Participation in the deliberative process of the United Nations: The influence of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) on decision outcomes .

摘要

Although nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) have become visible participants at major international conferences, especially those under the auspices of the United Nations (UN), the extent of their influence on international decisions and policies is unclear. States are the decision makers at the UN, but the NGOs seek to influence the agenda and decisions of the body. This qualitative study examined and established a clear linkage between participation of NGOs in the deliberative process of the UN and their influence on policy outcomes. The negotiations of 5 international legal instruments on transnational organized crimes and corruption were used as a case study. The process-tracing method was employed to facilitate the identification of the evolution of the decisions at the negotiations in order to establish a link between the participation of NGOs and the decision outcomes as reflected in the legal instruments. The study found that vis-a-vis their objectives, the NGOs studied had a low influence on the transnational organized crime convention, a high influence on its three supplementing protocols, and a moderate influence on the convention against corruption. It concluded and recommended that in order to enhance their influence on key decisions of global governance, NGOs should focus more on how to integrate their research and technical expertise into the work of the UN secretariat at the early stages of decision making as against the present focus on physical access and participation at the actual conferences. This implies active engagement with each other, of the NGOs and the secretariat of the various agencies and entities of the UN system. The study also illustrated the need for NGOs, as harbingers of social change, to be quick at making connections in the work of the various agencies and commissions of the UN in order to enhance their influence on policy outcomes.