Bubonic Tourist has gone and done the unexpected, unexplained and unconventional again by bringing you four performance, video and installation artists playing with the notion of opera, in hoot hoot hoot: a festival of the operaesque, running from April 20-22 at Motel in the EPCOR CENTRE.
GLBTQ activists sent delegates to the 2004 and 2005 meetings of the Commission on Human Rights (CHR). As GLBTQ rights gain ground in various Western democracies, the international profile of GLBTQ rights has also risen. As of this writing, forty-eight United Nations member states have supported sexual orientation as a human right.
However, despite the increased attention to and appreciation of the need for equality and human rights in regards to sexual orientation, delegates who spoke at the CHR plenary have not been permitted to formally speak to the issues on behalf of their own national GLBTQ non-governmental organizations (i.e. community organizations or NGOs) or on the behalf of the ILGA.
In order to have issues such as trans rights and the role of trade unions in sexual orientation, and gender identity issues discussed in panel discussions at CHR, it was necessary to have non-GLBTQ NGOs book the space since no international GLBTQ organization is recognized by the 53 member Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC).
ECOSOC is the committee within the UN charged with giving NGOs “consultative status” (ECOSOC status). Having this status gives NGOs access to other NGOs involved with the Commission on Human Rights. Without it, an NGO is effectively locked-out of consultations or any say on issues of concern.
The responsibility of granting such status is delegated to the 19 member ECOSOC Committee on Non-Governmental Organizations (NGO Committee). Currently over 2,700 NGOs have this status. While ECOSOC does not necessarily endorse individual agenda – for example conscientious objector NGOs have ECOSOC status – being included enables such NGOs to participate fully in UN debates.
ILGA has a long and difficult history in this regard.
In 1993, the UN granted ILGA ECOSOC status. In 1994, following pressure due to the membership of NAMBLA (North American Man-Boy Love Association) within ILGA from American Senator Jesse Helms, a well-known homophobe, ILGA was expelled from the United Nations. ILGA subsequently removed NAMBLA from its membership roster, citing the goals and objectives of NAMBLA were not compatible with the goals and objectives of the international gay, lesbian, bisexual and trans movement.
In 2002, following a new vote, ECOSOC rejected ILGA’s application. ILGA reapplied in 2005 at which time four other GLBTQ NGOs joined in the application to support ILGA. These included ILGA-Europe (the European Region of ILGA), CLGQ (Lesbian and Gay Coalition of Quebec), LBL (the Danish National Association for Gays and Lesbians) and LSVD (the Lesbian and Gay Federation in Germany).
On January 23rd 2006, the NGO Committee within ECOSOC took the unprecedented move of summarily dismissing both ILGA’s and LBL’s applications and disallowing either organization to present its case. On a procedural level, this is considered highly unorthodox and is simply not done.
To compound the obvious slight, this move by the NGO Committee was in stark contrast to 2002’s negotiations. At that time, procedure permitted ILGA the opportunity to present its case before the NGO Committee and take its appeal to ECOSOC.
It should be noted, as it was by both the German and Danish delegations, this decision was without precedent in the hundreds of applications processed by the UN in the last couple of years. ILGA and other such groups believe the decision clearly reveals an anti-GLBTQ bias and is discriminatory – a discomforting concept given we are dealing with human rights interests within the UN.
A former ally in ILGA’s application, the United States, reversed its 2002 position in favour of ILGA and chose this time to side with Cuba, Iran, Sudan and Zimbabwe on the procedural move, which was championed from outside the NGO Committee by Egypt. It should be noted the human rights record of these nations, especially Egypt, is far from unblemished especially when it comes to these countries’ treatment of homosexuals.
On the upside, however, NGOs such as Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, International Service for Human Rights, Open Society Institute, Global Rights and Catholics for a Free Choice spoke out in support of ILGA and LBL’s application and against the attempts by certain factions within ECOSOC to block that application.
In the US, dozens of GLBTQ organizations joined an initiative spearheaded by Human Rights Watch, the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission, Human Rights Campaign and the American-based National Gay and Lesbian Task Force (the Washington DC-based equivalent to Egale Canada) in a joint letter to Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice. They were joined by forty-five Congressmen and three Senators.
Between May 10th and 19th, 2006 the NGO Committee will consider for the first time the applications from ILGA-Europe, CGLQ and LSVD.
ILGA also believes that in May, the full ECOSOC will consider the report from the January session of the NGO Committee, and that some sort of challenge to the unprecedented procedural vote from January will likely occur. Several Latin American GLBTQ NGOs have indicated their intention to file applications for the NGO Committee, thereby exerting additional pressure on the Committee to reconsider its arbitrary decision.
In March 2006, ILGA issued a petition to have the ECOSOC decision revisited and to allow GLBTQ organizations the appropriate status at the UN in order that such organizations can participate in the international work being done around human rights and to help ensure GLBTQ voices are not lost or ignored. The petition can be found at www.ilga.org/ecosoc.
With files from Philipp Braun, Co-Secretary General, ILGA, and John Fisher, Executive Director, ARC-International.
