission 2006). This rather clumsy measure of legitimacy carries with it the consequence of privileging “representative” groups over “cause” groups (ibid.). It thus seems to be a de facto system of accreditation, despite explicit statements to the contrary by the Commission which stated in 1992, that:

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… the Commission has a general policy not to grant privileges to special interest groups, such as the issuing of entry passes and favoured access to information. Nor does it give associations an official endorsement by granting them consultative status. This is because the Commission has always wanted to maintain a dialogue which is as open as possible with all interested parties. (Secretariat General of the European Commission 1992:1) A decade later the Commision confirmed that “the Commission does not intend to create new bureaucratic hurdles in order to restrict the number of those that can participate in consultation processes.”12 Nonetheless, the ETI has provided the Commission with an opportunity to revive the idea which it had raised in the 2001 White Paper on Governance of “extended policy partnerships” in exchange for groups which conform to certain standards: In some policy sectors, where consultative practices are already well established, the Commission could develop more extensive partnership arrangements. On the Commission’s part, this will entail a commitment for additional consultations compared to the minimum standards. In return, the arrangements will prompt civil society organizations to tighten up their internal structures, furnish guarantees of openness and representativity, and prove their capacity to relay information or lead debates in the Member States.13 Whilst this brought a rebuke from the EP on the basis of the reservations expressed above14 and subsequent back-tracking from the Commission, a series of de facto “extended policy partnerships” are in place which seem to strike the kind of deal outlined above. For NGOs, these range from the involvement of consumer organizations in the Commission’s European Consumer Consultative Group, through to the “family” system of NGOs and their respective dialogues with the EU institutions. The EP’s ambiguity to organized civil society is borne of the continued assertion of the status of representative democracy above that of participatory democracy. Nonetheless, there are vigorous operational relations through the two worlds. The political opportunity structure of the Parliament means that these relations are founded on its committee system from which the details of its policy positions arise, rather than on the plenary where voting rules make the work of amending difficult. This gives rise to intense exchanges between committee members, rapporteurs (leading on a given dossier), shadow rapporteurs, and those who advise them including the secretariat of the EP, assistants, and party-based advisers. Because of its size and diversity, the Parliament has no in-built majority, although there are tendencies on particular types of issues in each Parliament. Thus a variety of actors are afforded opportunities for input in a highly pluralistic setting, with detailed amendments keenly fought over. Different committees have different orientations, so the appointment of a particular committee to take the lead on a given issue can significantly affect the outcome. The intensity of exchanges with civil society organizations has occasionally given rise to tensions, leading to an incentivized regulatory system. Those who wish the incentive of an annual pass that gives

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them privileged access to certain areas of the EP buildings, are required to sign up to a code of good conduct (developed by public affairs practitioners) and to appear on a public web-register of “lobbyists,” with the alternative being to queue up alongside members of the general public visiting the Parliament for a one-day pass. Any transgressions of the code can lead to its withdrawal. The system dates from 1997, and provides evidence that the Parliament responds to issue frames advanced by civil society organizations. The ability to turn these frames into the detail of policy positions is enhanced by an increasing tendency of committees to use public hearings. Positions taken by the Member States in the Council of Ministers are informed by the detail of its working groups, where the principal form of input is technical expertise from the corresponding national ministries. Around half of all measures find resolution at this level, with those requiring more political input receiving detailed attention from the higher levels of the ambassadorial Committee of Permanent Representatives (COREPER), and subsequently the ministers themselves. The Council is significantly less transparent than other institutions, and relatively little information is in the public domain about the engagement of these levels with civil society organizations, other than the unsurprising confirmation that the strongest relationships lie with national interest organizations. Relatively recent contributions to the literature on the political opportunity structure provided by the ECJ (Bouwen and McCown 2007; Cichowski 2007; de Schutter 2006; supplementing earlier contributions such as Harlow and Rawlings 1992; Harlow 2002) to organized civil society, point to pockets of legal activism which have had an impact upon the landscape and character of EU interest representation. The most upbeat assessment of these is provided by Cichowski, who concludes a study of gender and environmental cases by observing that the ECJ empowers disadvantaged individuals visà-vis powerful interests and leads to the expansion of governance, “altering the opportunity structures for future claims” and “creating the space for new discussions. Individuals reorient their activities as a result of this new opportunity and over time the space is, so to speak, filled in … once the space was created, the actors continued to exploit the opportunities” (Cichowski 2007:261, 262). Cichowski sees a reciprocal effect to this mobilization, in that actors responding to new political opportunities may alter the boundaries of politics (ibid.). However, she does concede that legal activism has not, by and large, been an independent variable for group organization (although failed cases have sometimes provided a rallying call for more political activism), and that the domains she examined are the most likely scenarios to find these outcomes. Her conclusion that “governance does not only hinge on a series of executive and legislative choices, but has evolved as the accumulation of strategic activism by … social activists operating above and below the nation states” (op. cit.: 263) has an increasing ring of plausibility about it. This is particularly the case when applied to the entire system of EU interest representation, where a series of procedures have been designed for use by elite NGOs with the intention of re-dressing asymmetries of power through groups empowered to act as checks and balances. The EU may not be a unique system of interest representation, but it is a distinctive brand of neo-pluralism, borne of the sui generis political opportunity structure of the EU, and in particular deficits in structures of representative democracy arising from the EU’s transnational nature, the need for the scope of the EU to be accompanied by democratic

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underpinnings, and the ways in which the EU’s extreme manifestation of multilevel power structures exacerbate established tendencies for consensual politics. References Bouwen, P. and McCown, M. (2007) ‘Lobbying versus Litigation: Political and Legal Strategies of Interest Representation in the European Union’, Journal of European Public Policy, 14(3): 422–43. Cichowski, R. (2007) The European Court and Civil Society. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. De Clerck, P. (2007) ‘A Matter of Interest’, Public Affairs News, March: 33. De Schutter, O. (2006) ‘Group Litigation before the European Court of Justice’, in: S. Smismans (ed.) Civil Society and Legitimate European Governance. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar: 89–115. Eichener, V. and Voelzkow, H. (eds.) (1994) Europäische Integration und verbandliche Interessenvermittlung. Marburg: Metropolis-Verlag. European Commission and Council of the European Communities (1997) ‘Communication from the Commission on Promoting The Role of Voluntary Organisations and Foundations in Europe’, COM (97) 241 final. Available online at ec.europa.eu/enterprise/library/libsocial_economy/orgfd_en.pdf (accessed 20 March 2007). European Commission (2000) ‘The Commission and Non-Governmental Organisations: Building a Stronger Partnership’. Discussion paper presented by President Prodi and Vice President Kinnock. Available online at http://ec.europa.eu/civil_society/ngo/intro_en.htm (accessed 5 September 2006). —— (2006) Green Paper European Transparency Initiative, Brussels, COM (2006) 194 final of 3 May 2006. Available online at http://ec.europa.eu/commission_barroso/kallas/transparency_en.htm (accessed 14 September 2007) Fazi, E. and Smith, J. (2006) ‘Civil Dialogue: Making it Work Better’. Available online at http://www.act4europe.org/code/en/materials.asp?Page=222&menuPage=222 (accessed 14 September 2007). Geyer, R. (2001) ‘Can EU Social NGOs Co-operate to Promote EU Social Policy?’, Journal of Social Policy, 30(3): 477–94. Grande, E. (1996) ‘The State and Interest Groups in a Framework of Multi-Level Decision Making: the case of the European Union’, Journal of European Public Policy, 3(3): 318–38. Greenwood, J. (2007) Interest Representation in the European Union, 2nd edn. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Greenwood, J. and Halpin, D. (2007) ‘The European Commission and the Public Governance of Interest Groups in the European Union: Seeking a Niche between Accreditation and LaissezFaire’, in: J. Greenwood and D. Halpin (eds.) Perspectives on European Politics and Society, 8(2): 190–211. Harlow, C. (2002) Accountability in the European Union. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Harlow, C. and Rawlings, R. (1992) Pressure Through Law. London and New York: Routledge. Helfferich, B. and Kolb, F. (2001) ‘Multilevel Action Coordination in European Contentious Politics: The Case of the European Women’s Lobby’, in: D. Imig and S. Tarrow (eds.) Contentious Europeans. Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield: 143–62. Hrbek, R. (1995) ‘Federal Balance and the Problem of Democratic Legitimacy in the European Union’, Aussenwirtschaft, 50: 43–66. Kallas, S. (2005) ‘The Need for a European Transparency Initiative.’ Speech no.: 05/130, Nottingham, 3 March 2005. Available online at

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http://europa.eu/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=SPEECH/05/130&format=HTML&ag ed=0&language=EN&guiLanguage=en (accessed 1 March 2007). Kirchner, T (2006) Interest Groups and the Legitimation of Governance in the European Union. MPhil thesis, University of Cambridge. Kohler-Koch, B. (1996) ‘Die Gestaltungsmacht organisierter Interessen’, in: M. Jachtenfuchs and B. Kohler-Koch (eds.) Europäische Integration. Opladen: Leske and Budrich: 193–222. Martin, A. and Ross, G. (2001) ‘Trade Union Organizing at the European Level’, in: D. Imig and S. Tarrow (eds.) Contentious Europeans. Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield: 53–76. Mazey, S. (2000) ‘Introduction: Integrating Gender-Intellectual and “Real World” Mainstreaming’, Journal of European Public Policy, 7(3): 333–45. Nugent, N. (2003) The Government and Politics of the European Union, 5th edn. Basingstoke: Macmillan. Ross, G. (1994) ‘Inside the Delors Cabinet’, Journal of Common Market Studies, 3(4): 499–523. Rucht, D. (2001) ‘Lobbying or Protest? Strategies to Influence EU Environmental Policies’, in: D. Imig and S. Tarrow (eds.) Contentious Europeans. Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield: 125–42. Secretariat of the European Commission (1992) ‘An Open and Structured Dialogue with Special Interest Groups’, SEC (92) 2272 final. Available online at http://ec.europa.eu/civil_society/interest_groups/index_en.htm (accessed 14 September 2007). Sudbery, I. (2003) ‘Bridging the Legitimacy Gap in the EU: Can Civil Society Help to Bring the Union Closer to Its Citizens’, Collegium, 26: 75–95.

Notes 1http://europa.eu/comm/research/conferences/2005/forum2005/docs/library_report_ong_en.pdf. 2 http://ec.europa.eu/governance/white_paper/index_en.htm 3 http://ec.europa.eu/transparency/access_documents/index_en.htm 4 http://ec.europa.eu/civil_society/consultation_standards/index_en.htm 5 http://ec.europa.eu/yourvoice/index_en.htm 6 http://ec.europa.eu/transparency/regexpert/ 7 http://ec.europa.eu/civil_society/coneccs/index_en.htm 8 Some of this is used as a channel for development aid to poor countries. 9 For example, the Commission may delegate the information collection function under a designated “observatory” status to the group or intervene during times of internal conflict. 10 http://www.europa.eu.int/comm/civil_society/coneccs/financementdetail.cfm?CL=en& organisation_id=1128 (accessed 7 March 2006) ‘A Rigged Dialogue with Civil Society’, The Economist, 21 October 2004, page 2. http://www.economist.com/search/search.cfm?qr=A+Rigged+Dialogue&area=5 (accessed 8 March 2006). 11 Thus, the European Network against Racism receives 80–90 percent of its funding from the Commission. ‘A Rigged Dialogue with Civil Society’, The Economist, 21 October 2004, page 2. Available online at http://www.economist.com/search/search.cfm?qr=A+Rigged+Dialogue&area=5 (accessed 8 March 2006). 12 http://europa.eu.int/comm/secretariat_general/sgc/consultation/index_en.htm 13 http://europa.eu.int/comm/secretariat_general/sgc/consultation/index_en.htm 14 http://www2.europarl.eu.int/omk/sipade2?PUBREF=-//EP//NONSGML+REPORT+A52001-0399+0+DOC+PDF+V0//EN&L=EN&LEVEL=2&NAV=S&LSTDOC=Y

8 NGOs, the European Union and the case of the environment Anthony R. Zito and Jamie Elizabeth Jacobs The global environmental policy area has witnessed the transformation and internationalization of the problems, processes, and actors that comprise it. Since 1970, the European Union (EU) has evolved into a supranational environmental actor of international standing and has a surprisingly advanced portfolio of laws and tools to help protect the environment. This chapter asks how the EU opportunity structures, combined with the broader international context, shape the access and strategy of environmental non-governmental organizations (ENGOs). The chapter first provides an overview of the political opportunity structures (POSs) that the European Community (EC) environmental policy field creates, and the ENGO reaction to these EC structures. Two case studies follow: the stories of the agenda setting and negotiation process for (1) EU implementation of the Basel Transboundary Waste Convention; and (2) REACH (Registration, Evaluation, Authorization and Restriction of Chemicals). These cases follow a most similar method, sharing a number of characteristics such as high ENGO activity, overall institutional structures, issues of substantial complexity, strong international activity, and a close linkage to economic growth issues and the need to engage with economic producers. The similarity of the two cases facilitates assessment of whether differences in policy access lead to similar ENGO strategies and outcomes. The EC environmental opportunity structure EU environmental policy is a more recent aspect of EU priorities, building momentum with the general 1970s increase of national environmental policies. Prior to the 1985 Single European Act (SEA), environmental policy had no treaty basis and could not be considered as a European policy area in its own right. The ensuing environmental policies reflected the prioritization to harmonize national regulation that would otherwise restrict trade, and to protect the health of the EU population biosphere – conditional on the measures not restricting trade in an unfair manner (thus protecting the common market). Starting with the SEA, environmental priorities gradually have played a greater role in the EU constitutional basis and in a number of the Member States – particularly the more pioneering Northern states (Liefferink and Andersen 1998). Since Maastricht, EU treaties give a greater place to the sustainability frame; this issue frame emphasizes the equal prioritization of environmental protection with, and its consequent integration into, other policy priorities and cooperative partnerships. The actualization of this sustainability frame in the EU policy has, however, been more limited in practice (Lenschow and Zito 1998:429–31). The Commission has drafted a series of six Environmental Action Programmes to act as strategic (non-binding) documents containing specific proposals for

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future legislation as well as discourse on wider issues. Over time, these Programmes, and a large body of specific, formal environmental legislation, reveal a discernible shift towards a more integrated sustainability frame. The later Action Programmes, particularly the Fifth (CEC 1993), explicitly recognize that wider societal participation creates more effective policy. Consequently, the Commission proposed a number of policy instruments and directives aimed at involving society – for example, an EU eco-label and the 1990 Information Directive to empower societal groups – thereby increasing the EU’s institutional legitimacy (Héritier 1999). Traditionally, EC directives and regulations have set protection standards that have defined the ENGO agenda, but increasingly this formal secondary legislation is including “softer” prescriptions and instruments that enhance civil society involvement. Greenwood (see Chapter 7 in this volume) emphasizes the ability of multiple EU institutions (organized by policy sectors) to set the agenda, negotiate solutions, and block decisions. Such complexity makes policy adoption more difficult, requiring substantial bargaining and compromises (Weale et al. 2000). The longer (national and EU) historical standing of more traditional policy areas such as fiscal/economic management and the common market, generally gives the economic Commission Directorate-Generals (DGs) and the Economic Councils more prestige than their environment counterparts. This relative level of influence can be critical when economic growth is framed as conflicting with sustainability priorities. A classic example is the Council of Economic and Finance Ministers (ECOFIN); this Council gradually has become one of the dominant Councils and has assumed environmental briefs when the environmental agenda has encroached upon financial areas, as, for example, environmental taxation (Hill 1993:2; Zito 2000:110–12). This means that the institutional access points might be more receptive toward the ENGO competitors such as business in specific contexts. The current focus on the Lisbon Agenda, with its informal coordination between Member States, seeks to boost competitiveness and environmental concerns.1 However, the Lisbon privileging of economic growth has overshadowed the sustainability frame – to the extent that the 2007 German Presidency has called for the “Greening” of the Lisbon Process (Smith 2007:43). The numerous institutional access points noted by Greenwood create a complex, open chain that allows actors agenda input. The complex chain also requires a substantial effort to maintain a favored problem definition (or framing) on the agenda, i.e. the agenda maintenance problem (Zito 2000:25). Competing interests have equal opportunities for access and may be more successful than ENGOs at certain critical points. Although ENGOs can raise an issue on the EC agenda in the Commission Environment DG, discussions will continue in other concerned Commission Directorates, the Council and Parliament – all of which also give access to other groups. EC agenda maintenance requires knowledge and mobilizing resources at each policy stage concerning each veto and access point. All interests including Member States face this challenge. Given the immense environmental issue portfolio, not even large and powerful ENGOs such as Greenpeace have the specialist knowledge and the political capital for more than a limited set of issues.2 Turning to the specific institutional access points, the Environment DG, generally perceived as a more junior Commission DG, reflects distinctly the constraints and opportunities enumerated by Greenwood. The DG has sought to build an actor network to

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provide assistance and credibility for its aims. Equally, the Commission DG needs resource support and political agreement from the other veto players, the Council and the European Parliament (EP), which provide important ENGO access points. The Council’s accessibility varies for each national ENGO, depending on how open the individual Member State processes are to ENGO framing. The pan-European parties of the EP, including a substantial Green Party presence, and the highly prominent Environment Committee provide significant ENGO access points. Political parties give cues to Members of the EP (MEPs); the Green Party privileges environmental protection concerns. The Environment Committee is noteworthy as an extremely influential and entrepreneurial committee, and is the key EP Committee for environmental policymaking (Judge 1993). Nevertheless, the EP’s resource constraints (e.g. a relatively small civil service) make MEPs more receptive to organized ENGOs who provide knowledge and even legislative wording.3 Traditionally, the environment arena has witnessed the provision of information and consultation about the EU agenda in a largely ad hoc and informal basis. ENGOs did not have the right of standing before the European Court of Justice (Grant et al. 2000). More recently, the Commission has held formal consultations for specific issues; some of these have been quite general while others are “focused” towards target groups with a greater stake. The Parliament also holds specific hearings. ENGOs sometimes have the opportunity to join working and advisory groups (such as the High Level Group on Competitiveness, Energy and Environment – see Friends of the Earth Europe 2006b). Nevertheless, much of ENGO influence relies on informal interaction, although there are ad hoc meetings and more structured dialogue between the Commission and specific ENGOs (CEC 2002:8). Until recently, ENGOs lacked the kind of rights at the EU level found at the national level, including the right to information (Rucht 1993). However, this story is changing: for example, the Århus Convention (discussed in the next section of this chapter) and strategic documents such as the Fifth Action Programme for 1993 to 2000 have emphasized citizen and civil society involvement. The open EU system may give competing groups (such as economic actors and other groups whose priorities may also conflict with environmental priorities) access that is more advantageous than the Council and the less prestigious Commission positions of environmental policy actors. While the ENGOs may have substantial access to the Environment DG and the Environment Council, this does not represent a “capture” of the entire institution. NGO strategies Thousands of ENGOs operate at the national and especially local level within the Member States, and have little direct contact with the Brussels process (Friends of the Earth 2006b). Some national ENGOs have the scope to operate at the regional and international level in addition to national activities – for example, the UK Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB). Finally there are transnational ENGOs which include federations with a central administration such as the European Environmental Bureau (EEB) and specific ENGOs with national branches, such as Greenpeace. Greenwood (2003) labels this group as “European Environmental NGOs”; they numbered less than

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20 in 2003. Much of the EU negotiations reflect the input from these “European Environmental NGOs” and occasional direct efforts of the national ENGOs. EU environmental protection also requires local knowledge, engagement, and monitoring, so local and national ENGOs can substantially improve EU performance. They are more likely to focus on a small issue range. Those ENGOs dissatisfied with the national opportunity structures can seek Commission interest and support against the Member State governments. When assessing their potential for mobilizing resources, ENGOs cannot be characterized simply as the “David” in the EU policy equation. Organizations such as Friends of the Earth Europe (FOEE) and Greenpeace can draw upon the resources of the wider, global movements they represent, and tap into a membership base that is not tied to one national community and that contains a range of expertise (Greenwood 2003). However, even the largest ENGOs only have the expertise and material resources to deal with a more limited subset of environmental issues at any given time. While producer and other economic enterprises (and single-issue environmental movements) can concentrate on the most critical environmental concerns related to their interests, global groups like World Wildlife Fund (WWF) theoretically should cover more issues given their broad aims. Part of this effort relies on expertise. The Habitats Directive is the EU directive that has triggered the most Commission proceedings against Member State implementation failures (Börzel 2007). This is partly due to the fact ENGOs across Europe have used their extensive knowledge of local situations and damage to report failures to the EU process. Beyond diffuse expertise of what is occurring in the 27 Member States, ENGOs possess expertise in the form of scientists serving in larger ENGOs such as Greenpeace or having more informal ENGO attachments. The Greenwood chapter notes the EU financial role: DG Environment, seeking supporting environmental coalitions, provides 42 percent of the EEB funding and core funding to the European Policy Offices of the WWF, FOEE and others (EEB 2003; Greenwood 2003:192–93). The EEB leadership interprets this support as necessitating an extensive presence as the ENGO representative across a wide range of policy issues. Critics argue that this dependence has led to co-optation and insufficient DG and ENGO engagement with other important institutions and interest groups (Grant et al. 2000:52). The environmental cause’s generic popularity gives ENGOs a natural advantage. 85 percent of EU respondents believe that environmental concerns must play a role in economic decisions, although 56 percent believe economic and social factors are the most determinant for the quality of life (Eurobarometer 2005:30–31). Furthermore, 42 percent of the EU population trust ENGOs the most on environment issues (Eurobarometer 2005:20) and this is reflected by the substantial constituencies many of the larger ENGOs have (for example, Greenpeace claims over 2.6 million supporters; the RSPB, one million) and in the movement overall.4 Nevertheless, the extremely lengthy time frame associated with any environmental issue (for example, the ozone layer remains a long-term policy issue despite its disappearance off the public agenda) means that it can be a challenge to maintain the agenda amongst the public, i.e those needed to achieve an effective outcome. Consequently, ENGOs must be both selective and strategic in using resources. Here ENGO entrepreneurs are important in framing. The RSPB, for example, improved its

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effectiveness by adding staff with former work experience in the EP – action framing knowledge transmitted to other ENGOs. Nevertheless, the agenda maintenance requirement means that no one entrepreneurial leader can have a substantial policy impact across all the EU veto points, necessitating collective entrepreneurship that comes out of coalitional alliances (Zito 2000). Relatively few ENGOs have a permanent Brussels presence; those that do tend to have very limited offices. Most ENGOs concentrate their effort at the national level (Rucht 1993). The resource limits, versus the range of policy issues and agenda maintenance challenges, lead ENGOs to pool resources and split the effort. However, ENGOs usually suffer from fewer intra-interests than their economic counterparts (Grant et al. 2000; Long 1998), and so this allows for more cooperation and a more unified issue and action framing. ENGOs tend to create a limited number of umbrella groups operating in Brussels, such as the Greenpeace International European Unit and the EEB. ENGOs also participate in single-issue coalitions representing environmental interests on a particular issue area, such as the Climate Network Europe (Grant et al. 2000). The more organized and resource-rich ENGOs have built networks, orchestrate campaigns and engage in action framing. This includes EU institutional lobbying and, simultaneously, efforts to mobilize national groups to influence their respective national processes. Larger ENGOs, such as the WWF, have emphasized creating information-boosting programs for various national groups and representing these efforts in Brussels (Corrie 1997).5 The multiplicity of environmental issues and the complexity of the EU structure led some major groups to form the Green 4 (now Green 10 – see Friends of the Earth 2006a). This loose grouping, which includes Greenpeace and EEB, helps to coordinate the activities regarding the regional ENGO effort. Even so, substantial differences in issue and action frames remain as, for example, the question of direct action. Representatives from each ENGO meet at least every other month and often more frequently; the cooperation remains strictly informal.6 Group members specialize rather than cover all issue areas. While the Green 10 has an important, visible presence due to its membership, Warleigh (2000) argues that fluid and ad hoc coalitions consisting of more actors are often the critical ENGO vehicle for influencing the EU process. Nor does this cooperation exist solely among the ENGOs: ENGOs often work with business groups and other sectors. The Commission’s Fifth Action Programme has sought to formalize this by establishing the European Partners for the Environment (Lenschow 1996). The global nature of environmental problems means it is logical to extend the coalition-building strategy to other geographic regions. For example, in the 1990s, the EEB worked closely with Latin American actors and, more recently, on Eastern Enlargement. The EEB, WWF and other ENGOs see their role in the accession states as teaching and building the capacity (both knowledge and resources) of ENGO actors through workshops and other training and learning activities (Bomberg 2003). This prepares the latter for EU process participation and more effective national lobbying.7 Framing strategies Moving from the strategy of coalition-building, ENGOs have an agenda setting and issue framing role of providing information and lobbying support to the EU environmental

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problem definition process and the selection of solutions (for example, the Blue Flag for water quality). Action framing involves targeting Member State representatives, Commission officials, and MEPs with specific policy information and amendments. ENGOs muster their constituents to voice their opinion and use media platforms to attack their opponents’ positions. Successful past collaborations, recognized expertise, and a large membership are the criteria that make certain ENGOs more attractive to various EU actors (Warleigh 2000).8 In the EU negotiation cycle, ENGO position-taking and support may change the opinion of Council actors, but it is more likely to provide support and ammunition for one particular coalition sharing its issue frame. Other actors may adopt the ENGO position to assist their campaign and perhaps use the ENGO position to shield their own position (Warleigh 2000). The ENGO resource limitation inhibits them from pursuing an EU issue and sustaining a policy presence throughout the policy cycle. ENGOs often lack the detailed expertise needed to calibrate and evaluate policy instruments (Grant et al. 2000). Nevertheless, ENGOs have striven hard to influence the EU policy selection process through position-taking on both specific policy instruments, such as regulations, and on the adoption of wider principles and attitudes towards regulation. Finally, ENGOs have played a substantial role in the policy, implementation, and monitoring stages of the cycle, including the reporting of the national situation. This effort can also involve coalition-building and leverage politics. For example, the WWF coordinated an awareness-building effort using stakeholder discussions to support a more sustainable EU regional policy (Corrie 1997). A final important framing strategy is the possibility of shaping the EU POS. ENGOs sought to enhance the opportunity structure during the Constitutional Convention for an EU constitutional treaty in June 2003. The EEB and the (then) Green 8, made a significant contribution, in particular, sending several hundred submissions and lobbying for key text changes (EEB 2003; Hallo 2003; Jans and Scott 2003:324). Given the Constitution’s fate, more significant is the EU implementation of the Århus Convention, an international agreement signed in 1998 to enhance citizen access to information and participation in environmental decision-making (UNECE 1988; CEC 2005). Signing the Treaty committed the EU to establishing the public’s right to receive environmental information held by public authorities, the right to participate in environmental decision-making, and the right to challenge in a court of law decisions that have not respected the first two rights. The Council and the EP relatively easily agreed to implementing two Directives in addition to the ratifying documents; the Commission has one remaining proposal (CEC 2005).9 This proposed Directive on access-to-justice had huge potential given how ENGOs and other actors challenge environmental failures in the United States courts. Which organizations will be able to seek justice was one of the contested issues in the EC formulation (EEB 2004). With the Environment Council’s permission, the Commission ratified the Århus Convention in February 2005. The EEB (2005) and other ENGOs argued for a delay in the ratification, contending that the Environment Council had undermined the access-to-justice draft proposal by weakening the instrument and process by which the Commission responds to ENGOs seeking an internal review. After a heated debate the European Parliament and the Council agreed the provisions within the Regulation, thus implementing the Convention, which came into effect 28 June 2007 (Council of the EU 2006b: 18–19).

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The Basel Waste Convention 1988–96 This first case examined in this chapter has similarities to the Århus Convention story, illustrating the importance of the global dimension to the EU process and to ENGO framing. The UN Convention adopted in Basel in 1989 sought to regulate the international trade in waste. Negotiations were successful despite a substantial split between the waste exporting industrialized countries, on the one hand, and the developing countries and ENGOs, on the other. During the negotiations Greenpeace took a substantial lead in articulating the ENGO anti-trade position (Europe 1989:15); by 1989 it had assumed unofficially the ENGO leadership mantle for international hazardous waste campaigning.10 Greenpeace built an informal alliance with the EP Environment Committee, partly resulting from an earlier ENGO effort to influence the EC Directive on EC transfrontier waste shipments (Zito 2000:134–36). In the Directive 84/631 debate, Greenpeace had opposed the Commission’s (and the majority of the Member States’) issue framing that transboundary waste shipments were a legitimate economic activity. This opposition to EC policy informed the Greenpeace’s Basel issue framing. Greenpeace and EP allies structured their issue framing to focus less on the technical issues of waste cataloguing and trade, and more on the essential ethical questions as well as on examples of catastrophic failures to manage dangerous substances. Emphasizing well-covered environmental failures and basic values better suited a strong media campaign.11 Greenpeace condemned the Basel Convention for not banning outright any and all waste exports. (The Convention permitted shipments for recycling and where the sender country lacked adequate disposal capabilities.) The call for a complete ban survived; Greenpeace found an ally in the Danish government which used its EC Council Presidency to lobby for a ban in the 1994 Basel Convention meetings. The Commission and a powerful Member State coalition (including Germany and the UK) opposed this initiative, leading to a 1994 Commission compromise allowing non-OECD countries to opt to take recyclable waste. Simultaneously, Greenpeace, the EP and sympathetic Member States pushed the Council to adopt a stricter Council Regulation in 1993. While the eventual Regulation moved the EC from framing waste as an ordinary product by forbidding waste export for disposal outside the Community and the European Free Trade Area, wastes intended for recycling or reuse could be exported under certain circumstances. Greenpeace, still promoting a complete ban, maintained its high-profile pressure campaign, tracking waste shipments and notifying developing countries about shipment violations (Zito 2000:143). In 1994 the Basel parties moved beyond this EC compromise, proposing a total ban of hazardous waste export to non-OECD countries before January 1998. At the 1995 Basel follow-up conference, the Danes, with their fellow Nordic states, broke Council ranks and joined the developing countries in calling for the ban’s incorporation into the Convention, despite strong Commission objections (Kellow and Zito 2002). Despite Commission instructions that the Nordic position was illegal, the Commission position crumbled gradually, leading to a Member States’ shift towards the Danish position. The EP made a nearly unanimous call for a ban. Greenpeace and other ENGOs supported the Danes heavily in the Basel meetings, placing constant pressure on all the delegates and helping frame the developing-world position more effectively. This enabled the Green

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coalition, which had lost out in the internal Commission and Council access points, to outmaneuver the Commission and the Council majority. In the Basel arena, the ENGOs outmatched the waste management industry, which opposed an outright ban (Kellow 1999). Despite the apparent disadvantage in technical expertise and other resources, the ENGOs framed the debate through various publicity attacks on waste shipments. The Greenpeace position relied on a moral argument about waste being an ecological problem, opposing the economic frame viewing waste as an economic good for developing countries. Much of the economic and trade ministries were not present at the Convention meetings to argue the latter case. The economic interests argued their case from rational and technical grounds (Kellow 1999). This issue and action framing could not match the fully charged Greenpeace campaign which sought visibility and the normative higher ground. Eventually EU Environment Commissioner Bjerregaard (a Dane) bargained around the position of the other Commission Directorates with a proposed recyclables ban in 1998, based on the Basel decision. In 1995 a Council majority outvoted Germany and Britain, giving the Commission a mandate to negotiate a change in the ban; eventually these countries were persuaded to accept the ban (EWWE 1995). The Environment Council amended the Council Regulation 259/93 to include a total export ban (to nonOECD countries) of hazardous waste shipments for recycling, fulfilling the Greenpeace objective of shifting the EC issue frame away from seeing hazardous waste as a potential trading good (Zito 2000:157–58). This case illustrates the success of an ENGO strategy using multiple and global arenas to shift the EU process, one where the Commission and Council negotiation consensus, at least initially, differed markedly from the ENGO position. With EP and Council allies (and support from less developed countries), Greenpeace eventually won the issue framing battle. The global arena enabled the ENGOs and their allies to shift their efforts from the EC access points, where the opportunity structures were less favorable, to the UN Convention consisting of a significantly wider group of countries. The developing countries were critical for the moral tone of the framing and pressure against the EU actors. REACH 1998–2006 By 1998 the EU had generated a long tradition of chemicals regulation, involving more than 40 EU directives and regulations. Most actors recognized that the system needed streamlining and that it lacked adequate information about the potential hazards of the vast number (over 100,000 in Europe) of chemicals (Haigh 2005; Contiero 2006). The Nordic Member States, the UK and Austria placed the issue on the Environment Council agenda; the Council agreed a 1999 mandate for a Commission review of chemicals policy (Kellow and Zito 1999). ENGOs lobbied the ministers for this move, wanting greater chemical information for the public and the market withdrawal of certain chemicals. The Commission published a White Paper envisioning a new regulation (CEC 2001). Between 2001 and 2002, the Commission organized seven working groups to investigate the regulatory dimensions, involving heavily the chemical industry representatives (CEFIC 2006). Intensive debates inside and outside of the Commission followed the

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Paper; significantly, DG Enterprise and DG Environment had a joint responsibility to produce a draft and balance their mutual objectives. The Paper disappointed ENGOs such as FOEE, which wanted the proposed registration system to use a more demanding threshold for chemicals and to install a substitution mechanism for dangerous chemicals (EEB 2001). The EP Environment Committee, led by a Green Rapporteur, endorsed the Paper but sided with the ENGO position on stronger safeguards (Smith 2006). Certain ENGOs (EEB, WWF, and FOEE) used the open access to exercise clear leadership, supporting positions including a stronger commitment to information rights and mandatory safety checks (EEB 2002). In 2000, EEB joined the Consumers Union Federation (BEUC) in listing their regulatory demands in the Copenhagen Chemicals Charter; in October 2002 the EEB, WWF and FOEE voiced similar demands. By 2003 health organizations and various retail companies had joined this coalition; FOE Sweden and other Swedish ENGOs formed an International secretariat (ChemSEC) to coordinate this information and lobbying activity (Smith 2006). This coalition was relatively loosely organized, containing ENGOs, the European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC), and consumer associations (Euractiv 2006). The opposing coalition centered on the chemical and related industries (Europe’s third largest manufacturing industry). Their representatives challenged the proposal on numerous grounds: being overly inflexible, susceptible to authorization delays, and too costly. This coalition was unified and focused on REACH (CEFIC 2006; Euractiv 2006). Various industry studies argued that the proposed system would lead directly to GDP and job loss. The Commission conducted its own Extended Impact Assessment in October 2003, finding that the costs were much lower and that the potential health, environment, and research and development benefits would surpass the costs over the longer term (Contiero 2006). Throughout this period, the German Chemical Association (VCI, representing Europe’s biggest chemical industry) and individual German companies like BASF targeted politicians and made political donations, pushing the competitiveness issue frame. In 2002, Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder agreed joint positions with VCI and the German chemical workers’ union, warning that the Commission’s proposal was a threat to competitiveness (Contiero 2006). From May to June 2003, the Commission published parts of the draft legislation on the Internet for public consultation, receiving 6300–6500 formal responses. Industrial groups, notably the Chemical Industry Federation (CEFIC), opposed the draft as being unjustified and unworkable (CEFIC 2006; Friends of the Earth 2006b). In responding to the consultation, the Commission DGs altered the draft significantly, triggering strong ENGO opposition, and presented the final version in 2003. The proposed Directive’s main thrust placed the burden on companies to provide data about the chemicals they import, produce, and use (Haigh 2005:32). Additionally, it required the registration of all substances produced in a quantity of a ton or more, abolished the distinction between “new” and “existing” chemicals, provided incentives for alternatives to animal testing, created the obligation to share some test data, and created an authorization system for chemicals of “very high concern” (CEC 2003). ENGOs viewed the proposal as being weaker than the original White Paper. Various industry studies appeared questioning the regulatory impact on industrial competitiveness. CEFIC and the European Industrial Federation (UNICE) commissioned the KPMG consulting group, which produced analysis deeming the Commission proposal

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to be a good foundation (CEFIC 2006). Nevertheless, much of industry persisted with concerns about the system’s bureaucracy and costliness. While civil society members disputed the content, there was also an intrainstitutional struggle to control the legislative negotiations. In October 2003, the Member State governments shifted REACH decision-making from the Environment to the Competitiveness Council while a Council Ad Hoc Working group worked through the proposal’s detail (Contiero 2006:19). Within the Parliament, members of the Internal Market Committee disputed the Environment Committee’s responsibility for REACH in December 2003. Although these MEPs lost this struggle, it delayed the process until autumn 2004. The EP leadership, acting as the Conference of Presidents, invoked the EP’s internal rules, giving the Internal Market (chaired by the German MEP Nassaurer) and Industry, Research and Energy committees enhanced authority to introduce amendments (Smith 2006). The chemical industry shifted its lobbying focus to these more sympathetic committees, while maintaining pressure on the Environment Committee; however, these other two committees expected the ENGOs to channel their views through the Environment Committee. The compromises forced the Environment Committee to work with these other committees’ stances to preserve a strong enough parliamentary majority for negotiation with the Council (Smith 2006). The Internal Market Committee’s competitiveness concerns weakened the chemicals registration stance. The two major EP political groupings supported an amended proposal severely weakening the particular registration provisions, leading a majority of Green MEPs to oppose the proposal in November 2005 (Smith 2006). The EP did adopt a product substitution principle supported by ENGOs. In September 2005, Commission DG Enterprise and Industry officials circulated a paper among Member State officials and MEPs. Drafted in September 2005 by Industry Commissioner Verheugen and Commission President Barroso, the paper was portrayed by ENGOs as an end-run maneuver around the College of Commissioners to weaken the safety data requirements (Contiero 2006). The UK, as Council President, pushed for a compromise in the autumn. Commissioner Verheugen argued for reducing the registration requirements in order to minimize animal testing, but the ENGOs contested the lessening of the protection for humans (ENDS Environment Daily 2005). The REACH debate gained an international dimension; the Bush administration joined the US chemical industry in a large diplomatic and lobbying effort to portray REACH as costly and complex. This effort, arguing that small and medium enterprises in poorer countries would lose, garnered developing country allies and, in a joint statement in June 2006, the US and others demanded that the EU revisit REACH because it contained unnecessary obstacles to trade and could therefore be potentially subject to World Trade Organization mechanisms (The US Mission 2006). The ENGOs continued their campaign, expressing fears about how the EU institutions weakened the safeguards of REACH, and how chemical interests may have used insider lobbying (e.g. Contiero 2006). The ENGOs argued that the Commission worked too closely with industrial associations in a “revolving door” relationship; the Commission’s response emphasized the need for regulatory expertise. Some ENGO criticisms focused on individuals, tracking Commission officials who had come from chemical companies and those who had moved to chemical firms. Commissioner Verheugen (2006) accused

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the ENGOs of slander, noting his REACH approach involved balancing concerns of (especially small business) competitiveness with stronger environmental protection. The Council settled on a common position in December 2005, issuing a full text in June 2006. It moved farther away from the EP position on certain aspects, such as substitution rules. To affect a compromise with the Parliament in November 2006, the Council approved a new package which included moves towards mandatory substitutions. Discussions between the two bodies proved difficult and protracted as the EP held out for greater Council (led by the Finnish Presidency) concessions over the authorization procedures and other issues. On 30 November, representatives from the two bodies agreed on a deal based on a Finnish compromise (Council of the EU 2006a). For those substances of “very high concern,” the package required producers to submit a substitution plan and, where no alternatives exist, a research and development plan. It exempted chemicals produced in volumes under ten tons, while tightening data confidentiality. WWF and other ENGOs quickly denounced the compromise on substitution plans and the exemption of a number of chemicals produced in small quantities (WWF 2006). Industry groups were equally negative, viewing the substitution rules as costly bureaucratic obstacles to industry development and competitiveness, forcing substantial reorganization of production (ENDS Daily 2006). Eventually both the EP (with the opposition of the Greens) and the Council approved the compromise. Over time, the ENGOs’ favored regulatory safeguards dwindled at each stage in the EU process. Although ENGOs never lost their access to the EU system, the industrial counter-action made equal use of the access points and their voice became stronger as the process moved through negotiations. In the institutional jockeying over who controlled the REACH base, those institutional access points less favorable to ENGOs gained a stronger voice. The chemical sector conducted an organized campaign highlighting the dangers to European industrial competitiveness. Smith (2006) contends that the ENGO position contained inherent weaknesses: the issue frame argued the health and environmental benefits to the community and long-term benefits to business, but involved issues of inherent uncertainty and complexity. The chemical sector’s task was simpler: emphasizing the uncertainty framing to raise credible images of the threat to industrial competitiveness and jobs. The chemical interests successfully linked their issue frame to the current EU emphasis on the Lisbon process and the need to protect European economic growth. Conclusion While ENGOs seek to shift the EU process in directions favoring their particular issue frame, the EU institutional structures remain significant obstacles. The multiple-accesspoints structure favors inserting the ENGO issue frame onto the agenda, but not sustaining the frame. The ENGOs (and all other interests) must work to build alliances and target key priorities; their limited resources (pitted against the multiplicity of access points to which other competing groups have open access and the large number of policy problems) limit sustained agenda maintenance. Given the range of issues, ENGO actors see their organizations as mainly reacting to the EU institutional process, although they do attempt to develop active strategies (Rucht 1993).12

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The sometimes global dimensions of environmental issues and developments lead ENGOs to take a more international approach, to build networks and to alter opportunity structures through legal concerns (as they have done via the Århus process within the EU context) and other strategies. This chapter reinforces the importance of international institutions (as well as emphasizing the importance of the UN’s multiple access points) in the EU process, giving the ENGOs (and other civil society actors) leverage when EU access points do not generate favorable results. This last point emphasizes that institutional influence is not all one way; as institutions evolve there may be suitable conditions for ENGOs to shape the opportunity structure. Comparing the differences in the EU cases, REACH’s recent negotiations reflect a period where the competitiveness frame (heavily linked to the Lisbon agenda) is strong within the Commission and many Member State access points. Although this does not mean that the public’s environmental interest has diminished, it suggests that the open EU access points can be more receptive for economic interests. However, one can argue that the access points were less favorable in the Basel policy cycle than the REACH case. The Commission supported the opposing issue frame, and the Parliament did not have codecision. In the Basel case, the industrial opponents were much less organized to fight the ENGO stance and failed to counter the focused ENGO issue and action frames. REACH, by contrast, shows an industry much more involved and organized in its framing and approach to EU access points. While the international governance dynamics of Basel gave ENGOs an international arena to secure allies and isolate their EU opponents (and unfavorable access points, namely the Commission and the Council majority), the REACH battle witnessed international players like the US target the EU arena and call for greater adherence to the international perspective on chemicals and risk. The objectives of the two ENGO campaigns also differed (while still sharing the environmental prioritization and sustainability issue frame). The ENGO aim in both was to offer maximum protection from hazardous risks. The nature of the regulatory objective proved critical: the banning of waste, with the media friendly images of waste cargos, created a more visceral objective than the issue of chemicals that pervade all human existence. REACH requires enormous expertise to discern the degrees of protection created by provisions on registration, authorization, and so forth. Industry’s task of raising doubts about uncertainty concerning the complex REACH and its likely economic effects was easier than maintaining the benefits of the hazardous waste trade to poorer countries. The mixed result of REACH should not induce pessimism about the EU environmental process. Environmental policy remains a popular priority and an official EU priority. ENGOs can build alliances, conduct campaigns, and work with EU institutions in such a context. One scenario for transforming ENGO participation in the policy-making process is to include institution building and forum shopping in ENGO strategies, but empirical evidence suggests the need for more shrewd strategies, such as careful issue framing that engages the likely opposition as well as potential allies; the open yet complex EU process and equally complicated global picture do not guarantee success.

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Friends of the Earth Europe (2006a) ‘Green 10 Member Groups’. Available online at http://www.foeeurope.org/links/green10.htm (accessed 25 August 2006). —— (2006b) ‘Submission to the Consultation on the ETI Green Paper’. Brussels: Friends of the Earth Europe. —— (2006c) ‘REACH timeline’. Available online at http://www.foe.co.uk/campaigns/safer_chemicals/chemical_reaction/timeline_en.html (accessed 25 August 2006). Grant, W., Matthews, D. and Newell, P. (2000) The Effectiveness of European Union Environmental Policy. Houndmills, Basingstoke: Macmillan. Greenwood, J. (2003) Interest Representation in the European Union. Houndmills, Basingstoke: Macmillan. Haigh, N. (2005) ‘A brief History of EU Regulation of Chemicals’, in C. Weill European Proposal for Chemicals Regulation: REACH and beyond. Proceedings of the International Workshop, Iddri, Paris: 29–32. Hallo, R. (2003) ‘Assessing the Results of the Convention’, Metamorphosis, 30(1): 12. Héritier, A. (1999) ‘Elements of Democratic Legitimation in Europe: an Alternative Perspective’, Journal of European Public Policy, 6: 269–82. Hill, A. (1993) ‘EU Rottweiler both Petted and Panned’, Financial Times, 13 December: 2. Jans, J. and Scott, J. (2003) ‘The Convention on the Future of Europe: an Environmental Perspective’, Journal of Environmental Law, 15: 323–39. Judge, D. (1993) ‘“Predestined to Save the Earth”: The Environment Committee of the European Parliament’, Environmental Politics, 1: 186–212. Kellow, A. (1999) International Toxic Risk Management: Ideals, Interests and Implementation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Kellow, A. and Zito, A. (2002) ‘Steering through Complexity: EU Environmental Regulation in the International Context’, Political Studies, 50: 43–60. Lenschow, A. (1996) ‘The Nature and Transformation of Governance in European Environmental Policy’. Paper presented at the Joint ECPR Sessions, Oslo, 29 March– 3 April. Lenschow, A. and Zito, A. (1998) ‘Blurring or Shifting of Policy Frames? Institutionalization of the Economic-Environmental Policy Linkage in the European Community’, Governance, 11: 415–41. Liefferink, D. and Andersen, M.S. (1998) ‘Strategies of the “Green” Member States in EU Environmental Policy-Making’, Journal of European Public Policy, 5: 254–70. Long, T. (1998) ‘The Environmental Lobby’, in: P. Lowe and S. Ward British Environmental Policy and Europe. London: Routledge: 105–18. Rucht, D. (1993) ‘“Think Globally, Act Locally”? Needs, Forms and Problems of Cross-National Cooperation among Environmental Groups’, in: D. Liefferink, P. Lowe and A. Mol (eds.) European Integration and Environmental Policy. London: Belhaven Press: 75–95. Smith, E. (2007) ‘Germans Seek “Greener” Lisbon’, European Voice, 13(21): 43. Smith, M. (2006) Representations of Diffuse Interests in the European Parliament: the Case of REACH. Norman: University of Oklahoma. UNECE – United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (1998) Convention on Access to Information, Public Participation in Decision-Making and Access to Justice in Environmental Matters. 25 June 1988. The United States Mission to the European Union (2006) ‘REACH requires further Improvements, according to EU Trading Partners’, Available online at http://useu.usmission.gov/Dossiers/Chemicals/Jun0806_REACH_Statement.asp (accessed 8 June 2006). Verheugen, G. (2006) ‘Sustainability and Competitiveness’, Speech /06/371, Strasbourg, 12 June. Warleigh, A. (2000) ‘The Hustle: Citizenship Practice, NGOs and “Policy Coalitions” in the European Union – The Cases of Auto Oil, Drinking Water and Unit Pricing’, Journal of European Public Policy, 7: 229–43.

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Weale, A., Pridham, G., Cini, M., Konstadakopulos, D., Porter, M. and Flynn, B. (eds.) (2000) Environmental Governance in Europe. Oxford: Oxford University Press. WWF (2006) ‘European Union: REACH, a deal too far’, Available online at http://www.panda.org/about_wwf/where_we_work/europe/what_we_do/epo/index.cf (accessed 1 December 2006). Zito, A. (2000) Creating Environmental Policy in the European Union. Houndmills, Basingstoke: Palgrave.

Notes 1 In 2000, a special European Council meeting in Lisbon agreed a set of specific targets for boosting sustainable growth in the European Union over a ten-year period, as well as a process for reviewing progress. 2 ENGO interviews, 11 December 1992; 18 December 1992; 18 January 1993; 23 May 2002. 3 ENGO interviews, 27 April 1993; EP officials, 1 December 1992; 8 December 1992; 18 March 1993. 4 Websites: http://www.greenpeace.org/international and http://www.rspb.org.uk/, (accessed 07 June 2007). 5 ENGO interviews, 27 April 1993; 18 January 1993; 2 February 1993; conversation with ENGO Official, 1994. 6 ENGO interview, 23 September 2003. 7 ENGO interview, 23 September 2003. 8 Also ENGO interviews, 02 February 1993; 27 April 1993, 23 September 2003. 9 The Member States signed the Regulation in June 1998 on the Convention on Access to Information, Public Participation in Decision-making and Access-to-Justice in Environmental Matters (the Århus Convention), and a 2005 Decision specifically ratifying the Convention. In terms of activating the measures behind the convention, two Directives are already in force: the first on public access to information and the second on public participation in environmental procedures. Finally, the third Directive, an October 2003 proposal, relates to public access to justice in environmental matters. 10 ENGO interviews, 11 December 1992. 11 ENGO interviews, 11 December 1992. 12 ENGO interviews, 11 December 1992; 2 February 1993; 23 September 2003.

9 Safeguarding asylum as a human right NGOs and the European Union Emek M. Uçarer Cooperation in Justice and Home Affairs (JHA) seeks to engage European Union (EU) Member States in efforts at European-level policy-making in the fields of immigration, asylum, police, and judicial co-operation and is one of the newest competencies of the EU. Because of the sensitive nature of the issues involved, Member States have been reluctant to relinquish their sovereign prerogatives to determine who will cross their borders and when, and have initially been loathe to allow binding decisions to be made in Brussels. In this setting, non-governmental actors have found it difficult to penetrate the policy-making cycle. Beginning in the mid-1990s, and bolstered by the developments that yielded the Maastricht (1993) and Amsterdam (1999) Treaties, the EU has become much more active in the JHA field. So, too, have non-governmental organizations (NGOs). As the emergent EU immigration and asylum regime continues to consolidate, various NGOs, both national and increasingly Brussels-based ones, seek to influence both the context and content of policy-making and implementation. Their record of achievements in this respect is mixed. Their success is influenced by their existing ties to EU institutions: only a few NGOs have influence, and the impact they have is relatively limited. Nonetheless, while NGO impact is difficult to measure, it is instructive to study the advocacy strategies of NGOs in a field that has been resistant to such efforts and highlight their efforts to frame it with the language of state responsibility arising from human rights obligations.1 The EU–NGO interface is conditioned by the institutional realities of the EU which result in fluid political opportunity structures (POSs) for the pertinent actors, including NGOs. It is also impacted by the ability of EU-oriented NGOs to seize expanding opportunities and/or create new ones. The JHA portfolio plays out at the local, national, regional, and global levels, and offers multiple constellations of political opportunity structures (POSs). Its asylum dossier reflects these layers particularly well: it is nested firmly in a relatively weak but nonetheless recognizable global human rights issue regime, one that is safeguarded by a United Nations (UN) agency, and is reflected in regional instruments of law. In tandem with this embeddedness, the decision-making environment in asylum is regional, national, and sub-national and it is the ongoing interface between these levels that all pertinent actors must negotiate. Joachim and Locher (see Chapter 1 in this voume) argue that NGOs are embedded in POSs, which impact actors’ strategy packages. POSs are themselves shaped by context and provide different levels of access for NGOs. The literature on third sector activity in

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Table 9.1 The institutional evolution of the JHA portfolio

European Parliament European Court of Justice Council

Pre-Maastricht JHA Post-Maastricht Post-Amsterdam First Pillar Third Pillar Title (Communitarized areas of former VI TEU Article K Third Pillar) Immigration, Asylum, Police and Judicial Cooperation in Civil Matters Title IV TEC, Articles 61–69 1999–2004 Post-2004 No role

Consultation

No jurisdiction

Limited role restricted to consultation No jurisdiction

No direct role

Dominant actor

Dominant actor Shared power but Commission position in and Parliament decisionmaking increasingly empowered Commission has Commission has shared right of exclusive right of initiative (Member initiative States have encouraged the Commission to assume an exclusive right for asylum issues) Council acts Council acts unanimously on unanimously on proposals from proposals from the Commission and Commission A move Member States for towards QMV the first five years possible following a unanimous decision of the Council

Consultative European Commission Occasional observer status at intergovernmental meetings

Intergovernmental Decisionnegotiations Nonmaking mechanisms binding decisions in the form of resolutions Binding decisions in the form of treaties

Shared right of initiative for the Commission and Member States except judicial and police cooperation matters in which there is no right of initiative Unanimity rule on all issues

Co-decision

Referral for an obligatory first ruling for national last-instance courts

Source: Adapted from Uçarer (2003)

the human rights field documents successes in policy output and effective strategies and persuasively argues that NGOs and other elements of civil society have been influential in developing international norms, especially in the field of human rights (Brysk 1993; 2005; Burgerman 2001; Clark 2001; Florini 2003; Florini 2000; Friedman et al. 2005; Keck and Sikkink 1998; Price 1997; Risse 2000; Risse et al. 1999). Frequently, NGOs leverage their moral authority by speaking for the dispossessed, the “public interest” or the “common good” (Risse 2000:186) and engaging in naming and shaming activities targeted at, but not limited to, noncompliant state behavior. Moral authority is flanked by

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claiming political legitimacy, emphasizing and/or offering expertise in a particular field, and establishing credibility. Keck and Sikkink (1998:204) find that “issues involving bodily harm to vulnerable individuals, and legal equality of opportunity” are better candidates for successful coalition-building and activism. NGOs also play an important role as watchdogs, engaging in “accountability politics” (Keck and Sikkink 1998), persistently monitoring discrepancies between rhetorical commitments and actual performance of targeted actors, emphasizing behavior at variance with commitments and launching efforts when non-compliance and shirking is evident or anticipated. The following account draws on these insights while introducing elements of the global and regional context that establishes the POS of asylum in the EU. Refugee protection and asylum as a human right in global and regional perspective EU’s work on asylum is embedded in the global refugee regime that evolved out of the two world wars. This regime provides the parameters within which regional and national refugee protection must be provided. As such, it constrains state behavior and supplies a moral and legal rationale for NGOs advocacy against particular EU policies. The duty to aid and protect humans in distress has its roots in religious and moral codes and resonates in contemporary documents such as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), which in Article 14(1) proclaims the human right to seek asylum. With its designation as a human right, seeking asylum is thus acknowledged as fundamental and essential, recognizing “justified and urgent claims to certain types of urgent treatment” (Nussbaum 2006:36). But, although seeking asylum is protected as a human right, its granting is disciplined by the sovereign right of the recipient state to decide who gets it as there is no corresponding right to receive protection. The global refugee protection regime hangs in this precarious balance. The 1951 UN Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees (hereafter Geneva Convention, subsequently updated by the 1967 Protocol) provides guidance on the specifics of the regime. Of note here are two particular aspects of the Convention which establish benchmarks for NGO dual advocacy efforts to protect both asylum as a human right and asylum seekers as aggrieved individuals. The first is the definition of a refugee, which affords protection to individuals who have fled as a result of a well-founded fear of persecution and implies the responsibility to protect from harm. The second is nonrefoulement which prohibits the expulsion of individuals to territories where they might be harmed, limiting the discretion of recipient states by prescribing instances in which denial of entry or expulsion is unlawful. It is intended also to allow access to the protection process since the definition requires individuals to apply for protection somewhere other than where they are being persecuted. The Geneva Convention also created the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and authorized it to safeguard the regime. EU members are all parties to the global refugee instruments and EU’s own legislative efforts are almost universally prefaced with the Geneva Convention and the 1967 Protocol, serving as explicit recognition of their rights and duties under international law. Regional human rights instruments have also been interpreted consistently with the spirit

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of the Geneva Convention. Of particular importance is the Council of Europe-sponsored European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (ECHR) and the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR). Although the ECHR does not articulate an explicit right of asylum, the right to apply for asylum, or a duty of nonrefoulement, Articles 3 (protection from torture), 8 (right to privacy) and 13 (effective remedy before a national authority) of ECHR have been invoked by asylum seekers to support their cases or to seek redress. These articles echo rights that are enshrined in numerous other global human rights instruments. The ECtHR has thus been able to develop jurisprudence even in the absence of explicit mention of asylum as a human right. For example, basing its judgment on Article 3 of ECHR, the Court found in 1985 that the ECHR implies a right of nonrefoulement to a territory where the individual risks being tortured.2 The EU does not have a separate apparatus for monitoring and resolving internal human rights issues. Although the EU’s Commission proposed in the late 1970s that the organization itself accede to global human rights instruments, making it also liable for human rights infringements the organization itself might occasion, its proposals did not bring about such an eventuality (Alston and Weiler 1998). The December 2000 European Charter of Human Rights includes in Article 18 a right to seek asylum and cites the Geneva Convention and the 1967 Protocol, as well as the (stalled) European Constitution into which the Charter is incorporated. So the default grievance instance remains the Council of Europe apparatus, with the European Court of Justice (ECJ) gaining ground in the field of asylum (see below). Europe’s embeddedness in the global refugee protection regime, the linkages between refugee protection and human rights, emerging regional jurisprudence, regional instruments acknowledging a duty to protect, and the necessity to make it possible for asylum seekers to access the system all create significant reference points for advocacy for NGOs and inform their framing strategies. They further allow NGOs to work a multilevel terrain and network at multiple levels to exert pressure on the EU and its members. Justice and home affairs cooperation and regional integration: moving targets and shifting political opportunity structures The work of NGOs in the EU’s asylum field should be analyzed against this global and regional backdrop. JHA’s ascendance in European governance, a process that has been referred to as the Europeanization of immigration and asylum, spans the last two decades (Geddes 2003; Grabbe 2001; Lavenex 2001; Lavenex and Uçarer 2004; OXFAM 2005; Tholen 2005). The POS in this field, both for NGOs and for some key EU institutions, has morphed with the institutional maturation of the JHA dossier and the proliferation of the substantive content of EU-level cooperation, and major stakeholders (Member States, EU institutions, and NGOs) have had to navigate this fluid terrain.

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The institutional context Beginning in the mid-1970s and gathering steam in the 1980s, immigration, asylum, police and judicial cooperation increasingly appeared on the collective political agenda, leading to the creation of new, overlapping discussion forums. Members of the EC set up an ad hoc institutional framework in the mid-1970s to facilitate decision-making, leading to various inter-governmental constellations (Monar 2001; Uçarer 2001b; 2003). The early 1990s brought an intensification of these efforts and a shift in the locus of decisionmaking towards European institutions. With the Maastricht Treaty in 1993, which identified asylum as a matter of “common interest,” JHA was brought under the auspices of the EU. The Treaty also created a rather awkward decision-making framework which marginalized the Community institutions – particularly the European Commission – from the decision-making process. JHA Council took decisions by unanimity. By contrast, the European Commission was given a small role (Uçarer 2001a). JHA was reformed with the Amsterdam Treaty in 1999: a number of third pillar issues (including asylum) were shifted into the first or EC pillar, decision-making rules leaned gradually towards qualified majority voting (QMV), the Commission got an exclusive right of initiative, the European Parliament (EP) was allowed to apply the co-decision procedure to certain measures, and the ECJ received a mandate for the first time (see Table 9.1 for a more complete picture of the institutional evolution of JHA). This simplified account of the institutional context illustrates how the POS within JHA has shifted over time. The post-Amsterdam changes not only meant an opening of the POS for the Commission and Parliament, but also signalled the same for NGOs. Soon after migrants started arriving in a number of West European countries in the 1960s, NGOs began forming at the national level to represent or serve these populations. Asylum applications increased during the late 1980s and 1990s, symptomatic both of destabilizing developments in Central and Eastern Europe and also of the closing of other forms of legal migration into Western Europe. To address these developments, NGO advocacy started with employment and later fanned out to integration and asylum, all more or less at the national level (Niessen 2002:81). In the context of emergent restrictive EU policies, a few European NGOs began entering the scene, frequently needing to convince their national counterparts of the utility to engage in EU-level lobbying and reminding them of the national consequences of EU-level decision-making.3 The 9/11 attacks in the United States and, especially, the Madrid and London bombings intensified what some scholars have termed the “securitization” of this policy field (Bigo 2002; Ceyhan and Tsoukala 2002; Ibrahim 2005). Rhetoric, both at the national and sometimes at the EU levels linked migration and asylum seekers first to criminality and then possibly to terrorism. This development shifted states’ priorities towards developing counter-terrorism measures and lent an even stronger security flavour to ongoing policy conversations. NGOs, on the other hand, have always sought to counter this security frame, which they perceive as allowing states to engage in what Huysmans and Buonfino (2006) term the “politics of exception,” whereby liberal democratic states wrest broader exceptions from their democratic and legal responsibilities. To wit, NGOs have imbued their advocacy efforts and their language

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with an alternative competing frame of human rights, one that consistently highlights national and international obligations under law, due process, and humanitarianism. Accessing EU’s JHA framework Given that the human rights emphasis is already present in global and regional instruments, providing a consistent human rights frame has been easier for NGOs than to ensure compliance. NGOs bemoan the limits of their ability to effectively influence policy-making in the EU at the same time as they appreciate openings for access. Nonetheless, EU-level NGOs engage the system and develop strategies that will maintain the access they already have, launch and expand new channels of access, and seek to develop alternatives where access is undesirably blocked. Predictably, NGOs report that access varies across different core EU institutions (see also Greenwood’s discussion of this phenomenon in Chapter 7 of this volume). Unlike the UN, there is no formal institutional framework within which NGOs can participate in the EU policy process. Access relies on mostly informal personal contacts between NGOs and EU actors, which need to be cultivated and maintained over time and are susceptible to personnel changes on either end. NGOs access to core EU institutions is inversely proportional to the decision-making power these institutional actors wield over policy output. The European Parliament is most accessible and frequently considers NGO arguments. It has, however, until recently been the weakest EU institution in decisionmaking. Nonetheless, NGOs spend time lobbying Rapporteurs, shadow Rapporteurs, target MEPs, and members of the EP’s Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs (LIBE). NGO language is sometimes included in Parliament reports, something that is not peculiar to Brussels. Risse (2000:187) notes that “many Western governments, including the United States and Germany, often use information provided by Amnesty or HRW almost verbatim when they write their own human rights reports.” Once the Parliament starts making full use of its new post-Amsterdam co-decision powers, this access path is likely to prove more opportune for NGOs. Not surprisingly, most NGOs noted that they anticipate spending even more time preparing information packets for MEPs, and following the meetings of the EP committees, in particular the LIBE. Access to the Commission is relatively good, allowing NGOs to closely follow the policy cycle and provide early and extensive input. Overall, NGOs report fruitful contacts, primarily with the Commissions services in DG Justice, Liberty, Security (DG JLS, previously DG JHA), but also with the Cabinet of the responsible Commissioner on political (as opposed to technical) issues. The Commission acknowledges NGOs as relevant stakeholders in the policy-making process (European Commission 2000), not least because of lending legitimacy to proposals through external scrutiny, and by deflecting criticism about the democratic deficit and lack of accountability and transparency that is endemic to this field. The Commission relies on reputable NGOs to filter up information from the field, making NGOs its (non-exclusive) “eyes and ears.” NGOs are generally seen by the Commission as forthright, knowledgeable, and professional,4 and serve as operational partners of the Commission (Niessen 2002). Although the Commission has argued that more structured conversations with NGOs would be desirable (European Commission 2000), this has yet to occur. On this count,

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NGOs continue to press for “more equitable access and for a more stable framework for consultation” (Niessen 2002:82) to address irregular and ad hoc access. The Council draws criticism for its resistance to access by the civil society (i.e. its process of decision-making) as well as the policy instruments it endorses (i.e. its output of decision-making). “The Commission is not the problem, it’s the Council” said one interviewee. “The Council are national politicians … and they represent their national constituencies or governments and that’s the biggest challenge for us in our advocacy work.”5 The increasingly restrictionist stance of the Council frequently results in the watering down of initiatives that were painstakingly lobbied for at the Commission and Parliament level. For example, the Family Reunification Directive was rewritten no less than three times by the Commission to appease the Council, each time diverging further from what would be considered best practice by NGOs. Another prominent example is the Asylum Procedures Directive (discussed below) that likewise drew significant criticism for its deficient protection for asylum applicants and was redrafted twice, becoming more objectionable to the NGOs and refugee rights activists each time. Nonetheless, NGOs seek to gain access, mostly through JHA Conseillers at the permanent representations of Member States in Brussels. They report that while they have not explored regular contacts with the Council’s services (Directorate H), as they have with DG JLS of the Commission, some make an effort to contact the rotating presidency of the Council before it takes office, at the stage where the presidency is formulating its priorities. This serves to take stock, start preparing for items that the presidency is likely to pursue, and to prioritize NGO workload based on the presidency’s agenda. To overcome the Council’s resistance to access, NGOs engage in what can be termed a “reverse boomerang” (for a discussion of the “boomerang pattern,” see Keck and Sikkink 1998:12–13). NGOs such as ECRE and CCME, representing a variety of national NGOs at the European level, frequently enlist the help of their national partner or constituent NGOs to lobby national actors and politicians to affect the desired policy impact in Brussels from below. NGOs that are not umbrella organizations, but nonetheless have national offices (such as AI), are able to employ a similar strategy to reach the Council through mobilization at the national level. However, this strategy is often a supplement for, not a substitute to, ongoing efforts to engage other EU institutions. NGO strategy packages: resources Material and personnel resources for NGO mobilization in this field are limited and demonstrate significant variance between the NGOs interviewed. All, however, understand themselves to be working in the field of human rights, with particular attention to certain at-risk groups. Some of the NGOs (such as ECRE, Caritas Europe, Jesuit Refugee Service, CCME, and AI) have been on the national scene for several decades and were early entrants into the European sphere, establishing Brussels offices in the early 1990s before the formal Europeanization of the portfolio. Others, such as the European Women’s Lobby (EWL) and the Platform for International Cooperation on Undocumented Migrants (PICUM), have started developing their immigration and/or asylum portfolios quite recently – in the case of EWL, as recently as two years ago. Most

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of these organizations are deficient in core funding and rely heavily on (volatile) project funding, sometimes from EU sources, for their work. Staffing is also a problem, often resulting in one-person operations saddled with ever-expansive responsibilities. Nonetheless, most NGOs possess important non-financial resources they can draw on. Perhaps the most important is expertise manifesting itself both in substantive knowledge and a sophisticated understanding of the EU’s institutional environment. Substantive knowledge is acquired and deployed both through the legal expertise of NGO staff in Brussels, many of whom are lawyers trained in international law, as well as connections to national and sub-national counterparts. Institutional expertise, no less important, is accumulated through sustained interactions with EU and other actors. Finally, moral authority is exerted by organizations with a long-standing record of advocating on behalf of the disenfranchised. This includes the work of AI, but also ecumenical organizations which draw on religious exhortations to protect asylum seekers. With these limited resources, NGOs must make strategic choices about when, whom, and how to lobby. All of the NGOs interviewed concurred that, with the shortage of sufficient material resources, non-material resources have to be deployed for NGOs to demonstrate their “value-added” to the institutional stakeholders in the field. Perhaps their strongest non-material resource is their ability to mobilize their members and their members’ expertise, and to engage in “information politics” (Keck and Sikkink 1998:18). In addition to the legal and institutional expertise mentioned above, they can also provide experiential expertise through first-hand accounts percolating up from their national counterparts. This is an effective strategy: “From time to time, you get lobbied by a person who is a refugee and that’s quite impressive,” said a Commission desk officer.6 Often, NGOs are the ones to facilitate such testimonial encounters. NGOs are also eager to facilitate the decision-makers’ own experiential “expertise.” A recent example is the pre-departure briefings provided to members of the EP travelling to Lampedusa to observe reception conditions for asylum seekers, or to the Commission delegation to Ceuta and Melilla after the developments of September 2005 (see below). Although not all NGOs can do all of this with comparable finesse, the more NGOs can demonstrate their reliable expertise, the more they can claim credibility from the various stakeholders. Established NGOs also deploy their expertise as collectors, analyzers, and deployers of (highly technical) information from domestic as well as European sources. They offer expert opinion in both formal and informal settings (for example, in Parliament committees and in consultations with the Commission, respectively); produce reasoned position papers, with ample references to the relevant regional and international law and human rights precepts, on virtually every policy move of the EU; and provide similar feedback to the various iterations of policy drafts as they proceed through the decisionmaking cycle. Often, NGOs provide detailed arguments for appropriate human rights protective “best practice” (see, for example, ECRE 2005b). Some NGOs (in particular AI) use wellestablished media strategies to reach a wider audience, usually by appealing to their moral conscience to pressure decision-makers. In what is undoubtedly a proactive strategy, they offer draft policy initiatives in advance of the Commission’s and circulate these amongst the stakeholders.7 Throughout the policy-making cycle, NGOs make an equally spirited effort to engage in what Keck and Sikkink (ibid. 1998) refer to as “accountability politics.” This is done not only by reminding the EU and its members of their obligations under international

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and regional legal instruments, but also by quoting the EU’s own pronouncements (to be found in the preliminaries of each of the contested policy instruments) of its acknowledgments of the validity of global or regional refugee protection instruments. Of particular importance are references to existing legal findings and calls for an extended mandate for the ECJ to provide proper legal oversight in this field. NGOs also engage in networking to pool their resources and extend their reach. The NGO Platform on EU Migration and Asylum Policy, initiated in 1994 by the UNHCR, is an informal group of European (as opposed to exclusively national) non-governmental organizations and networks, and currently has 22 NGO members. The principal purpose of this loose platform is to serve as a venue for information exchange. The Platform meets under the co-chairmanship of UNHCR and CCME every three months to further coordination between member organizations, discuss lobbying strategies, and review EU legislative developments. These meetings also serve to minimize duplication of lobbying efforts, which could also potentially result in NGO-overload for EU decision-makers, possibly negatively impacting future access. While the Platform is not a collective lobbying venue, despite joint points of interest, subsets of its membership have on occasion engaged in joint action. One recent (and unprecedented) example of this is the joint letter drafted by ECRE, AI, and HRW in March 2004 one day in advance of a scheduled JHA Council meeting, calling on the EU to scrap the Asylum Procedures Directive which was characterized as a breach of EU’s human rights commitments (ECRE et al. 2004). The six Brussels-based Christian NGOs8 representing Catholic and Protestant churches additionally banded together (consciously pooling their moral authority) and produce joint letters, press releases, and common policy feedback on initiatives. These strategies are deployed to (re)frame or (re)anchor the asylum debate in human rights language and emphasize the responsibility to protect. Especially for asylum, this means countering prevailing perceptions of asylum seekers as opportunist economic migrants and restoring their claim to protection afforded by international law. In this pursuit, NGOs draw on two fundamental elements present in the global refugee protection regime – provision of access to asylum and the duty to protect from (bodily) harm. Finally, NGOs attempt to alter the dominant POS by lobbying for institutional reform in the EU. POSs are not necessarily permanent, and critique of the framework of decision-making frequently comes from non-governmental actors, at the national, regional, and international level (Price 2003:583). At institutional junctures such as Maastricht and Amsterdam, NGOs have advocated to eliminate the unanimity rule, enhance the role of the Parliament, and create a competence for the ECJ (CCME 2001; ECRE 1997; ECRE et al. 1999; Standing Committee of Experts on International Immigration 1995). The most recent occasion of calls for reform was the drafting of the EU Constitution. There, a coalition of JHA NGOs drafted a document rendering their expert opinion, reiterating the calls for institutional change (Curtin and Peers 2002). In short, NGO resources (financial, moral authority, expertise) are deployed through various strategy packages including collection, analysis, and dispersal of information, accountability seeking, networking, (re)framing, and challenging POSs in an environment in which NGOs can link up to global instruments and institutions as well as pertinent regional actors, link down to their national constituencies, and link across to other NGOs

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and stakeholders. Actors that are potential allies (UNHCR, the EP, and sometimes certain Member States) or starting points for policy-making (the Commission) are targeted for the bulk of these strategy combinations, while a more modest effort is observed to directly engage adversarial actors (the Council and certain Member States). The EC direction on minimum standards on procedures in Member States for granting and withdrawing refugee status (Asylum Procedures Directive) This Directive provides an opportunity to demonstrate a specific glimpse into the preceding account of the work of regional NGOs in a multilevel policy field (Uçarer 2006). Article 63(1) TEC provides the mandate for this instrument which is the last, and possibly the most significant, of a series of four instruments to create the Common European Asylum System (CEAS). The first version of this Directive was prepared by the Commission in October 2000 (European Commission 2001), but political agreement on the text remained elusive until June 2002 when an amended (European Commission 2002) and much watered-down (Costello 2005) proposal was offered by the Commission. Reflecting also the shared sentiment in the NGO community, the UNHCR observed: Taking a very good European Commission draft as its starting point, the long process of inter-state negotiations has resulted in an Asylum Procedures Directive which contains no binding commitment to satisfactory procedural standards, allowing scope for states to adopt or continue worst practices in determining asylum claims. (UNHCR 2004) To wit, significant efforts to mobilize against its adoption soon ensued. The Directive draws two (interrelated) sets of objections. First, critics argue that the Directive is fundamentally at odds with the EU’s regional and international legal obligations to review asylum claims. In Keck and Sikkink’s (1998) terms, there is an issue of restricting equality of access to an existing set of rights protected both regionally through the ECHR and globally through the Geneva Convention. Second, there are concerns about whether the Directive’s implementation could give rise to refoulement. The concern here is bodily harm or injury, the second of Keck and Sikkink’s findings about the issue characteristics of successful human rights activism. In particular, the amended Commission draft Directive consolidated the concepts of manifestly unfounded claims, safe country of origin (SCO) and safe third countries (STC) (European Commission 2002). The SCO concept assumes that certain states do not to produce refugees who would meet Geneva Convention criteria. Recipient countries can categorically reject applications from citizens or residents of SCOs, resulting in the return of the individual to the country deemed safe. The concept of STC, in turn, allows a recipient country to return an applicant to a country deemed safe through which the applicants has travelled, where their application is to be processed. This new practice provides the basis for most of the transfer of asylum seekers out of the countries in which they initially applied for asylum (ECRE 1995; Lavenex 1999). Taken together, SCO and

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STC – already in place in most of the EU member states – have drawn sharp criticism as deflective of access and duties, and problematic both in terms of denial of justice and the potential of harm to removed asylum seekers (Bouteillet-Paquet 2003; ECRE 1995; 2004; Fitzpatrick 1994; Lavenex 1999; UNHCR 2003). From the start, NGOs have been instrumental in documenting the risks removed asylum seekers face, particularly those cases that resulted in harm to the asylum seeker (ECRE 1995). UNHCR and the NGO community express unified concern about wholesale designation of STC for all individuals, ignoring the particulars of the applicant. The inability of applicants to rebut the designation of a particular third country as safe in their case is presented as problematic for due process. The adopted draft also exports the German so-called “super safe third countries” concept (those countries bordering an enlarged EU) to the EU (ECRE 2004). Currently, these countries include Albania, Belarus, Bulgaria, Croatia, Macedonia, Romania, the Russian Federation, Serbia, Norway, Turkey, Ukraine, and Switzerland – many of which are arguably ill-equipped to handle asylum applications and/or are refugeeproducing countries themselves. Opposition to this directive occasioned an unprecedented hostile move from European NGOs who called for it to be abandoned – the so-called “nuclear option.” “Proposals to designate certain countries as ‘safe countries of origin,’ or ‘safe third countries,’ and the absence of a guaranteed right for all asylum seekers to remain in a country of asylum pending an appeal,” argued the organizations, “violate EU Member States’ international obligations” (ECRE et al. 2004). UNHCR also echoed these concerns and, in October 2003, observed that the STC norm could: … due to insufficient safeguards or vague terminology lead to asylum seekers being summarily sent back to non-EU countries without any guarantee that their asylum claim will be properly dealt with there. Such countries might be transit countries, with which the asylum seeker has no firm connection whatsoever, or even a country where the asylum seeker has never set foot. (UNHCR 2003) UNHCR’s Europe Bureau chief went on to refer to such an eventuality as a “clear case of avoiding responsibilities” arising from international obligations (UNHCR 2003). The opposition was further inflamed by the recent expulsions from Malta, Italy (Lampedusa), and Spain (Ceuta and Melilla). In mid-2003, 220 shipwrecked Eritrean asylum seekers were removed from Malta back to Eritrea whereupon they were arrested. In January 2004, Italy deported approximately 1500 individuals from Lampedusa to Libya, eliciting a critical resolution from the EP that Italy’s conduct undermined its nonrefoulement obligations, a clear reference to international obligations (European Parliament 2005a). Finally, in September 2005, hundreds of sub-Saharan Africans attempted to gain access to EU territory by scaling razor-wire fences in the Spanish enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla in Morocco. Spain responded by forcibly returning these individuals to Morocco. “Countries at Europe’s periphery will continue to be tempted to deny refugees their right to seek protection [equality of access argument], while people fleeing for their lives and liberty will be forced to take ever greater risks [physical harm argument],” opined ECRE (2005a). “Meanwhile Europe is thrusting the responsibility for

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border control and refugee protection onto its neighbours [reference to noncompliance with regional and international law],” argued AI (2005). UNHCR joined this debate by considering “the lack of adequate safeguards in the super-safe and safe country provisions to be potentially dangerous to refugees … in direct contravention of international law … starting with an EU member state” (UNHCR 2004). Jesuit Refugee Service issued a press release illustrating such harm, using the example of expulsions from Spain (Ceuta and Melilla) to Morocco, and subsequently further afield (Jesuit Refugee Service 2005a). Concurrently, NGOs concentrated their efforts on the EP, a perceived ally. They provided draft language for amendments to the EP’s Rapporteur in the LIBE Committee (see, for example, Jesuit Refugee Service 2005b). These proposed amendments clearly demonstrate the legal and technical sophistication with which NGO arguments were substantiated, reflecting a thorough understanding of the regional and international legal instruments applicable in this case. The Parliament eventually rendered its opinion in September 2005 and offered no less than 102 amendments to the Draft Directive, many of which were suggested by NGOs (European Parliament 2005b). These efforts notwithstanding, this proposal was adopted by the JHA Council in December 2005 (JHA Council 2005), ignoring all of the amendments proposed by the EP during the consultation process. The STC issue, which was the most acrimonious even between the Member States, was left inconclusive at that time. When the JHA Council met again in February 2006, it instructed the Commission to continue working and noted that the Council plans to “consult” the EP before reaching a final decision on STC (JHA Council 2006). Predictably, this drew ire from the EP, which expected a new instrument would invoke the co-decision procedure, and galvanized another round of (arguably last ditch) efforts by NGOs to battle the Directive. Several NGOs encouraged the EP to consider a challenge at the ECJ (Caritas Europa 2006). The Standing Committee of Experts on International Migration, Refugee and Criminal Law (Meijers Committee) sent a letter to the LIBE Committee of the EP asking them to consider starting an Article 230 TEC procedure for the annulment of the Directive on the grounds that it is at variance with the nonrefoulement provisions of the Geneva Convention (international instrument) and does not comply with Article 3 of the ECHR (regional instrument) which protects against torture. Citing a recent judgment of the ECtHR, the Committee questioned the compatibility of the Directive with the responsibility of conducting “a rigorous scrutiny … of an individual’s claim that his or her deportation to a third country will expose that individual to treatment prohibited by Article 3” (Meijers Committee 2005, quoting the 11 July 2000 Jabari decision of the European Court of Human Rights). The Meijers Committee and Caritas further challenged the February 2006 decision of the JHA Council on procedural grounds, arguing that any separate instrument on SCO or STC would need to be concluded through co-decision, for Article 67 TEC prescribed a movement to codecision after the Council adopted “common rules and basic principles” for asylum procedures. As the first phase of the CEAS was already completed with the adoption of the Procedures Directive, they argued, any subsequent initiative would have to be decided upon with QMV and co-decision. Clearly, sophisticated legal analysis, both of substantive refugee law and of the EU’s institutional machinery, is necessary to successfully make these arguments. These efforts are also illustrative of non-policy-specific goals being pursued by NGOs. First, they seek

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to constrain an overbearing and adversarial Council. Second, they seek to strengthen the hand of the EP which is not only a perceived ally but also the only elected body of the EU. Third, they seek to initiate a process of legal oversight on procedural aspects of JHA cooperation, a situation that could well result in the Union’s own judicial instance reminding the Council of the EU’s internal and international legal obligations. This important – if probably Sisyphic – strategic move for NGOs advocating such an option is clearly directed at altering existing POSs. Should the EP prevail on this issue, this would also strengthen the hand of an ally to which they have the best access. This brief overview of the politics of producing this directive is instructive for several reasons. One can argue that, throughout this process, NGOs have done “all the right things”: they consistently framed asylum as a human rights issue both in their rhetoric and in their copious written feedback, pointed to EU conduct infringing on the legal right of asylum seekers to have their cases heard, documented serious risks of bodily harm to applicants, and highlighted noncompliance by juxtaposing European conduct and policies with its stated broader commitments to human rights, democracy, and the rule of (international and regional) law. They provided alternative proposals including language that could readily be incorporated into draft instruments, established and sustained contacts to personnel in EU institutions, and closely followed the policy cycle and provided feedback at each juncture. They also attempted to advocate against a decisionmaking apparatus which produced lowest-common-denominator policies. Their strategy packages also included persuasion (couched in technical legal arguments) and confrontation (played out in the media as they formally denounced upcoming policy proposals). At the international level, NGOs sought to link up to UNHCR, yielding converging critique of the EU. At the regional level, they linked across by strengthening their Brussels-based networks and targeted various EU bodies. And finally, they also linked down by mobilizing national and local NGOs, informing them of developments both in the policy and procedural spheres, and facilitating national and local access to EU-level institutions.9 And yet, the Procedures Directive was adopted over sustained objections of not only NGOs but also the UNHCR and the EP, not to mention the Commission whose initial proposal was emaciated. Why? One explanation, grounded in the regional level, is that despite the relative gains in the institutional POS, the decision-making context that produced this instrument was still not conducive to achieving the desired changes. The securitarian mindset evident in the JHA Council and in numerous national capitals from the outset had been heightened, making it increasingly difficult to bracket immigration and asylum from “the politics of exception,” and to successfully reframe the discourse. Another explanation can be found from the international scene: the state of the global refugee protection regime, which is the strongest reference point for NGO advocacy, continues to tilt towards sovereignty (Barnett 2001). Now the very concept of asylum is called into question, NGO advocacy efforts face an uphill battle, despite the relative sophistication with which they are pitched.

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Conclusion NGOs have been surprisingly resilient in JHA. A professional cadre of NGO entrepreneurs has emerged in Brussels and engages the dossier at multiple levels (national, regional, and international), in multiple settings (EU institutions, and regional and national media), at various points in the policy cycle (conceptualization, formulation, adoption, and implementation), and through sophisticated strategy packages (agenda setting, solution development, networking, resource generation and deployment, framing, and accountability seeking). The global and regional human rights regime that prevails, in particular for refugees and asylum seekers, is instrumental in outlining constraints on state behavior. As a result, NGOs consistently frame and engage the asylum debate in human rights language, and oppose the development of a restrictive regime in the EU, not least because, as Young (2005:89) observes, regimes tend to have “impacts that go well beyond the confines of specific problems to generate more or less significant impacts on the international society as a whole.” The POSs that govern this field are multilayered and fluid (see also Greenwood, Chapter 7 in this volume), which has been both a constraint and an opening for NGOs. The initial decision-making apparatus was arguably inopportune for NGOs. Institutional reform has somewhat improved the POS. NGOs are thus engaged in dual advocacy: in addition to their substantive work in this area, to a lesser extent they also advocate reforming the policy process, stressing the need for EU practice to align with its professed commitments to democracy, transparency, and accountability. There is clearly increased European-level NGO activity in JHA. While their material resources are limited and often contingent, they have been relatively successful in deploying non-material resources such as networks and contacts, electronic dissemination, legitimacy and reputation, moral authority, and technical expertise. The Brussels-based NGOs have also assumed the role of multilevel interlocutors, “explaining Europe” to their national counterparts in an effort to inform and/or mobilize them, networking with their peers on the regional level to exchange information and/or coordinate activities, acting as the link between EU institutions and national and local civil society, and linking up, across, and down to relevant actors. However, although their ability to navigate multiple levels is useful, it does not guarantee success. Given the current POS, NGO strategy focuses on keeping key issues on the agenda while, at the same time, attempting to arrest deterioration of protection. This has been a challenge from the very start of the inclusion of JHA into the mandate of the EU, and it continues to present difficulties especially as the POS expands on the one hand (through institutional reform), and contracts on the other (through the politics of exception and securitization).

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References Alston, P. and Weiler, J.H.H. (1998) ‘An “Ever Closer Union” in Need of a Human Rights Policy’, European Journal of International Law, 9(4): 658–723. Amnesty International (2005) ‘EU Member States Threatening the Integrity of the International Refugee Protection System: Amnesty International’s Open Letter to the UK Presidency on the Occasion of the Justice and Home Affairs (JHA) Council’, 12 October 2005, edited by UK Secretary of State, Brussels. Barnett, M. (2001) ‘Humanitarianism with a Sovereign Face: UNHCR in the Global Undertow’, The International Migration Review, 35(1): 34. Bigo, D. (2002) ‘Security and Immigration: Toward a Critique of the Governmentality of Unease’, Alternatives, 27 (Supp. 1): 63–92. Bouteillet-Paquet, D. (2003) ‘Passing the buck: A Critical Analysis of the Readmission Policy implemented by the European Union and its Member States’, European Journal of Migration and Law, 5: 359–77. Brysk, A. (1993) ‘From Above and Below: Social Movements, the International System, and Human Rights in Argentina’, Comparative Political Studies, 26(3): 259–85. —— (2005) Human Rights and Private Wrongs: Constructing Global Civil Society. New York: Routledge. Burgerman, S. (2001) Moral Victories: How Activists Provoke Multilateral Action. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. Caritas Europa (2006) ‘Challenge to the Directive 2005/85/EC on Minimum Standards on Procedures in Member States for Granting and Withdrawing Refugee Status’, edited by MEP Giuseppe Gargani, Brussels. Carrillo, J.A. (1986) ‘The European Convention on Human Rights and the Asylum Seeker’, in: Council of Europe (ed.) The Law of Asylum and Refugees: Present Tendencies and Future Perspectives. Strasbourg: Council of Europe: 27–37. CCME (2001) Safe Haven not Fortress. Brussels: CCME. Ceyhan, A. and Tsoukala, A. (2002) ‘The Securitization of Migration in Western Societies: Ambivalent Discourses and Policies’, Alternatives, 27: 21–41. Clark, A.M. (2001) Diplomacy of Conscience: Amnesty International and Changing Human Rights Norms. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Costello, C. (2005) ‘The Asylum Prodecures Directive and the Proliferation of Safe Country Practices: Deterrence, Deflection and the Dismantling of International Protection?’ European Journal of Migration and Law, 7: 35–69. Curtin, D. and Peers, S. (2002) ‘Joint submission by the Standing Committee of Experts on International Migration, Refugee and Criminal Law, the Immigration and Law Practitioners Association, Statewatch, and the European Council of Refugees and Exiles to Working Group X (Freedom, Security, Justice) of the Convention on the Future of Europe’. Utrecht and London. ECRE (1995) ‘“Safe Third Countries:” Myths and Realities’. London: ECRE. —— (1997) ‘Position on the Functioning of the Treaty on European Union in Relation to Asylum Policy’. London: ECRE. —— (2004) ‘ECRE’s Recommendations to the Justice and Home Affairs Council on the “Safe Third Country” Concept at its Meeting on 22–23 January 2004’, Available online at http://www.ecre.org/eu_developments/procedures/index.shtml (accessed 3 March 2004). —— (2005a) ‘New Berlin Walls Won’t Work: EU Must Act to Stop Deaths at Borders and Respect Refugee Rights’, Available online at http://www.ecre.org/press/Melilla.htm (accessed November 2005).

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—— (2005b) ‘The Way Forward, Europe’s Role in the Global Refugee Protection System: Towards Fair and Efficient Asylum Systems in Europe’. Brussels: ECRE. ECRE, Amnesty International, and Human Rights Watch (2004) ‘Refugee and Human Rights Organizations across Europe call on EU to Scrap Key Asylum Proposal’, Brussels. ECRE, ENAR, and MPG (1999) ‘Guarding Standards, Shaping the Agenda’, Brussels. European Commission (2000) ‘The Commission and Non-Governmental Organizations: Building a Stronger Partnership’. Brussels: European Commission. —— (2001) ‘Proposal for a Council Directive on Minimum Standards on Procedures in Member States for Granting and Withdrawing Refugee Status,’ Official Journal, C62 (E/231). —— (2002) ‘Amended Proposal for a Council Directive on Minimum Standards on Procedures in Member States for Granting and Withdrawing Refugee Status.’ Brussels: European Commission. European Parliament (2005a) European Parliament Resolution (of 14 April 2005) on Lampedusa, 21 October 2005. —— (2005b) ‘Report on the Amended Proposal for a Council Directive on Minimum Standards on Procedures in Member States for Granting and Withdrawing Refugee Status’. Fitzpatrick, J. (1994) ‘Flight from Asylum: Trends Toward Temporary “Refuge” and Local Responses to Forced Migrations’, Virginia Journal of International Law, 35 (Fall): 13–70. Florini, A. (2003) The Coming Democracy: New Rules for Running a New World. Washington DC: Island Press. Florini, A.M. (ed.) (2000) The Third Force: The Rise of Transnational Civil Society. Washington DC: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Friedman, E.J., Hochstetler, K. and Clark, A.M. (2005) Sovereignty, Democracy, and Global Civil Society: State–Society Relations at UN World Conferences. Albany: State University of New York Press. Geddes, A. (2003) The Politics of Migration and Immigration in Europe. London: Sage. Grabbe, H. (2001) ‘How does Europeanization affect CEE Governance? Conditionality, Diffusion and Diversity’, Journal of European Public Policy, 8(6): 1013–31. Huysmans, J. and Buonfino, A. (2006) ‘Politics of Exception & Unease: Immigration, Asylum and Insecurity in Parliamentary Debates on Terrorism in the UK’. Paper presented at the Annual Convention of the International Studies Association, San Diego. Ibrahim, M. (2005) ‘The Securitization of Migration: A Racial Discourse’, International Migration, 43(5): 163. Jesuit Refugee Service (2005a) ‘Africans Deported from Spain and Morocco Risk Death in Sahara Desert’. Brussels: JRS. —— 2005b) ‘JRS-Europe’s Suggestions of Amendments to Article 17 of the Amended Proposal for a Council Directive on Minimum Standards on Procedures in Member States for Granting and Withdrawing Refugee Status’. Brussels: JRS. JHA Council (2005) ‘Council Directive 2005/85/EC of 1 December 2005 on Minimum Standards on Procedures in Member States for Granting and Withdrawing Refugee Status’, Official Journal, L 326: 13–34. —— (2006) Press Release: 2709th Council Meeting, Justice and Home Affairs. Keck, M. and Sikkink, K. (1998) Activists Beyond Borders: Advocacy Networks in International Politics. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. Lavenex, S. (1999) Safe Third Countries: Extending the EU Asylum and Immigration Policies to Central and Eastern Europe. Budapest and New York: Central European University Press. —— (2001) ‘The Europeanization of Refugee Policies: Normative Challenges and Institutional Legacies’, Journal of Common Market Studies, 39: 851–74. Lavenex, S. and Uçarer, E.M. (2004) ‘The External Impact of European Integration: The Case of Immigration Policies’, Cooperation and Conflict, 39(4): 417–43. Meijers Committee (2005) ‘Article 230 TEC Action Directed against the Recently Adopted Directive on Minimum Standards on Procedures in Member States for Granting and

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Withdrawing Refugee Status’, edited by Members of the Committee on Civil Liberties. Utrecht: The European Parliament, Justice and Home Affairs. Monar, J. (2001) ‘The Dynamics of Justice and Home Affairs: Laboratories, Driving Factors and Costs’, Journal of Common Market Studies, 39(4): 747–64. Niessen, J. (2000) ‘The Amsterdam Treaty and NGO Responses’, European Journal of Migration and Law, 2: 203–14. —— (2002) ‘Consultations on Immigration Policies in the European Union’, European Journal of Migration and Law, 4: 79–83. Nussbaum, M.C. (2006) ‘Capabilities, Human Rights, and the Universal Declaration’, in: R.P. Claude and B.H. Weston (eds.) Human Rights in the World Community. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press: 27–39. OXFAM (2005) Foreign territory: The Internationalization of EU Asylum Policy. Oxford: OXFAM. Price, R.M. (1997) The Chemical Weapons Taboo. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. —— (2003) ‘Transnational Civil Society and Advocacy in World Politics’, World Politics, 55(4): 579–606. Risse, T. (2000) ‘The Power of Norms versus the Norms of Power: Transnational Civil Society and Human Rights’, in: A.M. Florini (ed.) The Third Force. Washington DC: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace: 177–209. Risse, T., Ropp, S.C. and Sikkink, K. (1999) The Power of Human Rights: International Norms and Domestic Change. New York: Cambridge University Press. Standing Committee of Experts on International Immigration, Refugee and Criminal Law (1995) ‘Proposals for the Amendment of the Treaty on European Union at the IGC in 1996’. Tholen, B. (2005) ‘The Europeanization of Migration Policy: The Normative Issues’, European Journal of Migration and Law, 6: 323–51. Uçarer, E.M. (2001a) ‘From the Sidelines to Center Stage: Sidekick No More? The European Commission in Justice and Home Affairs’, European Integration Online Papers, 5(5). —— (2001b) ‘Managing Asylum and European Integration: Expanding Spheres of Exclusion?’ International Studies Perspectives, 2(3): 291–307. —— (2003) ‘Justice and Home Affairs’, in: M. Cini (ed.) European Union Politics. Oxford: Oxford University Press: 294–311. —— (2006) ‘Burden-Shirking, Burden-Shifting, and Burden-Sharing in the Emergent European Asylum Regime’, International Politics, 43(2): 219–40. UNHCR (2003) ‘Safeguards Needed for EU Asylum Rules on “Safe Countries,” Warns UNHCR’, Available online at http://www.unhcr.org/cgibin/texis/vtx/news/opendoc.htm?tbl=NEWS&page=home&id=3f7ac0577 (accessed 3 March 2004). —— (2004) ‘UNHCR Regrets Missed Opportunity to Adopt High EU Asylum Standards’, Available online at http://www.unhcr.org/cgibin/texis/vtx/news/opendoc.htm?tbl=NEWS&page=home&id=40921f4e4 (accessed 2 February 2006). Young, O.R. (2005) ‘Regime Theory and the Quest for Global Governance’, in: A.D. Ba and M.J. Hoffman (eds.) (2005) Contending Perspectives on Global Governance: Coherence, Contestation and World Order. New York: Routledge: 88–109.

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Notes 1 This analysis is based on a review of strategy and policy documents produced by the principal NGOs working at the EU level. Initial structured interviews were conducted in October–November 2005 with the following NGO stakeholders: Churches Committee on Migrants and Exiles (CCME), European Union Law Enforcement Cooperation (EULEC), European Council on Refugees and Exiles (ECRE), Amnesty International (AI) EU Office, the European Women’s Lobby (EWL), Migration Policy Group (MPG), United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), Jesuit Refugee Service (JRS), Caritas Europa, and the Platform for International Cooperation on Undocumented Migrants (PICUM). EU institutional actors, including desk officers from the European Commission and Members of the European Parliament, were also interviewed during this period. The author gratefully acknowledges a fellowship from the American Association of University Women which in part supported the field research for this project. 2 In Al Kaar v. Switzerland, the Court found that even in a case where the asylum application is inadmissible, repatriation of the individual to the state of ordinary residence might, in exceptional circumstances, raise problems that would fall under Article 3 of the ECHR (Carrillo 1986:32). 3 Interviews, 6 October 2005, 5 October 2005, 23 November 2005. 4 Interview with Commission desk officer, 23 November 2005. 5 Interview, 23 November 2005. 6 Interview, 23 November 2005. 7 MPG has commissioned a lawyer to draft no less than six such draft directives, collectively referred to as the Amsterdam Project. See Niessen (2000). 8 These are Caritas Europa, CCME, Commission of the Bishops’ Conferences of the EC, International Catholic Migration Commission, Jesuit Refugee Service–Europe, and Quaker Council for European Affairs. 9 Interviews, September–November 2005.

10 Pan-European NGOs and social rights Participatory democracy and civil dialogue Pauline P. Cullen Introduction International institutional contexts which provide access to NGOs also exert influence on the strategies and frames NGOs employ, as Locher and Joachim argue in this volume. One example is access afforded by the EU in the form of support for the formation of “platforms” or EU-level coalitions of NGOs working on social policy issues. As a context for interest groups, the EU has been characterized as a distinctive brand of neo-pluralism, understaffed for its policy reach, deficient in representative democracy, and, as a consequence, dependent on interest groups and NGOs for both generating expertise as well as legitimacy by acting as conduits to European publics (see Greenwood, Chapter 7 in this volume). This chapter examines how the EU institutional context for social policy influences the strategies of the EU-level social NGO community. I argue that two symbiotic elements shape NGO strategies: (1) the prevailing practices used by EU officials to consult NGOs; and (2) the policy dynamics which have characterized EU social policy development. With respect to the former, the EU offers no formal system of accreditation. EU officials have resisted formalizing a system of NGO consultation, and as a result a collage of de facto practices has evolved, including the civil dialogue (discussed below) and other efforts at procedural reform (see Greenwood, Chapter 7 in this volume). Consequently, NGOs work in a fluid, informal and semicorporatist context, which privileges large and well-resourced organizations employing insider tactics. NGOs are further constrained by the dynamics of EU social policymaking which are closely guarded by national governments and which generate programmatic initiatives rather than a framework for the redistribution of resources. However, despite these constraints, NGOs eager to influence the EU’s growing competency in social policy have taken advantage of EU funding and consultation opportunities. In their role as consultants and EU program administrators, NGOs have also become dependent on EU funds for their operational activities. Opportunities for NGO mobilization have been generated by a coincidence of agendas, namely EU officials since the late 1970s looking for “partners” to help expand specific policy competencies in the area of social policy, and NGOs recognizing the potential of the European Economic Community (EEC) and later the EU to mobilize beyond the state for social change. While this “marriage” of interests has marked the emergence and growth of a network of social NGO coalitions, it has also generated a relatively narrow strategic repertoire from which NGOs draw. Namely, professionalized

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NGOs using conventional tactics are most likely to receive EU funds and to be invited to participate in EU consultative forums. As Greenwood suggests (Chapter 7 in this volume), access made available to NGOs is also bound up with significant funding conditionalities and limiting notions of accountability, transparency, and representativeness applied to organizations working in the social policy field. NGOs do require resources to sustain their campaigns through the EU’s complex and highly technical policy processes. While participation in EU programs and activities enables organizations to attempt this form of mobilization, it also requires NGOs to closely follow funding competitions and to conform both to strict accounting procedures and to demands for short-term efficiency. NGO acceptance of program funding also brings with it an expectation to promote EU social policy. This “cheerleading function” can in turn de-legitimate NGO advocacy for policy change (Armstrong 2001; Cullen 2003). The NGOs in this case study1 are a diverse range of social justice organizations that formed a coalition in 1995 with EU funds, the European Social Policy Platform (hereafter the Platform), to build strategic alliances between NGO actors and EU officials aimed at influencing EU social policy. Organizational members of this coalition represent the interests of marginalized groups such as women, the disabled, disadvantaged youth, the elderly, and the unemployed. I argue that Platform strategies reflect the constraints and opportunities which accompany the specific policy area they target, their dependence on EU funding, and the lack of an EU-level codified consultative status. This chapter outlines how the Platform, cognizant of the dependency suggested by the funding it receives, has looked to the EU’s planned constitutional revi sion and specifically a legal article, A-147 on participatory democracy, to provide the Platform with a financially supported form of access. I begin by detailing the major developments within EU social policy-making as a context for an examination of the Platform. Next follows an outline of the emergence of the Platform, its origins, formative years, and current relations with the EU institutions. What then follows is an overview of the relevant institutional elements shaping the political opportunity structure (POS) for NGO engagement in the field of EU social policy. To illustrate the effects it has on the strategies of NGOs, I focus on the development of the civil dialogue, a tradition of access for NGOs working on social issues. I conclude with an overview of the Platform’s efforts to improve its experiences of civil dialogue by mobilizing on the proposed revision of the EU’s legal structures as a means to secure a codified right to consultation on social policy matters. EU social policy: target and terrain for NGO activism From its inception EU policy-making has privileged economic imperatives and, in particular, the completion of the European open market. However, the EU, in part due to the continuing efforts of the European Commission to enlarge its sphere of competence, and reinforced by judgments of the European Court of Justice, has also developed a tradition of policy-making on social issues. During the 1980s efforts were made by the Commission to fashion social policy concerns alongside economic issues as a “social dimension” to EU policy. This led to the development of a Social Charter and

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subsequently the Social Protocol of the Maastricht Treaty in 1991, which included a number of social policy advances including health and safety, working conditions, workers’ consultation, equal opportunities and treatment, and the integration of those excluded from the labor market. The Amsterdam Treaty in 1997 introduced a treaty article on discrimination (Article 13) but made no new spending commitments. The Fourth Social Action Programme (1998–2000) continued to reflect the labor market orientation of EU social policy: it stressed “jobs, skills and mobility” and “the changing world of work” as well as an “inclusive society” as its areas of operation (Geyer 2000). Resistance from Member States to an expansion of the EU “social dimension” and to what has been framed more recently as the “European Social Model” have led to the abandonment of any direct attempt to harmonize national policies, and to the shift to an “open method of coordination” (OMC). This shift in policy focus introduced in 2000 and revised in late 2005 is loosely referred to as the Lisbon process. Its main policy method involves Member States agreeing on a set of non-binding common objectives and engaging in planning and review activities with the aim of progressively establishing a European-wide framework of analysis and action. For social policy this has involved the production of national plans on poverty and social inclusion on a biennial basis (Daly 2006:465). Analyses support the notion that the Lisbon process marks a shift to a further privileging of economic objectives over social goals in EU policy-making (Chalmers and Lodge 2003). While EU social policymaking maintains its anchor in worker-related issues, the establishment of the Platform and many of its members is illustrative of the role NGOs have played in promoting the EU approach to social policy. The Platform for European social NGOs In 1993 the Commission introduced a wide-ranging consultative document called the Green Paper on European Social Policy. This publication was significant in suggesting the establishment of a formal dialogue between the EU institutions and NGOs working on social policy issues. A NGO Forum organized by a small group of organizations was held in April 1994 to formulate an official NGO response to the Green Paper. NGOs continued to meet on an informal basis and produced a series of common positions including a proposal for a subsequent NGO Social Policy Forum held in 1996. Building on their interactions and contacts, NGOs aimed at establishing a broader and ongoing dialogue with the European institutions on questions of social policy. The Commission supplied funding, and in 1995 the Social Platform was established. By the late 1990s, the Platform had a membership of 40 organizations and had developed into a formalized structure recognized by the EU institutions, Member State governments and other nonstate actors as the central point of contact with EU-NGOs (Cullen 2003). The Platform states that its members “work to build an inclusive society and promote the social dimension of the European Union.”2 It is comprised of both advocacy and social-service-provider NGOs, including ones such as COFACE (Confederation of Family Organisations in the European Union, a conservative family rights NGO), the European Women’s Lobby (EWL, a liberal feminist organization), and conservative antipoverty organizations such as the faith-based social service NGO Caritas. Other member organizations include the European Network Against Racism (ENAR), the EU office of

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the International Lesbian and Gay Association (LGA), the European Anti-Poverty Network (EAPN), Age Europe working for older people’s rights, and an organization representing service providers for the homeless – FEANTSA. Disability NGOs also have a strong profile within the Platform’s membership. They include the European Disability Forum (EDF), the European Blind Union (EBU), and Mental Health Europe (MHE). A rationalization of the coalition’s work program, a formalization of procedures to elect representatives from its members, and an expansion and professionalization of its secretariat have been key to enabling such diverse organizations to communicate and organize coherent campaigns (Cullen 2005). Individual Platform members target a variety of policy areas in which the EU has differing levels of policy competency. Target areas include women’s rights, public health, and social welfare where the EU has policy reach, and housing policy and anti-racism where EU competencies are weaker. The coalition periodically highlights most of these policy areas, but maintains campaigns on EU policy initiatives of a more horizontal nature such as Social Policy, Fundamental Rights and Non-Discrimination, Social Services, and the Social Rights of Migrants. The coalition also campaigns on regularizing and strengthening dialogue between the EU and NGOs through working groups on the Constitution and the Future of Europe and Participatory Democracy and Good Governance.3 An analysis of the formative years of engagement between the Platform and the EU does suggest that NGOs gained valuable access to policy-setting arenas and established a political presence. However, they were also subjected to constant demands from EU officials to substantiate their accountability, and because Platform members directed their focus to official EU agendas, they became vulnerable to thematic shifts which affected their funding priorities. EU officials were also uneven in their commitment to the NGO coalition, providing funds for large public events but reluctant to establish a schedule of formal meetings. Despite a stance of “benign neglect,” where officials oscillated between symbolic commitments and sporadic material support, NGOs managed to sustain their coalition and survive funding and organizational crises. The Platform ran a successful campaign in 1998 to restore diminished EU funding for NGOs, and more recently influenced a controversial Commission proposal aimed at applying principles of economic deregulation to social services. The inclusion of NGOs at inter-governmental meetings and, in the process, NGOs input into crafting a new EU constitution also attest to the institutional recognition the Platform has received (Wilson and Alhadeff 1999; Ruzza 2004; Lahusen 2004; Cullen 2005; Cram 2006). The EU political opportunity structure: access as grace and favor An analysis of the evolution of a pattern of NGO access to the Commission, and specifically to the Directorate General on Employment and Social Affairs (DG EMP), exemplifies the EU’s structuring influence upon NGO agents and the range of strategic opportunities as well as constraints generated for NGOs. An account of the origins of the largest NGOs and the founding members of the Platform further reveals the symbiotic relationship which has existed between NGOs and Commission officials, and the development of present forms of access for particular NGOs. While some organizations

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were established independently and without EU support, many emerged directly from Commission programs. For example, EAPN and the European Disability Forum, both founding Platform members, emerged respectively from EU poverty programs and the EU anti-discrimination program HELIOS (Cram 1997). In a similar vein, a number of organizations developed because of Commission-funded initiatives. FEANTSA, for example, initially emerged from a DG EMP-funded conference on homelessness held in Dublin in 1985 (Harvey 1992:181). Most EU funding of NGOs is dedicated to the implementation of specific policies and/or projects that are part of EU programs designed to support policies.4 A much smaller amount is dedicated to support the advocacy activity of NGOs, covering up to 90 percent of their operational costs. Organizations receiving this form of funding are few in number and include Platform members such as the EWL and ENAR. Notably, competition for grant support is intense. The application process demands significant resources which can cost up to one-third of the actual funds awarded if the NGO application is indeed successful (Firth 2005). The Commission is also notorious for being late with payments, placing NGOs dependent on such funds at financial risk. NGOs must also compete annually to renew funding. In the event that they fail to configure their activities to fit the current EU policy focus, NGOs can quite abruptly lose operational and project support.5 DG EMP is the major institutional focus for Platform NGOs seeking to influence policy and gain access to funding. DG EMP also exemplifies the Commission’s technocratic and compartmentalized approach to social policy programming. For example, the DG EMP anti-discrimination unit describes the funding made available to NGOs under the Community Action Programme to combat discrimination as “Commission funds for four European umbrella NGO networks representing and defending the rights of people exposed to discrimination – one per ground of discrimination.”6 Policy segmentation of this order has led to the appearance that specific organizations now monopolize EU budget lines and has also created significant resentment from NGOs excluded from the Commission’s selection. All of the organizations funded under the anti-discrimination budget belong to the Platform.7 Tensions have arisen within the Platform between those organizations receiving this funding and those who cannot integrate their organizations to fit with shifts in the EU’s current funding priorities.8 NGOs are also afforded access to the EU policy process. However, access does not in itself constitute influence. In effect, there remains considerable diversity and a pervasive ambiguity across EU bodies about what NGO access means and who qualifies for inclusion. Greenwood and Halpin (2005) have documented the inconsistencies in Commission policy and practice towards establishing formal relations with EU NGOs. In general terms, access is granted when institutional imperatives coincide with NGO agendas. Where access is granted, it is often virtual (internet-based) and partial (restricted to certain information and only at particular points in the policy cycle) (Cullen 2003; Smismans 2004). The Platform has played an important role in consolidating and rationalizing NGO access in the form of its civil dialogue with the Commission. In the next section, I discuss the development of the civil dialogue initiative and detail the manner in which this form

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of access illustrates the structuring influence of the EU institutional milieu on the Platform. EU consultation of NGOs: the civil dialogue Periodic attempts by Member States, such as, for example, the United Kingdom in the early 1990s, to downgrade EU efforts to expand the Commission’s scope on social policy matters, together with a series of democratic crises culminating in the resignation of the entire Commission in 1999, left EU officials searching for a method to restart the EU project and connect to disillusioned citizens. The Platform provided an answer as a potential mechanism to bridge the gap between citizens and the EU policy process, on the one hand, and a site for an elaborated civil dialogue, on the other (Cullen 2001; 2003; 2005; Greenwood and Halpin 2005; Cram 2006; Greenwood, Chapter 7 in this volume).9 Although civil dialogue infers NGO engagement with all of the EU institutions, in reality the Commission is the major institutional context for NGO mobilization.10 Despite its high level of openness to NGOs’ concerns and input, the European Parliament has so far opted for more informal methods of interaction. The Council, by contrast, has remained at a distance (Fazi and Smith 2006:38). The action frames which dominate the civil dialogue are those associated with insider strategies. For example, NGOs take part in bi-annual meetings with Commission officials on macro-policy issues to discuss general policy strategy, engage with the Commission on a more regular basis through policy-related meetings aimed at building political consensus, participate in information meetings funded by a specific program, and are invited to ad hoc meetings on specific issues or seminars, workshops and roundtables aimed at capacity-building for EU officials. Moreover, NGOs are present at open hearings and conferences, such as citizens’ summits organized alongside EU intergovernmental summits, which offer visibility but limited opportunities for direct policy input. Finally, NGOs can also submit policy proposals via public internet portals. Along with these structured forms of dialogue, an important amount of dialogue takes place on a more informal basis, often through bilateral meetings with Commission officials. This is perceived to be a more direct channel to make one’s voice heard, but tends to only be open to the most established networks (Fazi and Smith 2006:27–29). Clearly civil dialogue has provided the Platform funding and intermittent ac cess to policy-setting arenas. However, it is imperative to resist the impulse to exaggerate the influence and consistency implied by this form of access, and to neglect the constraints imposed on NGOs investing in this form of engagement. NGOs are constrained by the significant investment of resources required to cultivate relations, prepare policy submissions, and attend meetings. In return for project support and occasional consultation on proposed policy initiatives, NGOs are also expected to be broadly supportive of Commission policy objectives. While NGOs interviewed did not recount occasions where they were told that funding was contingent on their support or lack of criticism of Commission policy, constraints were understood to exist in a more subtle fashion. For the Platform this was exemplified by the reality that the manager within the Commission dealing with the dossier for renewal of their financial support was also the person responsible for relations with civil society and correspondingly their interlocutor

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in terms of policy-making. This conflation of roles presented a challenge for the Platform in their efforts to secure sufficient resources to achieve their strategic objectives while preserving their independence. While the Platform has been explicit and direct in its criticism of the Commission, the director did admit that for some officials such critique had strained relations and was understood as a form of ingratitude.11 Officials often view NGOs as similar to private interests and/or conceive of them as vehicles to sell the Union to EU citizens (Cullen 2003).12 EU officials were characterized by NGOs as holding unrealistic expectations, “while willing to listen to NGO input, the kind of things they want are not necessarily the kind of things that NGOs can deliver.”13 Many Commission officials only valued NGO consultation in the form of a technical dossier. This was problematic for NGOs: the more technical their submission became, the more useful they appeared to the Commission, but also the greater the distance grew between their message and their members in the national NGOs. Moreover, NGOs not prepared to supply technical information risked losing credibility in EU policy-making circles. This tension was referred to as “stretching the elastic between the policy-maker and the NGOs at the national level a long way,”14– a process, NGOs suggested, that EU officials simply did not seem to understand. NGOs surveyed also suggest that while they may have been invited by Commission officials to participate in policy debate, their input was at times simply discarded with no feedback or explanation from officials. NGOs investing significant resources to prepare a policy submission likened this experience to that of dealing with a “black hole”. Deliberations on the establishment of an EU Fundamental Rights Agency and an EU policy on Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) were cited as cases in point (Fazi and Smith 2006:50–58). Regarding the latter example, the Commission produced a report suggesting that NGOs had been supportive of the final recommendations, when in fact they had registered their dissent on the final product of the forum on CSR. Time frames for consultation, established under a Commission code of conduct in its consultation practices, were also routinely ignored, inhibiting NGO efforts to communicate with their national affiliates in constructing the “representative” input the EU desires (Cullen 2005; Fazi and Smith 2006).15 Criticism has also been voiced with respect to selection mechanisms. A comprehensive survey of NGOs working at the EU level shows that there is a lack of clarity and transparency in the way stakeholders are chosen for involvement in the dialogue (Greenwood, Chapter 7 in this volume; Fazi and Smith 2006). Organizations which may seem the more relevant choice for inclusion in policy consultation may be excluded in preference for ones with better relations or a higher profile with particular EU officials.16 The OMC, discussed above as a policy field for the elaboration of civil dialogue, has also proven a mixed experience for NGOs looking for opportunities to influence social policy development. As a mechanism for social policy development, OMC relies on soft law, benchmarking, and blaming and shaming through peer evaluation of Member States’ national action plans on poverty and social inclusion. While the OMC does provide for the participation of civil society groups, NGOs report that they have been marginalized in consultative processes aimed at revising models to assess Member States’ progress on social policy benchmarks. The Platform was effectively excluded from consultation on the Commission’s 2003 Communication on OMC, and only managed to exert some

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influence over the final policy framework in a circuitous fashion by gaining access to leaked documents.17 OMC is now a central tool in social policy, and although the EU is formally committed to involve NGOs, members of the Platform have thus far experienced difficulties in taking part. Frustrated with the inconsistencies within civil dialogue, Platform NGOs turned to the drafting process of the EU constitution, particularly Article 1–47, aimed at establishing a form of participatory democracy, as a vehicle to revive political will for a codified and funded system of NGO consultation. The EU Constitution: Article 1–47 and civil dialogue The Convention on the Future of Europe, established by the European Council in December 2001, was tasked with bringing citizens closer to the EU and reorganizing the European political area in an enlarged Union. The Convention’s job was ultimately to draft a new constitutional treaty which was submitted to an Inter-Governmental Conference of European ministers in 2004; they, in turn, negotiated the final version that was subsequently presented to European publics for ratification. EU-level NGOs, including the Platform and its members, did gain access to Convention members and were able to secure the concept of civil dialogue within the draft revised Treaties in the form of the Treaty Article 1–47 on participatory democracy (Cullen 2005; Fazi and Smith 2006). Article 1–47 referred to “representative associations” and “civil society” having rights to “open, transparent and regular dialogue” with the institutions of the Union (CONV 820/03). During the ratification process, the Platform, working through a broader coalition of NGOs (the Contact Group), refused to openly support a ratification of the Constitution. Instead, the Platform, much to the displeasure of EU officials, situated itself as a “neutral” arbitrator of the content of the proposed Constitution.18 Its members disseminated national tool kits, including information on how national- and local-level civil society organizations could take part in the ratification process, as well as sectoral assessments of the constitution’s implications for specific constituencies.19 These tool kits framed NGOs as crucial actors in informing the public and holding politicians accountable.20 However, the EU’s decision to conduct the last rounds of negotiations behind closed doors and the failure of the Convention to engage national constituencies in the process contributed to the defeat of the draft constitution in France and the Netherlands in May and June of 2005. The subsequent decision by EU leaders to enter into a period of “reflection” on the future of the EU treaties provided the Platform with an additional set of opportunities to mobilize on the issue of a funded civil dialogue grounded in Article 1–47 on participatory democracy. Participatory democracy and civil dialogue Since the mid-1990s NGOs had sought to frame the civil dialogue as a space for funding to support NGO advocacy. Familiar with long rehearsed debates regarding the accountability of NGOs working close to international institutional arenas while in

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receipt of funds, NGOs were also keenly aware of the contradictions which arise between project support and political advocacy. For many activists, these contradictions manifest themselves not only in the perceptions of EU officials, who conceive of NGOs as transmission belts for the Commission’s projects at the national level, but also in the Commission’s rationale to fund NGOs so “that they can get the Commission’s message out to national NGOs.”21 These tensions were not deemed a problem when the national NGO networks agreed that EU social policy can be used as a lever to improve the situation of their constituents. According to one activist, many organizations are, however, becoming increasingly critical of EU initiatives and therefore ask, “… why [is it that …] the network that they have created at the European level tells [them] that this process is good when [they] find it useless at the national and local level?”22 For the Platform director, the key problem lies with activity-based funding, i.e. funding linked to a policy area, because it requires an organization to be involved in an activity but, at the same time, comply with additional objectives of promoting the EU’s policies.For example, ENAR receives funding from the Commission’s program to represent those who risk discrimination, but they must also promote the EU’s antidiscrimination policies. In his eyes, the tension resulting from performing both of these functions could be resolved if: 1) NGOs representing disabled people, for example, were granted access to a consultative forum based on the recognition that this group experiences disadvantage and requires additional support for their views to be included in the EU policy-making process; and 2) these NGOs were judged on their ability to complete this task, instead of whether they were in line with the other policy objectives of the non-discrimination strategy of the EU. For NGOs, the solution was clear: a rights-based guarantee of funding to represent voices excluded from EU policy-making separately sourced from their involvement in project work and also divorced of any expectation to sell the EU to their constituents. Only when these conditions were met, an effective civil dialogue could take place. NGOs considered Article 1–47 on participatory democracy to be an excellent vehicle to secure the establishment of a clear EU policy in the area of the civil dialogue because it had the potential to guarantee the autonomy that these civil society organizations desired while allowing them to resist the constraints that they currently faced.23 Accordingly, Platform members focused their subsequent campaigns on the concept of participatory democracy and employed frames which emphasized EU disunity, Member State self-interest, and citizen disillusionment as the key factors now threatening to derail the EU project, and which identified NGOs as the solution to revitalizing the quality of citizen engagement.24 Conclusion Commission programs aimed at tackling the constitutional deadlock continue to frame NGOs as conduits for the communication of the EU project. They include, among others, Plan D for Democracy (October 2005), a Communication Strategy (July 2005), and a Communication White Paper (February 2006). While Plan D for Democracy reproduces some of the elements of early civil dialogue focusing on the provision of both funds for public events on the EU and the national level as well as internet portals for citizen input (see Greenwood, Chapter 7 in this volume), the Communication Strategy and the

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associated White Paper propose an EU-wide working method to improve the process of “communicating Europe.” They include terms such as “information,” “communication,” or “democracy” – all of which are, however, poorly specified. Although NGOs are recognized as having a role to play in these programs, the Platform has pointed out that “the objective of delivering a message is omnipresent.” Moreover, in the eyes of its members, the goal of these various initiatives remains unclear. In the case of the White Paper, for example, the question is asked: “… is it about informing, delivering a message or ensuring effective citizens’ participation?”25 NGOs are equally skeptical of yet another EU initiative which seeks to improve transparency at the EU level and identifies public funding of NGOs amongst a list of potential problems, because they are of the opinion that transparency can only be achieved when “public funding of civil society is provided to ensure an independent civil dialogue.”26 In general, civil society organizations have been critical of the civil dialogue, as such, for its lack of transparency and its resemblance to a system of patronage or an apparatus for the imposition of responsibilities rather than a mechanism to confer enforceable rights (Armstrong 2001; Obradovic 1999; Kohler-Koch 2004). Engagement at the EU level does demand that NGOs function simultaneously as cheerleaders for the EU project, representatives of and service providers to their national constituents, and policy advisors. These are at times incompatible tasks and ultimately reveal the inconsistencies which lie at the heart of the EU strategy to use NGOs to address the democratic deficit at the EU level. Also, because the civil dialogue hinges to a large extent on personal and informal relations, a lack of trust and mutual understanding between NGOs and EU institutions has, on occasion, resulted in consultation being nothing more than a formal exercise (Fazi and Smith 2006). Finally, while NGOs play a key role as whistle-blowers in monitoring the implementation of EU legislation, there have been only limited channels for formal involvement in this phase of the policy cycle. Considering that many NGOs do have extensive informal ties with EU officials, why are they so eager to pursue formal consultative status? One motivating factor is that a treaty article on civil dialogue would grant them a degree of financial security and confirm EU competence with respect to social policy. Another is the Commission’s tradition of consultation, which continues to deny NGOs the benefits of such a status, but forces upon them some form of regulatory criteria. In her examination of the role of transnational social movements in restructuring international policy-making, Sikkink (2002) suggests that besides formal recognition through accreditation, the real power of international NGOs is conveyed through informal ties or what others have referred to as the persuasiveness which accompanies the use of soft, communicative, or discursive power (Drysek 1999). The key to this kind of power is the ability to introduce new discourses and agendas, and to constitute new actors within international policy-making contexts. However, for soft power to have any effect, it must be imbued with a certain degree of autonomy. For international NGOs working through international institutions and receiving financial support from them, independence is more difficult to achieve. In the case of the EU, key to NGOs efforts to increase their “autonomous” access to EU policy-setting arenas, remove some degree of their financial insecurity, and insulate themselves from the moderating elements of the EU’s POS, is formal status guaranteed by a treaty article on civil dialogue and participatory democracy.

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Such an article has the potential to release them from their cheerleading functions and to enhance the soft, communicative power that they already possess. In responding to the questions posed in this volume, I suggest that international intergovernmental institutions understood as agentive forces do matter for NGOs and the strategy packages they employ. As “guardian” of the civil dialogue, the Platform does face a relatively narrow set of strategic choices. While insider tactics are rewarded and guarantee access, they come with conditionalities and the costly investment of resources to maintain the expected professionalized, personalized and expert-oriented forms of engagement. Hence, the civil dialogue supports the thesis advanced by Joachim and Locher (editors of this volume) that the EU is particularly receptive to NGOs which engage in lobbying and employ technical expertise, but inhospitable to ones using voice strategies. Regardless of whether direct-action NGOs such as ATTAC (Association for the Taxation of Financial Transactions for the Aid of Citizens, whose campaign was central to the French rejection of the proposed EU constitution) are interested in what the civil dialogue has to offer, for the Platform the crucial challenge remains to mobilize in close proximity to their EU sponsors while resisting the contradictory demands and moderating effects of Brussels-based activism on social policy issues. References Armstrong, K.A. (2001) ‘The White Paper and the Rediscovery of Civil Society’, EUSA Review (14) 4, 1: 3–8. Chalmers D. and Lodge M. (2003) ‘The Open Method of Coordination and the European Welfare State’, in: Carr Discussion Paper No. 11. London: Economic and Social Research Center Analysis of Risk and Regulation: 1–23. Civil Society Contact Group (2005) ‘Ratification of the European Constitution NGO Toolkit’. —— (2006) ‘Submission on the Plan D, Communicating Europe and Communication White Paper’. Cram, L. (1997) Policy-Making in the EU: Conceptual Lenses and the Integration Process. London: Routledge. —— (2006) ‘Civil Society, Participatory Democracy and Governance of the Union: The Institutionalization of a Fiction’. Paper presented at the Osnabrück workshop on European Governance, November 2006. Cullen, P. (2001) ‘Coalitions Working for Social Justice: Transnational NGOs and International Governance’, in: J.M. Bystydzienski and S.P. Schacht (eds.) Forging Radical Alliances Across Difference. Maryland: Rowman and Littlefield: 249–64. —— (2003) ‘Sponsored Mobilization: European Union Non-Governmental Organizations, International Governance and Activism for Social Right’, PhD diss. Albany: SUNY at Stony Brook. —— (2005) ‘Conflict and Cooperation within the Platform of European Social NGOs’, in: J. Bandy and J. Smith (eds.) Coalitions across Borders: Negotiating Difference and Unity in Transnational Struggles against Neoliberalism. Maryland: Rowman and Littlefield: 71–94. Daly, M. (2006) ‘EU Social Policy After Lisbon’, Journal of Common Market Studies, 44(3): 461–81. Drysek, J. (1999) ‘Transnational Democracy’, Journal of Political Philosophy, 7(1): 30–51. European Council (2004) ‘Council Decision of 26 January 2004 Establishing a Community Action Programme to Promote Active European Citizenship (Civic Participation)’, 2004/100/EC. Luxembourg, 4 February 2004.

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Fazi, E. and Smith, J. (2006) Civil Dialogue: Making it Work Better. Brussels: Civil Society Contact Group. Firth, P. (2005) Striking A Balance: Efficiency, Effectiveness and Accountability: The Impact of the EU Financial Regulation on the Relationship between the European Commission and NGOs. Brussels: Open Society Institute. Geyer, R. (2000) Exploring European Social Policy. Cambridge: Polity Press. Greenwood, J. and Halpin, D. (2005) ‘The Public Governance of Interest Groups in the European Union: Does Regulating Groups for “Representativeness” Strengthen Input Legitimacy?’ Paper prepared for the ECPR conference, Budapest, September 2005. Harvey, B. (1992) Networking in Europe. London: National Council for Voluntary Organizations and Community Development. Kohler-Koch, B. (2004) ‘Debating the Union’s Participatory Democracy and the European Constitution’. Contribution to the Economic and Social Committee Conference Participatory Democracy: Current Situation and Opportunities Provided by the European Constitution, Brussels, 8–9 March 2004. Lahusen, C. (2004) ‘Joining the Cocktail Circuit: Social Movement Organizations at the European Union’, Mobilization: An International Journal, 9: 55–71. Platform of Social NGOs (2004) Social Voices 7. Brussels: Platform of Social NGOs. —— (2006a) Strategic Plan. March. Brussels: Platform of Social NGOs. —— (2006b) European Transparency Initiative: Response of the Social Platform. September. Brussels: Platform of Social NGOs. Ruzza, C. (2004) Europe and Civil Society. Manchester: Manchester University Press. Obradovic, D. (1999) ‘The Distinction between the Social and Civil Dialogue in the European Union’, Current Politics and Economics of Europe, 9(1): 39–64. Sikkink, K. (2002) ‘Reconstructing World Politics: The Limits and Asymmetries of Soft Power’, in: S. Khagram, J. Riker and K. Sikkink (eds.) Reconstructing World Politics: Transnational Social Movements and Norms. Minnesota: University of Minnesota Press: 308–10 Smismans, S. (2004) Law, Legitimacy, and European Governance. Functional Participation in Social Regulation. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Wilson, S. and Alhadeff, G. (2002) European Civil Society Coming of Age. Brussels: Platform of Social NGOs.

Notes 1 This work draws from analyses of NGO and EU documents and 25 interviews with activists and officials conducted in July 2004. 2 Platform of Social NGOs (2006a: 2). 3 Platform of Social NGOs (2006a: 3). 4 One example is the EU Daphne Programme aimed at combating violence against children, young people, and women. 5 Solidar, a long established social policy NGO and Platform member, lost its major form of EU support in 2004 to NGOs which were deemed to better fit within the EU’s then focus on anti-discrimination initiatives. 6 http://europa.eu.int/comm/employment_social/fundamental_rights/civil/civ_en.htm (accessed 11 March 11 2005). 7 For example, out of a Program’s annual budget of 19,000 000 AGE (The European Older People’s Platform); ILGA Europe (International Lesbian and Gay Association – Europe); ENAR (European Network Against Racism); and EDF (European Disability Forum) are being granted a total of 3,000 000 towards their running costs up to the end of April 2007.

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http://europa.eu.int/comm/employment_social/fundamental_rights/civil/civ_en.htm (accessed 11 March 11 2005). 8 Interview with director of the Platform, 9 July 2004. 9 Greenwood in Chapter 7 and others (see, for example, Cullen 2003 and 2005) have charted the development of the civil dialogue in a series of Commission initiatives, starting with Declaration 23 in 1991 and culminating ten years later in an explicit commitment to civil society at the EU level in the White Paper on European Governance. 10 NGOs and EU officials cite that a major weakness of the civil dialogue is its lack of development beyond particular officials in the Commission. 11 Interview with director of the Platform, 9 July 2004. 12 The assumption that NGOs supported by EU funds should, by extension, sell the EU project to their members seems to be further insinuated by the Platform’s current funding source under a program intended to actively promote European citizenship through the spread of European Union values and objectives as well as the conduct of conferences, seminars, workshops, networking, exchanges of experience and education and training events (European Council 2004). 13 Interview with NGO respondent, 15 July 2004. 14 Interview with director of the Platform, 9 July 2004. 15 Commission initiatives on non-discrimination, the establishment of a gender equality agency, a fundamental rights agency, and a code of conduct for lobbyists are also cited as examples where NGOs have been denied access to consultation. 16 Interview with director of the Platform, 9 July 2004. 17 Lobbying by NGOs, including the European Anti-Poverty Network (EAPN) and FEANTSA (European Federation of National Organisations Working with Homeless), (both members of the Platform), was deemed critical for the EU to change its approach to OMC and, more generally, the Lisbon Agenda (Daly 2006:476). 18 Platform of Social NGOs (2004:6–7). 19 Civil Society Contact Group (2005:4). 20 Civil Society Contact Group (2005:5). 21 Interview with director of the Platform, 9 July 2004. 22 Ibid. 23 Interview with director of Age Europe, 12 July 2004. 24 Participatory democracy, a concept which originated in the American civil rights and New Left social movements, acknowledges citizens’ right to participate in public life outside of the channels of representative democratic practice. Its resonance with the NGO community lies in its emphasis upon the role of civil society organizations as important mediators in public debates. It has become the catch phrase for NGOs seeking to regularize and secure financial support for a form of NGO consultative status. 25 Civil Society Contact Group (2006:6). 26 Platform of Social NGOs (2006b: 3).

11 NGOs and security The case of the European Union Matthias Dembinski Introduction According to a widely shared belief, the EU’s Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) still resembles the cozy diplomats’ club of the former European Political Cooperation (EPC): i.e. it is an area closely controlled by Member States with only limited input from EU organs, and with practically no interference from societal actors (Nuttall 2000). This chapter challenges this popular view. It argues that the area of Europe’s foreign and security policy is populated by numerous non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and other societal actors. Following the overall approach of this volume and the aim of determining the agency of NGOs, I analyze the institutional incentives and restrictions facing civil society organizations in the CFSP, as well as their reactions to them. Although this chapter is based on only one detailed case study, I try to generate further insights about the role of NGOs in the realm of foreign policy by comparing the findings with established knowledge on interest representation in the first pillar (the Economic and Monetary Union). The non-hierarchical, multilevel decision-making system of the EU proves to be a fertile ground for the growth of interest groups. Next to Washington, Brussels is regarded as the city with the highest density of representatives of societal interests, ranging from industry, employer, and labor groups all the way to civil society organizations and NGOs (Greenwood 2007; Eising 2003; Mazey and Richardson 2001; Platzer 1999). In contrast to neo-functional expectations, most interests represented at the European level are organized in response to, and not in advance of, integrative steps (Kohler-Koch 1997:46; Fligstein and Stone Sweet 2001). In the area of foreign policy, development NGOs were the first to move to Brussels, followed by human rights groups and, beginning in the late 1990s, peace-building NGOs. Apart from the finding that the quantitative amount of civil society activity is less than that in the first pillar – a finding which could be easily explained with the comparatively late emergence of the CFSP – it appears at first as if the patterns of interest representation are not qualitatively different in those two policy areas. A closer look, however, yields interesting variations. In the first part of this chapter, I describe the political opportunity structure and ask whether the area of CFSP offers specific conditions for NGOs. I argue that while access in the second pillar (the Common Foreign and Security Policy) is more restricted than in the first pillar, the incentives and restrictions confronting NGOs are similar. Hence, one would expect that although NGO activity and influence in this area

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will continue to be less, mobilizing and framing strategies will nevertheless resemble those in the first pillar. The second part of the chapter analyzes the behavior of NGOs. I show that NGOs working in the area of CFSP are indeed forced to adopt strategies similar to those used by NGOs in the first pillar, but that major differences regarding the status of NGOs in the first and the second pillar nevertheless prevail and these are consequential for the agency of these civil society organizations. Two minor case studies focusing upon the activities of peace-building NGOs underpin these findings. The political opportunity structure of the CFSP Multilevel governance and interest representation Before embarking on a discussion of the specific access conditions in the second pillar, as compared with those in the first, I describe more general characteristics of the political opportunity structure which pertain to both domains, beginning with the sui generis character of the EU. Contrary to that of states, the EU’s system of governance is nonhierarchical, and compared with traditional international organizations, the degree of delegation to the EU is unusually high (Pollack 1997). Institutional differences between the first and the second pillar are issues of degree rather than of substance. Unlike its more informal predecessor, the EPC, the CFSP is part of the EU treaty, albeit separated from the European Community (EC) and organized under a second pillar where special rules apply. Since its inception at the Maastricht summit in 1991, the scope and institutional design of the CFSP has developed considerably. The Treaty of Amsterdam of 1997 added the position of a High Representative and a policy unit. The Helsinki summit of the European Council (December 1999) established the European Security and Defense Policy (ESDP) as an integral part of the CFSP and created a new permanent decision-making body – the Political and Security Committee – as well as new organs within the Council Secretariat. The hallmark of the ESDP is its focus on conflict prevention and management, and the tight integration of civil and military instruments (Howorth 2007). With respect to voting rules, the principle of unanimity is more guarded in the CFSP than in the first pillar, despite the existence of formal provisions for majority voting. Furthermore, the role of the European organs is more restricted. The Commission is fully involved, but lacks the monopoly of initiative. The Parliament is deprived of its codecision role and downgraded to that of a commentator while the European Court of Justice (ECJ) is a mere bystander. The role of the Council Secretariat, by contrast, has been enlarged. In addition to the Troika, the High Representative and the Special Envoys are increasingly representing the Union. The policy unit as well as Directorate E of the Council Secretariat which is officially tasked with supporting the High Representative and the Presidency, are increasingly involved with the preparation and implementation of Europe’s Foreign and Security Policy. Even though the second pillar is more inter-governmental in nature, it would be wrong to conclude that that the Member States are firmly in the driver seat. First, many foreign policy issues like association policy or development policy fall within areas of mixed competencies where EU organs wield more institutional power. Second, the Commission

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possesses valuable competencies and instruments that are necessary to implement European foreign policy. For example, the European crisis prevention and management policy follows a multifaceted approach in which military instruments, controlled by the Council, are closely coordinated with civilian instruments like development policy or democracy promotion, which are controlled by the Commission. The consensual mode of decision-making in the second pillar coupled with mutual dependencies between different actors and the significant input of large, self-interested non-state bureaucracies, such as the Commission, provide incentives for rule-based behavior, give greater importance to expertise and ideas (Kohler-Koch 2002; KohlerKoch and Edler 1998), and encourage the delegation of additional tasks to European bodies. As a result, the European political process is characterized by path-dependency as well as a discursive style and a preference for win-win solutions rather than redistributive policies (Scharpf 1997). Whether the institutional structure of the EU decreases or increases the chance of interest groups to influence political outcomes is still contested (for a skeptical view see Grande 1996). The literature on interest representation in the EU agrees, however, that the European institutional system conditions interest representation in significant ways and benefits some types of NGO as well as mobilizing some resources and framing strategies at the expense of others. Starting with rather practical considerations, it has been noted that interest groups are not confronted with a shortage but rather an oversupply of potential routes to power (Grande 1996). Because policy-making in the EU is a continuous process, evolving on different levels and within different institutions, groups need to lobby several institutions simultaneously and continuously. Conditions such as these favor NGOs with a permanent presence in Brussels and with professional staff over grassroots organizations. Furthermore, integration scholars have pointed out that the consensus orientation of the European policy process and the importance it places on win-win solutions instead of redistributive policies privileges NGOs which possess expert knowledge, are interested in dialogue and able to frame their issues in terms of a common interest, and advance an agenda that resonates with established norms and ideas. By contrast, it marginalizes NGOs that rely on voluntary staff, represent a political message or an ideological viewpoint, do not shy away from engaging in protest, and are pursuing an agenda that favors redistribution or challenges established normative and cognitive patterns (KohlerKoch 1996:210; Fetzer 2002:378). Second pillar institutions as gate-keepers to the political process In the first pillar, the Commission is still regarded as the main interlocutor for societal interests. As Greenwood points out (see Chapter 7 in this volume), most DirectorateGenerals (DGs) are not only engaged in continuous and comprehensive consultations with societal interests, but they also nuture NGOs and NGO-networks to establish a counterweight to input from producer interests (Eising 2000:14; Commission 2000:2, 13).1 By consulting with interest groups, the Commission pursues different aims. First, it hopes to benefit from the expertise and knowledge of those who know the sector best (European Commission 2002:5). Second, it uses “European NGOs as additional channels for the distribution of information on the EU to as many people as possible” (European

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Commission 2000:7), and, third, it makes use of societal actors to implement its policy and to reduce the costs of monitoring (Héritier, Knill and Mingers 1996). Furthermore, the Commission expects that the direct participation of stakeholders – those affected by its directives – will increase both the legitimacy and the effectiveness of European governance and will, thus, help to solve the intractable democratic deficit of the EU. Finally, it hopes that support from civil society actors will boost its own standing vis-àvis the Council. In short, by consulting extensively with civil society organizations, the Commission pursues a model of participatory democracy where legitimacy is achieved by the input of a plurality of affected stakeholders in a given sector. Although the European Parliament remains ambivalent about the concept of stakeholder participation, its factions, groups, and the understaffed offices of its Members constitute a second access point for interest groups (Corbett, Jacobs and Shackleton 2000; Shackleton 2002:101). Like members of the Commission, most Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) are interested in expertise and technical advice, preferably in a form which makes it directly usable for parliamentary work. In contrast, the Council is still being perceived as relatively inaccessible. At first glance, the political opportunity structure in the second pillar appears to be rather similar. European bodies engage with NGOs, make use of their advice, technical know-how and services, and in exchange offer access to the political process. For example, DG Development works closely with a group of development NGOs and contributes heavily to their projects and core financing. A second glance, however, reveals significant differences in the realm of foreign and security policy. These differences relate both to the status of the societal actors involved and to institutional rules. Regarding the former, stakeholders are outside of the EU polity. Contrary to NGOs in the first pillar which by reference to local constituents can rightly claim to represent affected interests, those in the second pillar are more self-declared advocates of the common good than representatives of affected parties. Although there are some real stakeholders, like the increasingly influential defense industry, most interests are diffuse and therefore difficult to organize at the European level. This, in turn, makes it rather unlikely that the Commission will ever succeed in creating pluralist patterns of representation by empowering NGOs. Most probably foreign policy will remain a particular field where citizens, in contrast to stakeholders, will express ideological views instead of defending positions about common goods. These structural differences between the policy fields of the first and the second pillar are likely to remain and are likely to discourage initiatives by the Commission aimed at strengthening NGOs. The DG on External Relations (RELEX) is seemingly aware of this difference. Compared to other DGs, its consultation culture with NGOs is less developed and less institutionalized. RELEX organizes open consultations on specific topics like the future of the transatlantic partnership or the TACIS programme, which provides grant-financed technical assistance to 12 countries of Eastern Europe and Central Asia. So far, however, only five open consultations have been conducted since 2000.2 (In comparison, DG Environment has conducted 60 open consultations during the same period.) Moreover, contrary to other DGs which maintain consultative committees and use them as institutionalized settings for consultations with stakeholders, RELEX does not follow that path. Instead, representatives of the DG meet occasionally with NGOs and make use of NGOs’ expertise. However, here too the quantity and quality of meetings lacks far behind

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those of other DGs. While the Commission did finance some NGO activities, such as tasking the German Institute for International and Security Affairs to run a Conflict Prevention Network (CPN) (Rummel 2003), its activities were interpreted by some observers as an attempt to buy services rather than a sincere effort to empower a civil society organization. This interpretation became increasingly popular when the Commission discontinued the project because CPN did not fulfill its expectations.3 In the case of the European Parliament, institutional constraints weigh heavier. From the point of view of peace-building NGOs, working with the EP offers advantages and disadvantages. On the one hand, the EP is the place where NGOs find easy access and natural allies like MEPs from green and left-wing parties. On the other hand, the Parliament still has significantly less competence in the second pillar than in the first. Therefore the verdict that, in the second pillar, alliances of NGOs and MEPs are “coalitions of the weak” (Kohler-Koch 1997:6–7) appears appropriate. Working with the EP might be useful for generating attention and for pushing new issues on the agenda – however, when it comes to influencing policy outcomes and implementing policy, the EP is merely a springboard for NGOs to gain access to the Commission and the Council. Although most observers perceive the Council of Ministers as the least accessible of the three supranational institutions (Hayes-Renshaw and Wallace 1997), this position is not entirely accurate in the case of the second pillar. The accessibility of the Council is improving for two reasons: first, the process of “Brusselization” (Allen 1998; Howorth 2001), i.e. the creation of permanent structures in Brussels like the High Representative, the Military Staff, the Committee for Civil Aspects of Crisis Management (CIVCOM), and the Political and Security Committee (PSC); and second, changes in the nature of foreign policy. Classical diplomacy, defined as the art to influence the delicate balance of power among autonomous states, is giving way to an understanding of transnational relations where state executives are increasingly concerned with growing interdependencies and are confronted with new security issues which demand a direct access to societies of other states. Because private actors possess unique abilities and resources like neutrality and access to third countries, governments accept them as partners to tackle transnational problems and as a means to influence societal conditions in other states. Evidence for this can be found at both the European level, where Council and the Commission bureaucracies make use of NGOs to implement their programs, and the national level, where state representatives take advantage of their expertise to influence the embryonic European public opinion and to further their interests. In general, scholars report an increasing willingness of state representatives and Council bureaucrats to interact with NGOs (Weitsch 2005). Core documents, too, call for an exchange of views between EU bodies and NGOs. Until recently, however, this exchange had mostly been sporadic, informal and ad hoc. For example, the Policy Unit in 2003 discontinued its practice to hold annual informal meetings to which individual NGOs had been invited (Gourlay 2006:19–20). Moreover, peace-building NGOs briefed the PSC and CIVCOM on a number of occasions (Gourlay 2006:19), but did so only in an ad hoc fashion. NGO participation also varies across the policy cycle. While NGOs have been less involved in the EU’s early warning process and in the decision-making process leading to ESDP operations, they have been more prominent at the field level where they contribute to implementing policies.

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Recently, however, there have been some signs of an institutionalization. It has become common practice that each Presidency hosts at least one event in cooperation with NGOs on conflict prevention and peace-building.4 Furthermore, following an initiative of the Finnish Presidency, the PSC has adopted Recommendations for Enhancing Cooperation with NGOs in the Framework of EU Civilian Crisis Management in November of 2006. In this document, the CIVCOM proposed inter alia regular exchanges between NGOs and appropriate Council bodies, NGO input in the preparatory phase of ESDP missions, and the identification of NGO liaison officers within the Council Secretariat (Council 2006:3). A regular dialogue between members of the CIVCOM and NGOs was launched under the German Presidency in the first half of 2007. In addition, the New Instrument for Stability, which was created in the context of the reform of the EU financial instruments in 2006, allows for the effective provision of financial support for NGOs and their peace-building activities (European Parliament 2006). Finally institutionalization gained new momentum under the Finnish Presidency which launched a project entitled Role of Civil Society in Crisis Management (RoCsI) in cooperation with two Finnish NGOs – the Civil Society Conflict Prevention Network KATU and the Crisis Management Initiative founded by Martti Ahtisaari in 2000 – and the European Peace-building Liaison Office (EPLO). Intended to close the cooperation gaps between EU bodies and NGOs, the project has already entered into its second phase under the German Presidency (RoCSII) (Federal Foreign Office 2007). Similar to EU institutions, Member States also appear to be engaging and promoting NGOs and their activities more than they did before. In many issue areas, state representatives build like-minded coalitions with NGOs trying to influence the political process. Examples include coalitions in the area of export controls (Anders 2003) or landmines (Long 2002). Like the Commission and the EP, individual states and the Council are interested in gaining low-cost access to information and services. More importantly, they are increasingly accepting that NGOs and other interest groups create a kind of embryonic European public space which is connected with the national public arenas. Presenting and defending their own policy before this audience and using this audience to discredit opposing policy initiatives has become one of the jobs of Brusselsbased diplomats. Societal interests in the field of security The NGO landscape in the area of European foreign and security policy spans the whole spectrum from grassroots organizations to highly professional NGOs and think tanks. On one end of the spectrum are organizations like the European Network for Civil Peace Services (EN.CPS). Founded in the late 1990s, EN.CPS is a loose network without its own staff which aims at coordinating national campaigns and strengthening the influence of peace groups in Europe. Recently, EN.CPS has been pushing forward the project of a European Peace Corps. The European Platform for Conflict Prevention and Transformation represents a more institutionalized network. Established in 1997 and located in Utrecht, its secretariat – the European Center for Conflict Prevention – lobbies European institutions and keeps contact with its approximately 150 NGO members, research institutions and national NGO platforms. The European section of the global

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network International Action Network of Small Arms (IANSA) was founded in 1998, is comprised of more than 80 NGOs, and is coordinated by one professional staff member based in Brussels. The other end of the spectrum is occupied by more professional groups; these can differ in size. On the one hand, there are large transnational development and human rights NGOs such as Oxfam, World Vision, Greenpeace, or Amnesty International, which have reacted to the overlap between peace issues and their core concern by pursuing initiatives in the area of conflict prevention and arms transfers. Funding of these groups comes from different sources with contributions from national sections making up the bulk of their income. On the other hand, there are a number of smaller organizations which do both advocacy work as well as research. Most of those organizations, like the British–American Security Information Council (BASIC), Saferworld, and the International Security Information Service (ISIS), were originally geared toward the national process, but have recently extended their activities toward the European arena. In 1995, ISIS established a European subsidiary – ISIS Europe – which maintains an office in Brussels with several staffers. The Brussels-based International Crisis Group plays a prominent role as promoter of conflict prevention within the EU and as a major actor on the ground implementing European conflict prevention programs. The Belgian Groupe de Recherche et d’information sur la Paix et la Sécurité (GRIP) uses its advantage of location and, in addition to covering Belgian politics, focuses increasingly on the EU. The Centre for European Policy Studies (CEPS) and the European Policy Centre (EPC) have traditionally been focusing on the internal dimension of European politics but are nowadays also covering the external dimension. In 2001, following three years of preparatory discussions, seventeen organizations founded the European Peace-building Liasion Office (EPLO) whose Brussels office is currently staffed with six associates. EPLO is financed by its members and informs them about EU initiatives, strengthens communication among them, and lobbies European institutions. Think tanks like the recently established Security and Defense Agenda focus on traditional security concerns and represent broader constituents including the defense industry. Mobilizing resources Given the above mentioned political opportunity structure, NGOs could, in principle, trade three valuable resources for access: their reputation as experts, their provision of low-cost services, and their legitimacy. Relying on legitimacy would require that they prove their representativeness. Given their already disputable character as stakeholders, peace-building NGOs would have to provide firm evidence of their ability to communicate European issues to local groups and to channel local input or protest back to the European level. If they restrict themselves to trading information and services, proof of local roots is less important. Inherent tensions between both strategies pose a challenge to NGOs. For a long time, research regarding NGOs has pointed to a gap between their professional leadership and their local basis. Roth (2001:5) diagnoses a “growing tendency in the direction of separate worlds.” While the former concentrate on consultation with public actors and fundraising, the latter engage in grassroots activities and deplore the state-oriented attitude of the leadership. Kohler-Koch (1997:52), too, argues that association “with like-

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minded groups across borders is an act of integration which necessarily provokes disintegrating effects in the home environment.” While Christian groups and organizations like Greenpeace and Amnesty International manage to craft a compromise between both orientations, many of the NGOs and think tanks have chosen to turn themselves into experts at the cost of cutting their connections with local organizations. Insofar as they are interested in contacts with national societies, they concentrate on working with local think tanks, members of national parliaments and the media where they can profit from their status as experts. Instead of relying on contributions from national branches, many European NGOs and think tanks are increasingly tapping into alternative sources of income like grants from foundations, assistance from the Commission, or contract-work for Member States. For those NGOs, experts have become more important than organizational entrepreneurs and experienced campaign managers. How do NGOs exert influence in the second pillar? The peculiarities of the European political opportunity structure have reinforced the trend towards action frames that emphasize a professional style of consultation, i.e. insider strategies. The majority of NGOs has acquired expertise, developed a discursive and compromise-oriented style, and specializes in some areas of policy implementation. By comparison, voice strategies such as demonstrations, sit-ins, or the collection of signatures are rare exceptions, and the above mentioned grassroots organizations which are more prone to make use of such practices are less visible and, probably, also less relevant at the EU level. Instead, most of the Brussels-based NGOs have embarked on a professional advocacy style that stresses the provision of information, consultation, and networking with like-minded actors inside the institutions. Their preferred instruments include the organization of conferences as well as the publication of position papers and background analysis. Members of NGOs deliver expert opinions in parliamentary hearings or in consultations with the Commission and the Council. In addition, some NGOs specialize in implementing European policy in the area of conflict prevention and peace building. The political opportunity structure is also affecting the way NGOs frame their issues. They pronounce the “common good” and the “better solution” and avoid partisan positions and polarizing arguments. They depict their work not as directed against the EU but as a practical contribution to the improvement of the European reality. The cognitive frames prevalent inside the EU offer two rather convenient links for peace-building NGOs. First, their agenda resonates with the depiction of the EU as a civilian power. Second, peace-building NGOs can relate to the norm of democratic accountability and the widely shared recognition that the EU suffers from a democratic deficit to justify their input. Peace-building NGOs make extensive use of these cognitive frames and adopt a three-pronged strategy regarding their arguments: (1) they present the existing civilian and democratic norms as the most appropriate reference point against which actual EU policies and decisions should be measured, before (2) identifying “worrying gaps between the EU policy and the essential standards,” and (3) presenting concrete proposals as to how those gaps could be narrowed. The input provided by EPLO during the Convention for a European Constitution provides an illustrative example of this framing strategy. First the network established a reference point. In a position paper, EPLO stated that “the EU was established as a conflict prevention organization to prevent further wars in Western Europe …” and that it therefore had “… a duty and self-interest in … prevent[ing] violent conflicts and promot[ing] stability in other regions of the world.”

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Second, EPLO President Kevin Clements identified a gap between Europe’s aspiration and practice. According to his analysis, the EU had not been able to live up to its own standards because the lack of coherence among the EU pillars had prevented an effective policy. Rather than blaming bad-willed actors within the EU or Member States, Clements identified a well-known weakness of the European system as the culprit. Finally, EPLO put forward proposals aiming at “ensuring coherence between different CFSP instruments and ensuring efficiency in the decision-making process.”5 In the remainder of the chapter, I will turn to a case study which provides further and more detailed evidence of how the political opportunity structure that NGOs encounter within the second pillar affects their mobilizing and framing strategies. The European Code of Conduct on Arms Exports Adopted in 1998, the Code of Conduct establishes guidelines for the export of arms. The Code contains eight criteria that states should adhere to when exporting weapons, provisions for the exchange of information and for consultations in cases where a Member State is about to undermine the denial of another Member State in response to a potential customer, and a review mechanism. While the adoption of the Code can be mainly attributed to Great Britain, which under a newly elected government in 1997 convinced a hesitant France of the merits of such a European-wide armament agreement,6 the idea for it goes back further to the early 1990s when the British NGO and think tank Saferworld began to search for ways in which the EU could develop an arms export policy (Eavis and Greene 1991; Joachim 2005). Initially, Saferworld’s lobbying campaign relied on feasibility studies and was primarily geared towards the European Parliament, where it earned support in the form of a 1992 EP proposal that endorsed the idea of a code of conduct. To become effective, however, common interpretations of basic terms and rules were needed. Consequently, Saferworld worked with two other British-based NGOs and a team of international lawyers to develop a text containing detailed criteria for a code of conduct.7 It also set up what came to be known as the UK Code Working Group, which developed mechanisms for consultation and transparency designed to prevent EU Member States from ignoring or undermining the denial of armament transfers of other EU-States. Following the electoral victory of the Labour Party, Saferworld solicited the support of other, mostly professional, European NGOs and think tanks for a European-wide lobbying effort directed at national governments, which showed some success. By 1997 several Member States and many Members of Parliament as well as approximately 600 European NGOs had registered their support for the code (Davis 2002:100). After the first British–French proposal had been tabled and perceived as too weak, a like-minded coalition of the NGOs, MEPs, and arms-control oriented states lobbied in favor of a re-formulation of the British–French proposal. After the institutionalization of the Code, NGOs tried even more strongly to influence its further development (Dembinski and Schumacher 2005). They used the annual review process, designed as a tool to evaluate and improve the effectiveness of the Code, to press rather successfully for additional measures.8

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The expertise of NGOs and their reputation as experts proved decisive throughout the campaign for a European-wide code. Representing rather professional think tanks, Saferworld and other participating NGOs obtained access to the EP and hence were able to set the agenda from an early stage on. However, when European governments started to take up the issue of arms transfers and discussed some possible initiatives, the Council became a more important target for the lobbying efforts of NGOs. COARM, the Council Working Group responsible for arms exports, as well as the EU presidency emerged as viable access points to the Council. Moreover, sympathetic Member States presented important channels of influence for NGOs and potential coalition partners. Interviews and first-hand accounts indicate that Council representatives worked with NGOs because they recognized them as experts. NGOs could be used as cost-efficient providers of information or as dialogue partners for the development of new ideas. Furthermore, some accounts and factual observations also imply that like-minded states used NGOs as tools in their positional battles against other states. For example, the Dutch presidency assumed that a study by a renowned institute would prepare the ground for harmonizing reporting and transparency practices by making strategies of shaming or beauty contests through comparison and best practice feasible; it then ordered the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) to conduct a comparative analysis on how the EU Member States responded to the transparency provisions of the Code of Conduct (Bauer 2004).9 With respect to framing, the strategies discussed above were also applied by NGOs in the case of the Code of Conduct. A major report issued by Saferworld helps to illustrate this point. In it, the organization walks a fine line between commending governments and voicing some criticism. On the one hand, Saferworld expressed satisfaction that “there has been a marked improvement in levels of transparency and accountability associated with EU arms export control,” but on the other hand deplored that “despite these advances, it remains a moot point as to whether the Code of Conduct has actually led to increased restraint in EU arms exporting.” After having analyzed the weaknesses of the European export control system, the author recommends practical ways to strengthen it.10 An analysis of the NGO campaign for a European Code of Conduct on Arms Exports also provides evidence for the thesis that the European level disadvantages grassroots groups. The fate of the British Campaign against Arms Trade (CAAT) or German groups like Ohne Rüstung Leben (Living without Arms) and Kampagne gegen Rüstungsexporte (Campaign against Arms Exports) are cases in point. These groups used to be leading forces in the national struggle against arms transfers. CAAT, for example, was set up in 1974 by a number of peace organizations after the Middle East War gave testimony to the security risks and ethical questions of unrestricted arms transfers. Representing a typical grassroots organization with no formal membership structure and no professional staff, using classical mobilizing strategies such as the collection of signatures, CAAT’s strategies proved useful in the national context, but were ill-suited for the European level. In addition to strategies, political orientations contributed to the marginalization of these NGOs at the EU level. In contrast to the pragmatic, dialogue-oriented and compromising approach favored by organizations such as Saferworld, the majority of the national organizations like CAAT, and similar groups in Germany and other countries, were much more outspoken critics of the Code of Conduct and even of Saferworld’s work (Davis 2002:95).

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Conclusion Brussels is a very advantageous and at the same time difficult terrain for NGOs. This holds especially true in the area of foreign and security policy. On the one hand, the European institutions are open, actively engage NGOs, and even provide them with material support. On the other hand, however, lobbying in Europe is a complex, timeconsuming and costly endeavor. This is mainly due to the fact that the European Union is a dialogue- and consensus-oriented entity. Its continuous negotiating machinery is geared towards the output of win-win or common goods solutions. Moreover, EU institutions demand either the input of stakeholders or technical expertise, professional know-how, and the ability to implement policy. On this terrain professional, dialogue-oriented NGOs flourish at the expense of grassroots, protest-oriented NGOs. Within the second pillar, the political opportunity structure differs in two important respects. First, the Commission is less inclined to accept NGOs as partners. Rather than viewing of NGOs as proper stakeholders, it conceives of them as self-declared advocates of the common good. Hence, working with NGOs does not necessarily further the bureaucratic interests of the Commission. Second, contrary to a widely shared assessment, this chapter challenges the assumption that the Council and its members are rather inaccessible for NGOs. The Council bureaucracy and Member States do interact with civil society organizations, make use of their information and services, and form like-minded coalitions with them. However, the accessibility of the Council does not make up for the lack of interest on behalf of the Commission. In the first pillar, NGOs are empowered by the massive support of the Commission. In the second pillar, this support is missing. Peace-building NGOs react to this rather unique opportunity structure. Most of them rely less on voice-strategies and more on expertise, and consultation and dialogue with actors inside the EU. Smaller NGOs and think tanks, especially, depend on expertise as their only mobilizing resource. For them, developing expertise and/or the ability to implement policy have become more important than networking with local movements and the ability to mobilize mass protests. The availability of alternative sources of income from EU organs, governments, and research foundations compensates for their lack of local roots. The existing opportunity structure also influences the framing strategies of NGOs. Most Brussels-based NGOs do not perceive themselves as opposed to the EU system but as part of it. By contrast, many local NGOs still perceive the EU as something to be against. Turning professional, however, has its downsides. As NGOs present themselves as technical experts or providers of services, and not as representatives of parts of the national publics, their agency may deteriorate. Representatives, as far as they can mobilize parts of society, possess political power; providers of services do not. In the end, states, and not NGOs, might turn out to be the driving factor within like-minded coalitions.

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Fligstein, N. and Stone Sweet, A. (2001) ‘Institutionalizing the Treaty of Rome’, in: A. Stone Sweet, W. Sandholtz, and N. Fligstein (eds.) The Institutionalization of Europe. Oxford: Oxford University Press: 29–55. Gourlay, C. (2006) Partners Apart: Enhancing Cooperation between Civil Society and EU Civilian Crisis Management in the Framework of ESDP. Jyväskylä: Gummerus Kirjapaino Oy. Grande, E. (1996) ‘The State and Interest Groups in a Framework of Multi-Level DecisionMaking: the Case of the European Union’, Journal of European Public Policy, 3(3): 318–38. Greene, O. (1999) ‘Tackling Illicit Trafficking in Conventional Arms: Strengthening Collective Efforts by EU and Associate Countries.’ Report for Saferworld. Greenwood, J. (2007) Interest Representation in the European Union, 2nd edn. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Hayes-Renshaw, F. and Wallace, H. (1997) The Council of Ministers. Houndsmills: Macmillan. Héritier, A., Knill, C. and Mingers, S. (1996) Ringing the Changes in Europe: Regulatory Competition and the Transformation of the State: Britain, France, Germany. Berlin: de Gruyter. Howorth, J. (2001) ‘European Defence and the Changing Politics of the European Union: Hanging Together or Hanging Separately?’, Journal of Common Market Studies, 39(4): 765–89. —— (2007) Security and Defence Policy in the European Union. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Joachim, J. (2005) ‘From an Intergovernmental to a Governance System? The European Code of Conduct on Arms Exports and Non-Governmental Organizations’. Paper presented at the General IR Conference of the German Political Science Association, Mannheim. Kohler-Koch, B. (1996) ‘Die Gestaltungsmacht organisierter Interessen’, in: B. Kohler-Koch and M. Jachtenfuchs (eds.) Europäische Integration. Opladen: Leske and Budrich: 193–222. —— (1997) ‘Organized Interests in European Integration: The Evolution of a New Type of Governance?’, in: H. Wallace and A.R. Young (eds.) Participation and Policy-Making in the European Union. Oxford: Clarendon Press: 42–68. —— (2002) ‘European Networks and Ideas: Changing National Policies?’ in: European Integration Online Papers 6(3). Available online at http://eiop.or.at/eiop/texte/2002–006a.htm> (accessed February 02 2007). Kohler-Koch, B. and Edler, J. (1998) ‘Ideendiskurs und Vergemeinschaftung: Erschließung transnationaler Räume durch Europäisches Regieren’, in: B. Kohler-Koch (ed.) Regieren in Entgrenzten Räumen. Opladen: Westdeutscher Verlag: 169–206. Long, D. (2002) ‘The European Union and the Ottawa Process to Ban Landmines’, Journal of European Public Policy, 9(3): 429–46. Mazey, S. and Richardson, J. (2001) ‘Institutionalizing Promiscuity: Commission–Interest Group Relations in the European Union’, in: A. Stone Sweet, W. Sandholtz, and N. Fligstein (eds.) The Institutionalization of Europe. Oxford: Oxford University Press: 71–93. Nuttall, S. (2000) European Foreign Policy. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Peterson, J. and Shackleton, M. (2002) (eds.) The Institutions of the European Union. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Pollack, M. (1997) ‘Delegation, Agency and Agenda Setting in the European Community’, International Organization, 51(1): 99–134. Roth, R. (2001) ‘NGOs und Transnationale Soziale Bewegungen als Akteure für eine “Weltzivilgesellschaft”’. Available online at http://wwww.hgdoe.de/pol/ngos.htm (accessed 1 February 2007). Rummel, R. (2003) ‘EU–Friedenspolitik durch Konfliktprävention: Erfahrungen mit dem Conflict Prevention Network’, in: P. Schlotter (ed.) Europa – Macht – Frieden? Zur Politik der “Zivilmacht Europa”. Baden-Baden: Nomos: 240–77. Saferworld et al. (1997) ‘Proposals for an Effective EU Code of Conduct on the ArmTrade’. Saferworld (2004) Taking Control: The Case for a More Effective European Union Code of Conduct on Arms Exports. A Report by European Non-Governmental Organizations. September 2004.

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Scharpf, F. (1997) ‘Introduction: the Problem-Solving Capacity of Multi-Level Governance’, Journal of European Public Policy, 4(4): 520–38. Shackleton, M. (2002) ‘The European Parliament’, in: J. Peterson and M. Shackleton M. (2002) (eds.). The Institutions of the European Union. Oxford: University Press, 95–117. Weitsch, M. (2005) ‘European Peace Liasion Office – Dublin-Konferenz 2004. Die Rolle der Zivilgesellschaft bei der Vorbeugung bewaffneter Konflikte’, in: M. Budzinski (ed.) Europa: Zivil- oder Militärmacht? Bad Boll, Germany: 87–93.

Notes 1 The Commission’s efforts to empower diffuse interests and fringe groups are motivated by the fact that its governance model with respect to civil society will be judged on the basis of whether all affected interests have a fair chance to participate. Whether the Commission has been successful in creating a transparent and level playing field for interest groups is still up to debate. However, most observers have noted significant improvements since the publication of the White Paper on Governance. (For more details, see the Better Regulation Task Force 2005). 2 See http://ec.europa.eu/external_relations/consultations/migration_intro.htm 3 Recently, the Commission relaunched this project when it tasked the International Crisis Group, EPLO, the European Policy Centre, and International Alert to run the Conflict Prevention Partnership from September 2005 until September 2006. 4 Most of these conferences have been organized together with ISIS–Europe. Reports are available on the ISIS homepage: http://www.isis-europe.org/. 5 EPLO (2002) ‘Building conflict prevention into the future of Europe.’ Conference report and EPLO position paper on the European convention and conflict prevention. 14 November 2002, Brussels: page 7. 6 The British–French proposal for a EU Code of Conduct on arms transfers is reprinted in Saferworld et al. (1997). 7 British American Security Information Council et al. (1995). 8 NGOs registered another success with the adoption of the common position on arms brokering in June 2003 (Greene 1999). 9 This example is no exception. Organizations like Saferworld, International Alert, and IANSA receive support from numerous governments, most notably the British. 10 Saferworld (2004). While the recommendations refer to rather technical improvements of the Code that may be very useful for European decision-makers, they would probably disappoint many members of local NGOs.

PART IV Conclusion

12 Worlds apart or worlds together?Transnational activism in the UN and the EU Jutta Joachim and Birgit Locher Introduction International relations today are hard to imagine without non-governmental organizations. As the case studies in this volume demonstrate, they are engaged at both the international as well as the regional level, mobilizing support for their various causes among policy-makers. While their presence in these multilateral institutions is far from being breaking news and would not require yet another volume, it is the consequences that follow from their engagement in international organizations that we know little about and that inspired this project. Instead of following what has been a common approach of treating NGOs as an independent variable and examining how NGOs apply their resources to instigate normative changes, we proceeded from the opposite, conceiving of NGOs as the dependent variable and investigating how variation in institutional settings affect their strategies and actions. Comparing the UN and the EU across a broad range of policy fields – human rights, environment, socio-economics, and security – we found very similar proccesses that link structure to agency. Even though the political opportunity structures of both organizations vary considerably, NGOs rely on personal contacts and alliances with like-minded states for access, prefer lobbying strategies to symbolic or polarizing action, and make consensual proposals backed up by scientific expertise instead of engaging in radical criticism. Moreover, when they encounter resistance from policy-makers, they shop for different venues linking up to the international level (in the case of the EU) or reaching down to the regional level (in the case of the UN) to mobilize support. We explain these findings with the fact that both the UN and the EU tend to regulate and constrain access to their institutions in similar ways. In the following pages, we discuss these results in greater detail, before we assess their implications for the existing literature on nongovernmental and international organizations and point to avenues for future research. Worlds apart or worlds together? Empirical evidence At first glance, the UN and the EU appear to be worlds apart when it comes to admitting and interacting with civil society organizations. While the EU has been characterized as an organization sui generis due to its unique supranational multi-level governance

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character, the UN is considered a more conventional international organization. As we already alluded to in the introduction, the two organizations indeed differ significantly with respect to their scope, their membership, the norms and rules that prevail within them, and the autonomy of the various institutional bodies, i.e. their access points. However, the case studies suggest that the UN and the EU do not vary as much as we had anticipated in how they regulate access and affect NGO strategies. Both organizations offer non-governmental organizations a multiplicity of access points and within both a norm seems to have evolved of including civil society actors into the policy process (see also Reiman 2006). This is particularly true for the case of environment or human rights where NGO participation appears to be no longer questioned (see Zito and Jacobs, Chapter 8; Uçarer, Chapter 9; Hoffmann, Chapter 3; and Clark, Chapter 4 – all in this volume). To a growing degree, this is also true in the area of socio-economics (see Nelson, Chapter 5; and Cullen, Chapter 10 – both in this volume), but it is less so for the domain of security (see Wisotzki, Chapter 6; and Dembinski, Chapter 11 – both in this volume). While the norm might be the result of true conviction on the part of policy-makers, the chapters point rather to other motives. NGOs deliver information, expertise, and services at relatively low costs (Dembinski and Uçarer), endow projects and policies with additional legitimacy (Wisotzki and Greenwood), or can, as Pauline Cullen points out in the case of the EU Commission and social policy, “be ‘partners’ to help expand specific … competencies” (p. 140) and conduits for mobilizing popular support for certain policies. In the UN as well as in the EU, the norm is reflected in institutional mechanisms for civil society to be represented at the table. While the UN has a formal accreditation system, the EU’s practice of regular consultations with NGOs does not match but works de facto as such a system (see Greenwood). Although NGO participation in the UN and the EU appears to be taken for granted by now, the case studies document that this has not always been the case, that differences exist between policy fields and across the policy cycle, and that formal as well as informal mechanisms are at work that nevertheless limit access. Opportunities for civil society organizations have opened up and closed over time. In both organizations, the end of the Cold War was a watershed in terms of greater access. In the UN, it has precipitated changes in its accreditation system, making it easier for national and grassroots organizations to take part in specialized conferences (see Mingst, Chapter 2 in this volume). In the EU, the shift from a purely economic to a political union provided an opening for other than economic, agricultural, and consumer groups to mobilize at the European level; furthermore, allegations of a “democratic deficit” have prompted supranational institutions to intensify their contacts to civil society. The withering of the superpower rivalry has especially been noticeable in the security realm. Wisotzki identifies the emergence of a human security discourse in the UN as a trigger for NGO engagement, while Matthias Dembinski considers the establishment of the Common Foreign and Security Policy together with a changing notion of foreign policy in the EU as making both the security domain more attractive for civil society and policy makers more receptive to their concerns and expertise. Apart from these rather broad-sweeping changes in the political opportunity structure in the early 1990s, the empirical record suggests that access nevertheless varies quite a bit across institutions, the policy cycle (or in the case of the World Bank, the lending cycle),

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and the issue at stake. In terms of the institutions, there seems to be agreement among the contributors to this volume, that access to the various EU institutions is, as Uçarer put it, “inversely proportional to their decision-making power” (p. 126), despite the fact that various Treaty changes have introduced new modes of decision-making and endowed the Commission and the Parliament with more competencies. While the EP and the Commission are the most accessible, the Council appears rather closed off to civil society organizations (see also Greenwood). Within the UN a similar asymmetry exists with ECOSOC, its secretariats, and committees being the most receptive to NGOs, and the General Assembly as well as the Security Council still being rather reluctant to open their doors, albeit consulting increasingly with NGOs on an ad hoc basis (see Mingst or Wisotzki). With respect to the policy cycle, input from civil society organizations in both the UN and the EU appears to be welcome and actively solicited in the agenda-setting and drafting stages, but is far less appreciated when heads of states and governments enter into the negotiation stage. Access to an organization can also vary depending on the function or the issue at stake. As Nelson points out in the case of the World Bank, the willingness to include civil society is greater in matters concerning resettlement, information disclosure, or the implementation of international norms than when debt relief and finance for development is being considered. Finally, access can be tangible and temporary with a window closing as quickly as it opened. In the case of the EU, Emek Uçarer (p. 126), for example, finds that human rights NGOs had a more difficult time mobilizing support for their concerns in the aftermath of 9/11 and a subsequent “resecuritization” of asylum and immigration issues. In addition to these caveats limiting access, policy-makers in both the UN and the EU rely on formal as well as informal mechanisms to temper NGO participation. Although consultative status generally means a green light for NGOs to the UN process, Ann Marie Clark demonstrates with the case of human rights that obtaining access is not always as clear-cut and transparent a process as the criteria on which it is based suggest. On the one hand, the accreditation can be, and has been in the past, used by states for political purposes, barring access to NGOs which in their eyes have been too outspoken on human rights. On the other hand, consultative status does not guarantee unlimited access. Instead, the Committee on Non-Governmental Organizations (CONGO) has been established to evaluate accredited NGOs on a continuous basis. While the UN accreditation system constitutes a major hurdle for NGOs to obtain access, several authors in this volume point out that many agencies have installed additional screening mechanisms when it comes to admitting civil society. For example, in the case of climate change, Matthew Hoffmann found that the UNFCCC secretariat adopted the so-called constituency system in the early 1990s to regulate and organize NGO participation, grouping NGOs according to their substantive concerns. By contrast, the World Bank has no system of formal observer status for NGOs but, similar to the EU, involves them on an ad hoc and strategic basis: relying on the Civil Society Unit and the External Affairs Unit, the Bank has developed different modes of interacting with nongovernmental organizations ranging from project cooperation to invited consultations, formal appeals, and bank-brokered meetings (Nelson, p. 64). Compared with the UN, obtaining access to the EU appears easier since NGOs do not confront a formal accreditation system. However, several authors indicate that this is not necessarily the case since there are, nevertheless, important gatekeepers. The EU

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Commission plays a particularly important role in this respect. As Pauline Cullen states: access depends upon the “grace and favor” of the EU Commission (p. 144). It regulates access by encouraging and sponsoring the formation of platforms and networks, by providing funding to NGO projects, and by consulting with certain organizations on a more regular basis rather than others. Furthermore, the Council of Ministers presents a major hurdle for transnational activism: as one human rights NGO representative interviewed by Emek Uçarer (p. 127) stated, “… the problem is the Council. The Council are national politicians … and they represent their national constituencies or governments and that’s the biggest challenge for us in our advocacy work.” Finally, Anthony Zito and Jamie Jacobs identify the agenda-setting process in the EU itself as an obstacle for civil society groups, since it requires NGOs to maintain a presence throughout, follow an issue across different committees, and being on top of an overwhelmingly large portfolio – a challenge that even large NGOs are hard pressed to meet. Regardless of whether formal mechanisms exist or not, “… access to and direct influence on the negotiations and treaty provisions is …,” as one NGO representative engaged on the issue of climate change in the UN and interviewed by Matthew Hoffmann stated, “limited by the institutional context dominated by states” (p. 33). Governments can always change the format of their meetings from a formal to an informal one, a practice quite frequently adopted within the UN, making it more difficult for NGOs to follow and influence what is going on. Or they may change the venue entirely, as governments did, for example, in the case of the EU’s REACH directive when they shifted discussion from the Environment to the Competitiveness Council and tasked a Council ad hoc working group to work through the proposal’s details (Zito, p. 114). How do the particularities of the political opportunity structures in the UN and the EU regarding access affect civil society organizations? In line with our expectations, many authors in this volume examining the EU note that the organization privileges certain types of NGOs. For example, Emek Uçarer (p. 134) observes that only a “professional cadre of NGO entrepreneurs” enjoys access to the EU when asylum and immigration matters are discussed, and Pauline Cullen describes the civil dialogue in the EU as “semicorporatist” because it privileges large and well-resourced NGOs (Cullen, pp. 145–147). Zito and Jacobs suggest that successful past col labo rations, recognized expertise, and a large membership are the criteria that make certain environmental NGOs more attractive to EU institutions (Zito and Jacobs, p. 110), and Matthias Dembinski (p.156) points out that the EU system privileges NGOs with a permanent presence in Brussels and highly professional staff, while marginalizing organizations that protest and challenge established normative and cognitive patterns. Contrary to our assumptions, however, the UN appears no different in this respect. Studying human rights NGOs, Ann Marie Clark finds that there is a sense among them that the UN framework caters to larger and more experienced ones, namely those from the global North. And Paul Nelson concludes that the World Bank has succeeded in identifying and separating out the NGOs and factions with which it will (and will not) enter into discussion, and it has found NGOs that replace state agencies in implementing portions of Bank-financed projects. Obtaining and sustaining access requires money, training, and permanent representation – resources that only a select few NGOs have. Therefore NGOs pool their resources, forging alliances with each other in form of networks and platforms.

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Given the absence of a formal accreditation system, we had expected that personal contacts or alliances with like-minded states would matter more in the EU. However, the case studies do not support this hypothesis. In both organizations, NGOs use what Ann Marie Clark refers to as “work-around strategies” (p. 54). They rely on sympathetic members of governmental delegations, secretary-generals, Commissioners or Members of Parliament to obtain access. While such contacts often prove very reliable, they are, as Emek Uçarer points out (p. 126), susceptible to personnel change, so that the door through which NGOs could enter before might close with a new person in charge. In such cases, civil society organizations may have to revert to other ad hoc measures to obtain information or get their message across, such as “lurking in corridors to corner delegates … search[ing] trashcans and copiers in hopes of retrieving draft documents and communicat[ing] via cell phones” (Corell and Bestill 2001:95). In line with our hypothesis, the heterogeneous membership of the UN affects NGOs seeking access in significant ways. According to Matthew Hoffmann, the information asymmetries and differences in positions that exist between UN members on climate change, for example, allowed NGOs to trade expertise with the more friendly and needy states in return for support. However, the particularities of membership can also work the other way. In the World Bank, where the Gross National Produce (GNP) determines the voting power of its members, the choice of friendly allies is far more limited. Given that the United States is the most powerful member state in the organization, NGOs make great strides in obtaining its support and refrain most often from action when it is against an initiative (see Nelson). While US support can easily be won on issues such as environmental policy and information disclosure, it is much more difficult to obtain when economic policy, structural adjustment, or trade are at stake. Wisotzki also considers membership a two-sided sword in the case of security: the diversity of states in the UN makes it easier for NGOs to find allies; however, it has also prevented, thus far, the emergence of consistent rules regarding NGO access to the various conferences on banning the trafficking of small arms and conventional weapons, specifically, and to the Security Council, more generally. How do the specificities of access in the UN and the EU affect the action and issue frames of NGOs? The NGOs studied in this volume primarily engaged in institutional as opposed to voice and protest strategies preferring conventional lobbying over contentious action. As we had anticipated, this appeared particularly true for NGOs within the EU, where they provided information and lobbied policymakers. However, it also appears that those NGOs in the UN behaved not much differently, favoring dialogue over contestation and using “conventional tactics” (Cullen, p. 141). Institutional strategies appear to be especially favored by civil society organizations when access is tentative and rests on informal arrangements as, for example, in the security domain where consultation in both the EU and the UN is rather ad hoc and decided on a case-by-case basis (see Dembinski or Wisotzki). In this situation, NGOs do not want to endanger their access. This does not mean that civil society organizations abstain from voice strategies entirely. However, the cases studied suggest that these are either employed by established organizations which enjoy a certain standing and can engage in a division of labor (see Clark or Zito and Jacobs) or by ones that do not have access yet, and therefore not much to loose. Moreover, NGOs interested in a certain issue may not have to engage in voice strategies themselves, since campaigns of other NGOs on other issues may have trickle-down

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effects. This was, for example, the case with transparency in the World Bank, where the protest of NGOs on Bank projects strengthened the position of those NGOs calling for more disclosure but which themselves relied on institutional action frames. Contrary to our hypothesis, NGOs also behave very similarly with respect to the framing of issues. The less secure they are about their access, the more they appear to frame their issues in a consensual manner. Frames that refer to the “common good” or a “better solution” are given preference, while ones that contain polarizing arguments are discarded (see Dembinski: p. 162). Moreover, NGOs favor frames that resonate with existing and broadly shared master frames. In both the UN and the EU, human rights appear to be a such a master frame, into which many civil society organizations inscribe their concerns and through which they can gain access to a policy domain. In the EU, NGOs used the human rights frame to obtain a more liberal asylum directive, while in the UN, the shift from military to human security helped NGOs to politicize and open debate on small arms and weapons trafficking, previously closed off to them. In the World Bank, the emphasis on the human right to information helped civil society organizations to convince policy-makers that greater transparency was needed on projects. However, while the frame of human rights helps NGOs to gain acceptance for their issues, it is by far no sufficient condition. Several chapters in this volume indicate that the particularities of access require NGOs to develop a take-home message and speak with one voice. In fact, the EU’s support for the formation of umbrella organizations is largely motivated by forcing civil society groups in distinct policy areas to speak with one voice and rendering NGO demands much easier to handle (see Cullen). The campaign for a ban on small arms and weapons trafficking went partially awry because of the lobbying efforts of sporting and shooting societies which enjoyed the support of the United States. Moreover, NGOs need to develop frames that are easy to comprehend. In the case of the EU REACH directive, NGOs lost against a well-organized and US-backed chemical industry because their frames were too complex and did not carry a simple message. Finally, the frames employed by NGOs appear to be more accepted if they are supported by a diverse constituency. This is, according to Matthias Dembinski, the reason why NGOs in the field of security have more difficulties than elsewhere. The stakeholders of the issues that they address are outside instead of inside the EU polity. To summarize, the evidence gleaned from the case studies in this volume does not lend support to our initial hypothesis. Rather than observing worlds apart, as we had initially anticipated given the institutional differences of the UN and the EU, we witness worlds together when it comes to NGO strategies. NGOs behave in a surprisingly similar fashion as far as their engagement in these two international organizations is concerned. They use similar mobilization resources, and employ comparable issue and action frames. Worlds together and what we make of it The empirical findings of this volume contribute to current discussions within the literature about the interactions between international organizations and nongovernmental organizations. First, the case studies tell us more about the agency of NGOs; second, our findings shed light on the changes NGOs undergo as a result of their

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engagement in international organizations; and third, the edited volume offers new insights into the venue-shopping activities of NGOs. (1) The agency of NGOs: Previous research on transnational activism made strong claims about the agency of NGOs. They were heralded as catalysts for peaceful change, entrepreneurs carrying new ideas, or – as representatives of civil society – even conceived as the “third power” in international politics (Florini 2000). Despite their lack of material resources, numerous studies showed that NGOs were powerful and gained access to institutions otherwise closed off to them because they relied on their expertise in different issue areas, their moral authority and reputation, persuasion and shaming. This volume tempers assumptions about the agency of NGOs. By changing the perspective from NGOs being the supposed shapers of international norms and principles to their being takers, we obtain a less positive picture with respect to the abilities of civil society organizations. Their choices and actions are far more structurally conditioned than previous research suggested. International organizations regulate and shape the behavior of NGOs through the employment of finely-tuned gate-keeping mechanisms, incentives, and sanctions. They reward actions that are in line with the institutional rules – and penalize those that challenge or contradict them. Access to international organizations is granted rather than achieved. International organizations select and single out the NGOs they want to cooperate with. Who is perceived as an expert and who is not, or who is representing and speaking for civil society, is not just up to the NGOs to decide, but is defined by the multilateral institutions in which these civil society organizations engage. By consulting certain NGOs and not others or by determining the standards for accreditation, both the EU and the UN define criteria of good and accepted behavior. Such actions limit the options and freedoms of NGOs. In order to get their foot in the door, civil society organizations need to adjust and adapt their actions to institutional norms and rules or otherwise risk being ignored. (2) IGOs contribute to changes in NGOs: Scholars have aptly demonstrated how NGOs are catalysts of new norms or precipitate changes in states’ interests and identities, but they have ignored how states or international governmental organizations mold and influence NGOs. In fact, there is little discussion about how the interests or identities of NGOs change due to their interactions with other actors. This volume offers first insights in this respect. The various case studies described in this volume show that NGOs not only motivate change within international organizations, but that they too become transformed in the process. Several contributors assert that NGOs have changed their role in substantial ways as a result of their engagement with international organizations “from that of outside critical agents demanding issue recognition and action, to that of partners in developing workable frameworks and principles for implementing action” (Gough and Shackley 2001:329). Studying the climate change process, Matthew Hoffmann, for example, finds that NGOs concerned with the issue almost look and behave like states, not only in the way they conduct business but also because they treat diplomacy very seriously (Hoffmann, p. 31). Ann Marie Clark makes a similar observation among human rights NGOs which in her opinion have become “UNized” in the way they make their voices heard. Pauline Cullen conceives of NGOs taking part in the civil dialogue as “cheer leaders” of the EU project, and Anthony Zito and Jamie Jacobs observe that in the case of the environment, financial

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support from the Commission has led to co-optation and insufficient DG and NGO engagement with other important institutions and interest groups (p. 109). These examples illustrate that NGOs have not only been catalysts for normative changes in international organizations, but in turn have been affected in fundamental ways by these organizations. Apart from circumscribing their choice of strategies, international organizations influence the very constitution of NGOs. They shape, for example, their organizational features by encouraging the formation of networks and platforms, or they contribute to the professionalization and bureaucratization of NGOs by asking for and privileging scientific expertise and information over other forms of knowledge on specific issues. (3) NGOs and venue-shopping: A number of scholars have pointed out that NGOs engage in venue-shopping to find allies in support for their issue. The movement that has been observed quite frequently in this respect, is that from the national to the international level and back, or what Keck and Sikkink (1998:13) have coined the “boomerang effect.” NGOs enlist the support of international organizations or states to overcome the resistance and blockage they are confronted with at home (see also Risse, Ropp and Sikkink 1999). The case studies in this volume add to the discussion about venue-shopping, by showing that NGOs also move in other ways than just those suggested in the literature and that they are not the only ones out shopping. NGOs deploy flexible strategies of networking and coalition-building depending on the situation they are facing. Encountering a multilevel environment, according to Emek Uçarer, civil society organizations “link up to global instruments and institutions as well as pertinent regional actors, link down to national constituencies and across other NGOs and stakeholders.” For example, when civil society organizations encountered resistance in the EU against a more liberal immigration and asylum directive, they went to the international level, enlisted the support of the UN Commission on Human Rights and used the international human rights regime to exert moral pressure on Member States (see Uçarer). In the case of the Basel Transboundary Waste Convention, NGOs responded in a similar fashion securing the support of international allies, namely the UN Environmental Program, to change the positions of both the Commission and the Council. And faced with a standstill in the UN on the Optional Protocol to the Torture Convention, NGOs redirected their efforts to the Council of Europe (see Clark). Just as NGOs look for favorable institutions and allies, so too do states engage in venue-shopping, sometimes to counteract or block NGO influence. As Anthony Zito and Jamie Jacobs illustrate in the case of the REACH directive (Chapter 8, ibid.), environmental NGOs partly suffered a defeat because the Bush administration joined the US chemical industry in a large diplomatic and lobbying effort to portray REACH as costly and complex. Moreover, it garnered the support of developing countries and threatened to invoke WTO mechanisms (Zito and Jacobs, page 115). To summarize, the empirical findings gleaned from the case studies amend, extend, and add to ongoing discussions in the NGO literature. Furthermore, they generate ideas as to where future research on civil society organizations should be directed.

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Avenues for future research If we want to learn more about transnational activism at the beginning of the 21st century, a better understanding of the interaction between international institutions and NGOs is needed. Based on the cases explored in this volume, we consider three avenues of particular interest. First, we need to learn much more about the complex relationship between agency and structure when it comes to NGOs as participants in global governance. Simply acknowledging the fact that agency and structure are mutually constitutive is not sufficient anymore. We ought to know when, how, and to what degree international institutions influence, shape, determine, or limit the agency of civil society organizations. The comparison of NGO engagement in the UN and the EU cautions against attributing unconstrained agency to NGOs and suggests that the influence of institutional factors may have been greatly underestimated. Although international relations scholars have begun to investigate the ways in which international organizations influence states (e.g. Finnemore 1996), so far we know rather little about how these organizations affect the behavior of non-governmental actors (Risse 2002:259). How do they, for example, affect the choice of issues or interpretations of reality on the part of NGOs? How precisely does the funding that NGOs receive from international organizations, either for the formation of networks or platforms or for assisting in the implementation of programs, influence their behavior? What are the processes through which international organizations shape civil society organizations? Do NGOs conform to institutional rules and norms solely on the basis of incentives and constraints, or can we detect socialization resulting from the interactions with state representatives or secretary generals as constructivist research would lead us to expect? And what does the engagement within international organizations do to the interactions between NGOs, on one hand, and NGOs and their constituencies, on the other hand? To answer these questions, NGO activism in other international organizations than those under scrutiny in this volume need to be studied in a more systematic fashion across policy-cycles and different issue areas. Second, we need more comparative work with respect to civil society organi zations. Since the 1990s studies on NGOs have proliferated, describing policy-change as a result of NGO activity in a variety of issue areas and institutional settings. Yet, there seems to be a bias toward single-cases. Comparisons across different institutions are rather rare. Although such studies are time-consuming, they would tell us more about how different or similar the activities of NGOs in one international organization are to the ones in other organizations. Furthermore, they would also provide us with deeper insight as to how comparable the instruments are that international organizations use to regulate and structure NGO engagement. In addition to the bias for single-case studies, there also has been a greater emphasis on success stories – and a telling silence with respect to “the dog that does not bark” cases where NGOs have been unable to mobilize support for their issues (see Carpenter 2007). However, these would be a perfect laboratory to examine the limits of agency, on the one hand, and the influence of structure, on the other hand. Such cases could provide

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us with a better understanding as to the relative importance of the differences between NGOs, a lack of resources, or institutional barriers when issues are not taken up. As illustrated above, NGOs link up to the international level when they meet resistance at the regional level and reach down from the international level to either the national or regional level when they encounter closed doors. Hence, while NGOs already exploit the opportunities a multilevel system offers, international relations scholars still know rather little about how civil society organizations move between its different layers. On what basis do NGOs, for example, choose which international organization to target? What prompts them to either go international or regional? Do NGOs choose their venues depending on where they can get access or do other factors matter? What are the challenges that NGOs face when moving between organizations and what does it require? Scholars studying civil society engagement in the European Union have already begun to explore these questions (e.g. Cram 2001; or Rucht 2001), and we need to start addressing them also when examining transnational activism at the international level (for an exception, see Tarrow 2005). Third, while conforming and adapting to the rules and norms prevailing within international organizations might be the price to pay on the part of NGOs for hav ing influence, it raises questions with respect to democracy and legitimacy. In the past, the engagement of civil society organizations has often been associated with the hope that it would usher in greater accountability and transparency of international policies. Many scholars regarded NGO presence and activity in international governance settings as a cure for the democratic deficit that has been attributed to decision-making in international organizations. Especially in the context of the EU, the question of legitimacy has been a vibrant and controversial topic for quite some time, given its far-reaching competencies, on the one hand, and the limited power of the directly elected European Parliament, on the other hand. Scholars have debated the pros and cons as well as the prerequisites for deliberative and participatory democracy, and have started to investigate empirically the contribution of civil society organizations (e.g. Smismans 2003; Goehring 2002; or Warleigh 2001). However, given the trends described above with civil society organizations moving from outsider to insider status, it is questionable whether non-governmental organizations can live up to the professed expectation of improving the process through which decisions are reached in international organizations. Are the NGOs that undergo such changes still truly representative of civil society? How and in what ways do they differ from other established actors, such as, for example, political parties? To what extent are they or can they be critical of state politics in light of the financial support they receive, or their interaction and cooperation with governmental representatives? To assess the extent to which NGOs are able to enhance legitimacy and democracy in international organizations (or not), we need scholarly work that combines empirical studies with political theory. Questions of representation, democratization, and legitimacy have a long tradition in political philosophy and urgently need to be addressed in global governance contexts. From a normative-theoretical point of view, we need to investigate whether NGOs are in danger of losing their democracy-enhancing function in international governance. Does the professionalization and adaptation of NGOs to the norms and rules of international organizations lead to an erosion of their legitimacy? If so, do NGOs perceive this as a problem that they need to address? Are there other civil

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society actors that might fill the void that NGOs leave? And are there – or do there have to be – new ways and arenas of including civil society into global governance processes? In conclusion, it seems that our volume has provoked more questions than it might have answered. And indeed, while the case studies offer new insights into the relationship between NGOs and international organizations, their main contribution lies in problematizing the role and agency of non-governmental organizations. It therefore comes as no surprise that our final remarks resemble more of a laundry list of possible future inquiries which we consider worthwhile pursuing. If international organizations continue to be the primary sites where NGOs mobilize support for their issues or contest state practices, we need to know much more about how institutional structures empower, regulate, or temper transnational NGO activism. References Carpenter, R.C. (2007) ‘Setting the Advocacy Agenda: Theorizing Issue Emergence and Normemergence in Transnational Advocacy Networks’, International Studies Quarterly, 51(1): 99–120. Corell, E. and Betsill, M. (2001) ‘A Comparative Look at NGO Influence in International Environmental Negotiations: Desertification and Climate Change’, Global Environmental Politics, 1(4): 86–107. Cram, L. (2001) ‘Governance “To Go”: Domestic Actors, Institutions and the Boundaries of the Possible’, Journal of Common Market Studies, 39(4): 595–618. Finnemore, M. (1996) National Interests in International Society. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. Florini, A.M. (ed.) (2000) The Third Force: The Rise of Transnational Civil Society. Washington DC: Carnegie Endowment. Goehring, R. (2002) ‘Interest Representation and Legitimacy in the European Union: The New Quest for Civil Society Formation’, in: A. Warleigh and J. Fairbrass (eds.) Influence and Interests in the European Union: The New Politics of Persuasion and Advocacy. London and New York: Taylor & Francis: 118–37. Gough, C. and Shackley, S. (2001) ‘The Respectable Politics of Climate Change: The Epistemic Communities and NGOs’, International Affairs, 77(2): 329–45. Keck, M. and Sikkink, K. (1998) Activists Beyond Borders: Transnational Advocacy Networks in International Politics. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. Reiman, K. (2006) ‘A View from the Top: International Politics, Norms and the Worldwide Growth of NGOs’, International Studies Quarterly, 50(1): 27–44. Risse, T. (2002) ‘Transnational Actors and World Politics’, in: W. Carlsnaes, T. Risse and B. Simmons (eds.) Handbook of International Relations. London: Sage: 255–74. Risse, T., Ropp, S.C. and Sikkink, K. (1999) The Power of Human Rights: International Norms and Domestic Change. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Rucht, D. (2001) ‘Lobbying or Protest? Strategies to Influence EU Environmental Policies’, in: D. Imig and S. Tarrow (eds.) Contentious Europeans: Protest and Politics in an Emerging Polity. Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield: 125–42. Smismans, S. (2003) ‘European Civil Society: Shaped by Discourses and Institutional Interests’, European Law Journal, 9(4): 473–95. Tarrow, S. (2005) The New Transnational Activism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Warleigh, A. (2001) ‘“Europeanizing” Civil Society: NGOs as Agents of Political Socialization’, Journal of Common Market Studies, 39(4): 619–39.

Index access points 8–9, 11, 14, 23, 31–2, 44, 46, 106–7, 112–13, 116–17, 157, 163, 172–6 accountability as focus for NGOs 50, 51, 54, 64, 67, 68, 70, 95–6, 100, 123, 127, 129, 130, 135, 141, 143, 149, 162, 181 of NGOs 11, 64, 148 accreditation of NGOs 10–14, 22, 33, 81, 82, 94–5, 97, 100, 140, 150, 172–3, 175, 177 action frame 7, 13, 23, 30, 34, 37–9, 49, 71, 109, 117, 145, 161, 176–7 activism 123, 141–2 human rights 44–5, 50, 131 legal 94–5, 97, 102 social policy 150 transnational 5, 6, 24, 174, 177, 179–80 advocacy as NGO role 38–9, 47, 51, 54, 56, 63–7, 70–1, 97, 121, 123–7, 134–5, 143–4, 148, 160, 162, 174 Ahtisaari, Martti 159 aid donors 6, 14, 26, 62–3, 67, 77 AIDS 8, 25 Albania 131 Algeria 81 Amnesty International 25, 45, 47, 51, 52, 54, 55–6, 128–9, 132, 160–1 Annan, Kofi 27 apartheid 65 Århus Convention 107, 111 Arria, Diego 79 Association for the Prevention of Torture (APT) 52 asylum see human rights Australia 39, 44 Austria 113 autonomy of NGOs 5, 14, 34, 81, 99, 144, 149–50, 158, 171 Barroso, José Manuel 115 Basel Transboundary Waste Convention 105, 111–13, 179 Belarus 131 Bjerregaard, Ritt 112 Bulgaria 131 CAN see Climate Action Network Canada 39, 79, 80–1, 84 Cardoso Report 27 CARE 25, 26 Caritas 128, 133, 143 CCME see Churches Committee on Migrants and Exiles

Index

175

China 39, 81 Churches Committee on Migrants and Exiles (CCME) 147–9 Clements, Kevin 162 Climate Action Network (CAN) 31, 37, 39 climate change 29–40, 173–5, 178 and security 38 coalition-building strategy 5, 26, 45, 55–6, 69, 80, 108–10, 112, 114, 123, 130, 140–1, 143, 147, 158, 159, 163, 165, 179 Committee of Permanent Representatives (COREPER) 29, 101 Committee on Non-Governmental Organizations (CONGO) 65, 193 Common Foreign and Security Policy (of EU) 10, 94, 154, 155, 172 Confederation for Relief and Development (CONCORD) 97 CONGO see Committee on Non-Governmental Organizations consultative status of NGOs 10, 22, 44–6, 48, 64, 96, 100, 140–1, 145–50, 157–8, 161–2, 165, 172–4, 176 COREPER see Committee of Permanent Representatives Costa Rica 35, 53 Council of Europe (CE) 53, 124, 179 Council of Ministers (of EU) 9, 94, 101–2, 158, 174 Croatia 131 debt relief 62, 65, 66, 71, 173 Denmark 112 Development as focus of NGOs 3, 12, 23–2, 26–7, 36, 38, 61–7, 115, 160 and security issues 77, 84 disability 98, 141, 143–4, 148 disclosure 61–2, 65–72, 100, 173, 175–6 Doctors without Borders see Medicins sans Frontiers ECJ see European Court of Justice Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) 8, 10, 22, 32, 44, 45, 46, 48, 78, 81, 173 ECOSOC see Economic and Social Council ECRE see European Council on Refugees and Exiles EEB see European Environmental Bureau environment as focus of NGOs 3, 4, 6, 12, 15, 24, 26, 29–33, 36, 38, 40, 64–8, 71–2, 95, 97, 105–17, 171–2, 174–5, 178, 179 and legal activism 94–95, 97, 102 as focus of UN 15, 23–4 and the World Bank 61–2, 64, 66–8, 70–2 environmental degradation as security threat 76 EP see European Parliament Eritrea 132 European Commission 9, 11, 95–100, 122, 125, 127, 130–31, 141, 157 European Council on Refugees and Exiles (ECRE) 127–9 European Court of Justice (ECJ) 9, 94, 102, 107, 122, 124, 125, 129, 133, 142, 155 European Environmental Bureau (EEB) 95, 108–11, 113 European integration 6, 9, 11, 95, 97–8, 125, 156 European Network for Civil Peace Services (EN.CPS) 160

Index

176

European Parliament (EP) 9, 78, 94–6, 101, 107, 109, 111–13, 115–16, 122, 125, 126, 129, 130, 132–4, 157–9, 163 European Peace-building Liaison Office (EPLO) 159, 161–2 European Social Policy Platform 95, 98–9, 141–50 European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC) 99, 114 European Transparency Initiative 99–100 European Women’s Lobby (EWL) 98, 99, 128, 143, 144 EWL see European Women’s Lobby expertise (of NGOs) 4, 8, 12, 25, 29, 32, 34–6, 39–40, 47, 49, 51, 56, 79, 81, 85, 108, 110, 112, 115, 117, 123, 128–30, 135, 140, 150, 157–9, 161, 163, 165, 171–8 Finland 116, 159 Friends of the Earth 30–1, 70, 99, 107–8 funding (of NGOs) 45, 54, 94, 98–100, 108, 128, 140–1, 142–4, 145–6, 148, 149, 160–1, 174, 180 G10 see Green 10 General Assembly (of United Nations) 8, 23, 26, 30–1, 78, 80, 85, 173 Geneva Convention 143–4, 151, 153 Germany 112–13, 126, 164 global governance 3, 5, 86, 179, 181 Global Policy Forum 25, 79 Global Transparency Initiative 70 globalization 5, 23, 61, 66 Great Britain see United Kingdom Green 10 (G10) 99, 129, 130 Greenpeace 30–1, 36, 39, 99, 107–9, 111–13, 160, 161 human rights asylum 121–135 as focus of NGOs 3, 4, 8, 15, 22–4, 44–57, 61, 66, 68, 69, 72, 95, 121–4, 126, 128–31, 153–5, 160, 161–6, 179 and security 77, 81, 84, 85, 126, 130–4 Human Rights Watch 45, 54–6, 126, 129 IANSA see International Action Network Small Arms IMF see International Monetary Fund insider activities (of NGOs) 6, 71, 99, 115, 140, 145, 150, 161, 181 Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) 30 International Action Network Small Arms (IANSA) 81–4, 160 International Association of Penal Law (IAPL) 52 International Commission of Jurists (ICJ) 52 International Committee of the Red Cross 23, 48, 52 International Finance Corporation (IFC) 65, 68, 70 International Labor Organization (ILO) 25 International Monetary Fund (IMF) 6, 26, 27, 61 International Rescue Committee 26 International Service for Human Rights 47, 55–6 Internet and affect on NGOs 5, 14, 33, 38, 96, 100–1, 114, 145, 149 Italy 132

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177

Jesuit Refugee Service 128, 132, 138 JHA see Justice and Home Affairs Justice and Home Affairs (JHA) 10, 121–2, 124–7, 129–30, 133–5 Kyoto Protocol 30, 35 Libya 132 lobbying 4, 7, 13, 26, 30, 37, 46–9, 55–6, 67, 76, 81–3, 86, 93, 99–101, 109–12, 115, 125–30, 150, 156, 163–4, 171, 176, 179 MacDermot, Niall 53 Macedonia 131 Malta 132 Medicins sans Frontiers 25, 26, 77 Mexico 54–5 mobilization strategies 32, 36, 40, 46, 56, 61, 71–2, 99, 102, 128, 140–1, 145, 177 moral authority (of NGOs) 123, 128, 130, 135, 177 Morocco 132 Multilateral Development Bank (MDB) 67 Netherlands 49, 148, 164 networking, as NGO strategy 4–7, 9, 12, 14, 24, 29– 32, 34, 36–7, 39–40, 47–8, 66, 79–80, 82–6, 99, 109, 124, 129–30, 134–5, 141, 144, 145, 148, 157, 160, 162, 165, 179–80 New Zealand 44 NGO Liaison Office (of UN) 25, 46, 159 Norway 80, 132 Oxfam 25, 26, 67, 160 Papua New Guinea 35 parallel forums 23, 30–1, 34, 38–9, 48, 74, 79 peace-building as focus of NGOs 25, 76–7, 79, 82, 154–5, 158–62, 164, 165 political opportunity structure 5, 8, 10–11, 13, 15, 18, 29–32, 34–7, 39–40, 46–7, 49, 51–2, 55–6, 61–72, 76, 79–80, 83–5, 101–2, 105, 121, 123–5, 130, 134–5, 141, 144–5, 150, 155–7, 161–2, 165, 171, 173, 174 Prodi, Romano 96 protest (see also voice strategies) 5, 7, 37, 39, 64, 66, 67, 71, 99, 156, 161, 165, 175–6 REACH 11, 105, 113–17, 174, 176, 179 refugees 123–4, 127–135 Romania 131 Royal Society for the Protection of Birds 108–9 Russian Federation 83, 132 Saferworld 160, 163–4 Save the Children Federation 26 Schroeder, Gerhard 114 Security Council (of the UN) 8, 23, 25, 78, 79, 85, 193, 195

Index

178

security collective 22 corporate 71 as policy field 4, 10, 12, 15, 21, 23, 25, 50, 51, 76–9, 82–7, 94, 126–7, 154–65, 171–2, 175–7 Serbia 132 Sierra Leone 79 social policy 95, 140–3, 144, 145, 147, 148, 150, 192 socio-economic policy 4, 15, 171–2 South Africa 45, 83 Spain 118, 132 specialization among NGOs 10, 22, 47, 51, 70, 72, 78, 162 strategy package 7, 8, 13 strategy, voice see voice strategies Sweden 49, 52, 55, 114 Swiss Committee against Torture see Association for the Prevention of Torture Switzerland 53, 132 transparency 11, 25, 38, 61, 64, 65, 67–71, 95–6, 99–100, 102, 127, 135, 141, 147, 149, 163–4, 173, 176, 181 Turkey 132 Ukraine 132 UN Development Program (UNDP) 9, 26, 77 UN Environment Program (UNEP) 8, 23, 30, 32, 40, 50, 179 UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) 29–40, 173 UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) 26, 124, 129–32, 134 UN Human Rights Commission 45, 48, 49, 54–5 UNDP see UN Development Program UNEP see UN Environment Program UNESCO 25 UNFCCC see UN Framework Convention on Climate Change UNHCR see UN High Commissioner for Refugees United Kingdom 66, 79, 81, 112, 113, 115, 145, 163 United States of America 39, 62, 65–6, 68, 71, 78, 83, 84, 85–6, 111, 117, 126, 175, 176 Venezuela 79 Verheugen, Günter 115 voice strategies 7, 13, 34, 37, 39, 67, 99, 150, 161, 165, 176 women’s organizations 4, 6, 12, 26, 98, 128, 143 women’s rights 6, 8, 11, 12, 23, 95, 98, 141, 143 World Bank 6, 9, 26–7, 61–72, 173, 175–6 World Forum on the Future of Sport Shooting Activities (WFSA) 83–4, 86 World Trade Organization (WTO) 6, 115, 179 World Vision 77, 160 World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) 31–2, 36, 98–9, 108–10, 113, 116 WTO see World Trade Organization WWF see World Wide Fund for Nature