Variations about the New World Civil Society

International NGO’s: an Entity without Personality...?

Abstract

Together with the modern tendency of States to aggregate and form
International Organisations of varied scope and shape, the multiplication of Non-Governmental Organisations constitutes one of the most
prominent features of the New World Order. This paper concentrates upon the later, examining their origins, functions and the grounds for their mediatic success. It further analyses the formal relationship of NGO’s with International Organisations of States, namely the United Nations, noting that the international legal régime has awarded NGO’s several subjective legal positions, recognising them a set of rights,
among which one can enlist: voting rights in the decision-making process of several specialised agencies and subsidiary organs of the world organisation, the possibility of acting as amici curiae before some international courts, etc..
While the greatest part of legal scholarship on the issue of international legal personality keeps omitting or avoiding any reference to this de facto actors in the international arena and fora, it has become clear that NGO’s,
in spite of their national and private origins, now relevantly integrate,
siding with the individual and some atypical entities, the constellation of
international subjects. Viewing them as such, has become possible with the loss of the positivist monopoly of States over international subjectivity,
which, at the same time, evolved into a more flexible and gradual
concept, allowing for the recognition of different sets of rights, according to the nature of the concerned entity.
Without denying the major role played by NGO’s as one of the interpreters of the common global volonté générale, this paper also points out to the unresolved issue of their lack of transparency, accountability and mainly lack of democratic legitimacy, especially in the era when liberal democracies seem to ensure that States adequately represent their peoples
also at the international level.