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Committee on NGOs NGO/266 585th Meeting (PM) - 30 January 1996

COMMITTEE ON NON-GOVERNMENTAL ORGANIZATIONS REVIEWS EIGHT ADDITIONAL REPORTS

Action Deferred on Pax Christi Report

The Committee on Non-Governmental Organizations took note of seven of this afternoon's eight quadrennial reports for the period 1988-1991 from organizations with consultative status with the Economic and Social Council, bringing to 172 the total number of such reports it had noted in the past two days.

Also this afternoon, the Committee deferred action on the report for 1992-1993 from Pax Christi International, taking to six the number of deferrals since yesterday. The Pax Christi report was submitted in response to a request the Committee had made at its 1993 session. It was deferred after some questions were raised by China, Cuba and the Sudan.

The representative of China said that the current report did not reply satisfactorily to the questions raised at the 1993 session. At that time, China had asked Pax Christi whether it recognized Tibet as part of China and what had been the purpose of raising the question of self-determination in that report. China had asked whether Pax Christi's activities abided by the United Nations Charter and its objectives. Pax Christi had repeatedly distorted facts about Tibet, made wrong statements on China at the Human Rights Commission and referred to the self-determination and independence of Tibet. Such references infringed upon China's sovereignty and violated the United Nations Charter. Therefore, no action should be taken on the report.

The representative of the Sudan asked whether governments or countries that were the subjects of Pax Christi's fact-finding missions were informed of those visits.

Emphasizing that the examination of reports aimed to see whether nongovernmental organizations contributed substantially to United Nations work, the United States representative said that Pax Christi was, based on its report, doing so. Fact-finding missions on human rights organized by nongovernmental organizations should not cause alarm.

Stating that there was no such thing as a Romanian Greek Catholic Church as alleged in the Pax Christi report, Greece's representative said that that report should be deferred.

Non-governmental organizations are required to report every four years on the work they did supporting the United Nations under arrangements for consultations with them by the Council and its subsidiary bodies, as governed by guidelines set in Council resolution 1296 (XLIV) of May 1968. After examining the reports, the Committee may recommend to the Council any appropriate reclassification in the status of the organizations concerned.

During the resumed session, the Committee is also expected to consider three non-governmental organizations' applications for consultative status:

International Energy Foundation (IEF), ISIS International (Chile) and ISIS International Women's Information and Communication Service (Philippines).

The Committee will meet again at 10 a.m., tomorrow, 31 January, to consider the question of how to deal with the 10 non-governmental organizations that did not submit their quadrennial reports.