© Università degli Studi di Padova - Credits: HCE Web agency
In the domain of recent theoretical efforts directed to shape the general meaning of “civil society”, an acceptable definition is the one that identifies it with the inter-subjective relations of trans-national character considered as a whole, beyond the borders, aiming at the realization of the range of objectives that represent the common good of all members of the human family, and in particular, for the enjoyment of those essential needs of the people that the International Law in force now recognizes as fundamental rights.
Trans-nationalism is a process that redefines the dynamics of roles, structures and institutions. It stems from actors, fundamentally different from governments or intergovernmental agencies, that are able to significantly act and interact in the functional international space, in an autonomous way from governmental centres of political power.
The actors of this process are organized entities whose identity essentially consists of the ability to operate in more than one country, regardless of the typical dimensions of traditional international relations, statehood and territoriality. Concerning the characteristics of these actors, the fundamental distinction that has to be made is between for-profit and non-profit entities, that is between multinational companies and non-governmental organizations.
The acronym NGO, widely used in the most important intergovernmental organizations such as the United Nations, refers to collective actors belonging to the “popular” side of the international system that are committed to human promotion.
The process towards trans-nationalism in this area shows, from one side, a tendency to consolidate a genuine trans-national system, characterized by novelty and autonomy, in which values, objectives and activities originally and distinctively qualify the non-territorial functional reality of transnational actors’ relations: it is the area of the global civil society. From the other side, there is a tendency to introduce new features as pluralism and people’s participation in the old system of the intergovernmental international relations.
In the days of world interdependence and human rights internationalization , NGOs seem to acknowledge, more than other organized structures, the need to act according to a continuum of roles, from the district and the city to the decision-making structures of international institutions.
This consciousness led NGOs to develop networking tools and to acquire always more specific skills and competences concerning, not only their own fields of interest, but also the system of international politics in its multi-faceted aspects.
Indeed, in particular from the beginning of the 90s, NGOs have received important recognitions of their roles in the specific domains of international security and peace keeping, mainly because of their knowledge and ability to analyse political and cultural local dynamics that are too often ignored by governments and international organizations but that allow them to have an important role in systems of early warning conceived for the start up of bottom-up preventative measures.
Permanent forms of consultative status were at first envisaged in the UN Charter and, later, by other international organizations. Within the European Union instead, a sort non-institutionalized dialogue between civil society organizations and European institutions was established, the so called civil dialogue, which is complementary to both the political dialogue with national and European authorities and the social dialogue among social actors.
Another meaningful example of dialogue between civil society organizations and international institutions, always in the field of peace and international security is represented by the informal consultative mechanism of the UN Security Council, known as Arria Formula.
18/11/2009
University of Padova
Human Rights Centre
"Antonio Papisca"
Complesso Universitario
Via Beato Pellegrino, 28
35137 Padova
Tel 049 827 1813 / 1817
E-mail
centro.dirittiumani@unipd.it
Certified e-mail (PEC)
centro.dirittiumani@pec.unipd.it
University of Padova
Human Rights Centre
"Antonio Papisca"
Complesso Universitario
Via Beato Pellegrino, 28
35137 Padova
Tel 049 827 1813 / 1817
E-mail
centro.dirittiumani@unipd.it
Certified e-mail (PEC)
centro.dirittiumani@pec.unipd.it
© Università degli Studi di Padova - Credits: HCE Web agency