Compare the function of IGOS and INGOS - Essay Example

Comparison of IGOs and NGOs ID Number: Submitted: Institute Introduction International organizations are those organizations that are formed as a result of the collaboration or membership of different countries across the world for the purpose of executing a number of functions across national boundaries of the member countries. These organizations are also termed as intergovernmental organizations (IGO), for example, the World Trade Organization (WTO), the United Nations (UN), the International Bank of Reconstruction and Development (World Bank), and the Greenpeace, etc… These organizations are developed on the basic principles of cooperative management and aimed to perform different supportive functions especially those which are mutually advantageous for all the member countries on the basis of different agreements and arrangements among them. International organizations have been defined by the Penguin Dictionary of International Relations as “Such type of formal institutional arrangements that are aimed to work beyond the national limits of the member countries and established by multilateral understanding among different countries. Their objective is to cultivate global collaboration in the member territories, for example, security, social and economic matters, law and diplomacy” (MartenshKerstin, 2005). However, in the modern culture, these organizations are playing an important role in the world politics by influencing the global security and peace through their global collaborative function and working for the social and economical development of the member states. These organizations perform their functions according to the rules and regulations of intergovernmentalism, which means that a complete harmony is required. Whereas, Non-Government Organizations (NGO) are developed by some private personnel for the welfare of the society, which can also be international in their scope. These organizations do not posses any sort of government accreditation and established merely on the basis of mutual agreements among different personnel to raise funds through donations and grants from different philanthropists and international humanitarian organizations. However, they are recognized by the UN and many other international organizations as important political and welfare institutions. These organizations are termed as international organizations due to the scope of their functionality, whereas in the real sense these organizations are not purely international organizations because they are not developed to coordinate the functions and efforts of the members for their mutual gains. The following table shows a compression between the objectives and functions of these two organizations. IGOS (Intergovernmental Organizations) INGOS (International Non-Governmental Organizations) These organizations have permanent establishments for the purpose of continuing set of functions. There is a voluntary membership from the side of eligible partners. Work for the promotion of peace and try to resolve all sorts of conflicts among the governments of member countries. To promote cooperation among the member countries and work for the betterment of international relations. Work for the promotion of social development and human rights activities. Work for the economic and political stability of the member states. Work for the betterment of society and try to improve the standards of living. Work for the promotion of different humanitarian activities and try to increase the developmental aids in underdeveloped countries. Try to keep a sustainable economic growth and political development in different countries of the world. Work for the rehabilitation and reconstruction of those areas, which are damaged by different sorts of natural disaster. Apart from the above mention functions and objectives of these two organizations, it has also been observed that international non-government organizations also form collaborations with the intergovernmental organizations because these institutions have a relatively high span of authority and resources, i.e. financial, human capital, research and development facilities, etc… These organizations usually carry out their functions through the local and regional non-government and governmental institutions because they believe that local organizations can better understand the needs and expectations of the people as compared to someone, who belongs to outside world. Research shows that about 60% of the overseas development work has been carried out by the efforts of intergovernmental organizations, while the INGOs are accounted for the 15% of the developmental aids. These organizations help the governments of underdeveloped and developing countries in the field of healthcare, education, and other social affairs to attain a better life standard (MartenshKerstin, 2005). In order to better understand the functions of the IGOs and INGOs, we will take the example of the two popular organizations of the world and evaluate that whether these organizations are performing their functions according to the expectations of the people or not. We will also evaluate that which organization better serves the humanity and promote the human rights in the world. 1. The United Nations (UN) The United Nations (UN) is an intergovernmental organization established by the governments of 193 countries with an aim to provide real world solutions to the disputes and problems across the world as a matter of humanity. The united nation is making policies for the international community on different issues that can directly or indirectly affect human health and humanity. Some examples are environmental issues, food, health, children, safety, education, economy, war and peace etc. United Nation does not legislate like parliaments however, they have their own General Assembly, Secretariat, International Court of Justice, Security Council, Trusteeship Council and Economic and Social Council where they are meeting to shape their new policies. The representatives of its member countries have equal power to show their consent or objection on a certain issue or policy regardless of their country size, political and economical conditions. The six main organs stated above are located at the UN headquarter in New York except International Court of Justice which is located in Hague, Netherlands (Thakur, 1994). The United Nations was founded on October 24th 1945 in San Francisco, California and the year 2014 marks 69th anniversary of the international cooperation in the form of UN organization. The six organ principals of the UN have some specific roles to play: General Assembly: This is the main deliberative body of the UN where all member countries have their representatives in it and have one vote to show their consent on a particular policy, strategy or decision. On ordinary matters, decisions are made on the basis of simple majority votes whereas for more intense issues a two-third majority is required to approve a decision/policy. The regular sessions of the General Assembly held every year from mid-September to mid-December and in case of emergencies extra sessions are arranged. When the Assembly is not in session, its work goes ahead in uncommon councils and bodies. The Assembly has the right to talk about and make proposals on all matters inside the extent of the UN Charter. It has no force to urge movement by any Government; however its suggestions convey the weight of world assessment. The Assembly likewise sets strategies and decides programs for the UN Secretariat. It sets objectives and steers exercises for advancement, offer financial backing for peace- keeping operations and calls for world gatherings on real issues. Possessing a focal position in the UN, the Assembly gets reports from different organs, concedes new members, supports the monetary allowance and names the Secretary-General. Security Council: The UN Charter, a global settlement, commits States to settle their universal debate by tranquil means. They are to abstain from the risk or utilization of energy/power against different States, and may bring any argument before the Security Council. The Security Council is the organ to which the Charter gives essential obligation regarding keeping up peace and security across the world. It could be gathered whenever, at whatever point peace is debilitated. Member countries are committed to do accept these decisions. The Council is composed of 15 members. Five of these are permanent members of the Councils and are known as Veto: China, France, the Russian Federation, the United Kingdom and the United States. The other 10 are chosen by the Assembly for two-year terms. Nine votes are necessary for making a decision; with the exception of votes on procedural inquiries. If any of the permanent members show negative concern on an issue the decision cannot be taken. At the point when a serious threat to global peace is brought before the Council, it typically first asks the concerned parties to resolve the issue in a peaceful manner. The Council may embrace intercession or set onward standards for a settlement. It may ask for the Secretary-General to research and investigate a circumstance. On the off chance that battling breaks out, the Council tries to secure a truce. It may send peace-keeping missions to the effected regions, with the assent of the concerned parties, to lessen pressure and to prevent the situation from getting worse. It may send peace-attendants to keep the flare-up of clash. It has the ability to uphold its choices by forcing monetary assents and by requesting aggregate military movement. The Council likewise makes suggestions to the Assembly on an active candidate for the post of Secretary-General and on the induction of new Members to the UN. Economic and Social Council: Working under the power of the General Assembly, the Economic and Social Council arranges the monetary and social work of the UN and related particular offices and foundations. The Council has 54 parts. It normally holds two hierarchical and one substantive session every year; the substantive session incorporates a high level special meeting attended by Ministers and other high authorities, to examine significant financial and social issues. In the meeting, the Council prescribes different activities with an aim to support financial development of developing nations, directing improvement activities, advertising the recognition of human rights, eliminating discrimination against minorities, spreading the goods of science and innovation, and encouraging world participation in areas to reduces criminal activities and increase support for family planning and better housing schemes. International Court of Justice: The International Court of Justice or World Court is the principle legal organ of the UN. It comprises of 15 judges chose by the General Assembly and the Security Council. Just nations may be gatherings in cases brought in the witness of the Court. On the off chance that a nation does not wish to tune in an undertaking it doesnt need to do so (unless needed by exceptional arrangement procurement), however, in case of acceptance, it is bound to act in accordance with the Courts choice. Trusteeship Council: The Trusteeship Council was created to guarantee that Governments in charge of regulating Trust Territories make satisfactory moves to equip them for government toward self-government or freedom. In 1994, the Security Council ended the UN Trusteeship Agreement for the final one of the first 11 Trusteeships the Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands (Palau), regulated by the United States. The assignment of the Trusteeship System was accordingly finished, with all Trust Territories accomplishing government grasping self-government or autonomy, either as divided States or by joining neighboring independent nations. The Trusteeship Council, by revising its controls of technique, will now meet when a meeting is necessary. UN Secretariat: The Secretariat is a controlling body that controls all the other five organs of the UN to administer their operations. The staff of this organ is based on a diverse group from all around the world that works in the UN headquarter to accomplish daily tasks of the UN. Secretary General is the chairperson of the Secretariat who is elected by the General Assembly for a five year endorsement. The rest of the staff is composed of the members of about 170 member countries (Annan, 2000). UN as an IGO The term IGO stands for Intergovernmental Organization that refers to a body established by a settlement that involves two or more countries/nations to work in compliance with common decency, on issues of normal investment. Without a settlement IGO does not exist in the legitimate sense. United Nations is the most perceived representative of the Intergovernmental Organization of the world today. Therefore, its efforts in dealing with global affairs are considered indispensable in comparison to any other local or international organization. In this regard, the UN is the only intergovernmental organization which has been working hard to meet the daily challenges of regional and global affairs. United Nations has been playing an important role in resolving the issues of peace and security and the lions share of the Organizations assets are actually committed to propelling the Charters vow to "push higher expectations for everyday life, full vocation, and states of monetary and social advancement and "improvement". United nation has a proper agenda to solve global disputes and to promote developing. While concentrating on issues of specific concern, the Decades have reliably focused on the requirement for advancement on all parts of social and monetary development. The UN keeps defining new advancement targets in such key territories as reasonable developments, the welfare of women, human rights, environmental concerns, law and order-along with realistic plans to implement them. For the 21st century, the world leaders have set a new agenda to eliminate extreme poverty, child mortality, strive against HIV/AIDS, malaria and other life threatening diseases, improvement maternal health, eliminating gender discrimination, empowering women, to achieve primary education worldwide and ensuring a sustainable green environment (Annan, 2000). Amnesty International Amnesty International is a non-governmental, international organization with an expressed aim of encouraging human rights, and other international affairs. The organization is active in running campaigns to free all prisoners who felt guilty for their acts and desires while ensuring fair and brief trials for political detainees, to eliminate death penalty, physical and mental torture and other sorts of treatments to prisoners as they regard it a cruel act, to eliminate political and forced killings and disappearances and to oppose all kinds of abuses to human rights (Power, 1981). The Amnesty International was established by a British lawyer and a Quaker named Peter Benenson and Eric Baker respectively in 1961 and after one year of its formation in 1962, it formed groups in Belgium, Sweden, Canada, Ireland, West Germany, Norway, Switzerland, Ceylon, Greece, Australia, Netherlands, the United States, New Zealand, Jamaica, Malaya, Ghana, Israel, Mexico, Nigeria, Burma, Ethiopia and India. One of the members of these groups, named Diana Redhouse, composed Amnestys Candle and Barbed-Wire logo by the end of that year. The mission statement of the Amnesty International is “to undertake research and action focused on preventing and ending grave abuses of the rights to physical and mental integrity, freedom of conscience and expression, and freedom from discrimination--in the context of our work to promote all human rights, as articulated in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights”. To accomplish their mission they are receiving funds and support from other people and organizations (Amnesty International). The mission of the organization remained unchanged and for its irreplaceable efforts it achieved a Nobel Peace Prize in 1977 for its efforts shielding human rights across the globe. To increase its visibility to the general public and to increase awareness among people, Amnesty International participated in different cultural events throughout the 1980s including the popular “The Secret Policeman Balls Series”. Today, Amnesty International is recognized as the world’s largest non-governmental organization with its exposure to 150 countries and a membership of more than 3 million people. The style of their work is very unique, fair and realistic, therefore, they are sending research teams to different parts of the world to identify cases of human rights abuse. To stop such violated activities against human rights they encourage public to protest to pressurize governments and armed political parties, intergovernmental parties and companies to take corrective actions against such violations. However, the way in which they are encouraging to protest is very civilized, peaceful and powerful because they have some very effective means such as letter writing campaigns, direct lobbing, human rights education, seminars and concerts for raising awareness, vigils and public demonstration. Amnesty International has always been appreciated by the UN and in human rights affairs on an international level, UN always supported the organization. Today, Amnesty International has a number of joint projects/programs with the UN including UN Educational project, International Labor Organization and participation in Scientific and Cultural Organization. After recognizing the importance of the UN support, Amnesty International has focused on building strong knots with UN since 60s. Over the years, it has build really strong and positive relations with the UN in human rights and today it is the world’s largest non-government organization active for human rights across the globe (Amnesty International). Amnesty International as an NGO As the name implies that an NGO is a non-governmental organization that runs on the funds and support of other people and other organizations. However, there is no proper and universal definition of an NGO but commonly NGOs are known as organizations that work with a purpose to support humanity and human rights. There are some NGOs that are working under the support of governments and UN to achieve their goals. Some NGOs have achieved a dominant place in the list of NGOs for their irreplaceable efforts for which they are even granted with a UN consultancy status. The status allows them to perform their tasks effectively while taking continues consultancies and supplies from the UN. Red Cross and Amnesty International are two clear examples of non-governmental organizations which have achieved a unique position in the eyes of UN and are now getting consultancy from them. UN and Amnesty International have been working in cooperation for years which made it easy for Amnesty International to achieve its goals and objectives compared to other NGOs. Today Amnesty works together with the UN in setting new agendas and assisting its commissions and advisory groups, yet they likewise provide them complete data on issues of their interest. The support from UN enabled Amnesty International to display beneficiary concerns to authorities and pressurize them to take actions in regards to their causes. The first worldwide campaign run by Amnesty International was to ban torture for which they pressurized governments through effective means. They filed a proper documentation about torture in different regions in the world and requested UN to take immediate actions to ban such activities. Amnesty International has an easy access to the UN and UN is also approaching it for its knowledge and expertise. Tough, on one hand, the UN is helping Amnesty International by providing them consultancy and supplies but on the other hand, Amnesty International is also helping UN in improving their activities and agendas by identifying new and untouched issues of the world regarding humanity (Kegley, Blanton, 2012). The Efforts of IGOs and NGOs After thoroughly analyzing the role, power and access of IGO and NGO it becomes clear that both are almost same in their objectives. The motive of both governmental and non-governmental organizations is to improve life standards, human rights, elimination of poverty, discrimination (race, gender, religion and nationality), improving peace, education and healthy environment. However, there is a difference in the way they are operating. IGOs have high support from governments and have stable financial resources and more power compared to the NGOs. On the other hand NGOs are free to work on any agenda or issue that they believe is important to expose to the society and governments. Unfortunately, NGOs have difficulties in operating in certain regions because of the lack of governmental support. As a result, they face lots of criticism from political bodies and political driven society and media. When it comes to the efforts of IGOs and NGOs, many people believe that IGOs are doing far well in the best interests of human rights compared to NGOs. This is a myth because an NGO can also protect human rights in a better and strong way, if they get support from governments and politicians. IGOs are intergovernmental organizations whose members have a right to vote in the support or against an issue. In such organizations majority rules and they never discuss those issues that its member states don’t want to expose. One very prominent example is Kashmir Issue which is still waiting to get a solution (Kegley, Blanton, 2012).. Compared to IGOs, NGOs are fair enough in their operations and decisions. NGOs have an ability to mobilize public support and as a result, they are able to gather a great deal of power for their private agendas to compel governments to take actions accordingly. NGOs are criticized greatly by people because they believe NGOs are only dealing with their private agendas rather than caring for the people suffered from an issue. Another reason for the criticism of the efforts of NGOs is the lack of trust that people have on them. Many people believe that the findings that NGOs are raising from other people are used in their personal interest. However, if an NGO is fair in its mandate nobody can stop them from achieving their goals. Amnesty International is an example of such an NGO (Steffek, 2013). It is difficult to say that IGOs can better protect human rights than NGOs but it is obvious that if the two work together they can definitely bring a significant change in the society across the world. Intergovernmental organization has access to powerful sources and has a support from the governments worldwide whereas NGOs have access to public mobility, have more expertise and are free to raise any issue without waiting for the votes from the majority. When the resources of IGOs and NGOs come together they can work in a more stable and effective manner compared to working separately. The achievements and positive relations of UN and Amnesty International is a good example of such type of collaboration. In the relationship of UN and Amnesty International, Amnesty is working as a source of information for UN by supplying a reliable data in regard to their concern. Because of this relation Amnesty keeps up its full independence from many or all governments, political forces, economic concerns and religious interests. Amnesty recruited individuals for its relations with the UN on the premise of their expertise in a particular area. This made the work of UN easy for which they are getting access to required information from a reliable source. The UN has then utilizing that information in setting a new agenda (Steffek, 2013). Conclusion From above discussion, it is concluded that IGOs and NOGs cannot protect human rights better by working separately. To work effectively and to bring a significant change in the world, it is important for NGOs make positive relationships with IGOs. NGOs have more expertise and a fair system compared to IGOs but have less power, support and resource to achieve their goals and objectives. NGOs have more resistance from government and political bodies because of which they cannot continue their work effectively. NGOs can better protect human rights if they get all the facilities that IGOs have. It is not possible for all NGOs get access to UN like Amnesty International therefore; UN should set a law for NGOs to reduce government and political resistance towards them. References Thakur, R. (1994). Human rights: Amnesty international and the United Nations. Journal of Peace Research, 31(2), pp.143--160.  Annan, K. (2000). We, the peoples of United Nations in the 21st Century. United Nations, New York. MartenshKerstin, (2005). NGOs and the United Nations. 1st ed. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Power, J. (1981). Amnesty International: The Human Rights Story. Pergamon Press. Kegley, C. and Blanton, S. (2012). World politics. 1st ed. Boston, Mass.: Wadsworth Cengage Learning.  Steffek, J. (2013). Explaining cooperation between IGOs and NGOs--push factors, pull factors, and the policy cycle. Review of International Studies, 39(04), pp.993--1013. Read More