Guest Lecture on the Legal Frameworks Affecting NGOs

On October 14th, Caroline Newman, Executive President of Kids Empowerment, a Paris-based NGO dedicated to the protection of children's rights internationally, was a guest speaker in Dr. Ruchi Anand's class on NGO Management. She gave an overview on the legal frameworks affecting NGOs.

In her talk, Ms. Newman discussed how at the international level, NGOs are essentially regulated in respect to their consultative status with international organizations such as the UN, COE, OSCE. Art. 71 of the UN charter and Resolution 1996/31 regulate the granting of this status with ECOSOC. NGOs do not hold an international legal personality and their existence at the national level is protected through the basic fundamental rights enshrined in the international bill of human rights and various international treaties (CRC, CEDAW…). The concerned rights are the freedom of association, peaceful assembly and expression, freedom of thought, conscience and religion, and the right to take part in the conduct of public affairs.

The legal standing of NGOs in relation to UN treaty bodies is problematic and more tolerated under regional instruments. The Inter-American Commission, the African Court on Human and People’s Rights can be petitioned by NGOs under certain conditions whereas the European Court of Human Rights clearly recognizes the legal standing of NGOs. NGOs acquire their legal personality in compliance with domestic law requirements. Their existence is usually protected in constitutional law and regulated in various fields of law such as civil law for their establishment and/or tax law and administrative law. The main legal forms encountered in continental Europe are associations and foundations and originate back to Roman law. Other forms such as trusts, non-profit cooperatives, non-profit corporations can also be encountered depending on a country’s legal system.

The European Convention on the Recognition of Legal Personality of International Non-Governmental Organizations enables the recognition of the legal personality of an NGO established in a state party to the convention by another state party, provided it meets certain criteria, notably that it operates in a least 2 countries an carries out public benefit activities.

During the discussions that followed Ms. Newman's presentation, the issue of the legal standing of NGOs was raised in relation to the attack on a convoy of an NGO in a conflict area. Depending on the circumstances, this could be considered a violation of the Geneva conventions. The individual held responsible could thus be prosecuted in front of the competent tribunal for the given crime.

Caroline NEWMAN co-founded Kids Empowerment after having acquired more than fifteen years of experience in developmental NGOs. She started her career in this field in 1998 at the International Center for Not-for-Profit Law, where she was managing rule of law programs in the Caucasus and Western NIS, and served as a legal expert on public financing mechanisms for NGOs. She later joined the Open Society Institute, Local Government and Public Service Initiative, as a Program Manager responsible for the Russian Federation and the Balkan region. She started working on child’s rights as a legal expert in deinstitutionalization projects in Armenia, Moldova and Georgia in Moldova for various TACIS project, and has had the privilege to be the lead drafter of major normative acts reforming child care in Moldova and Georgia. In 2014, she became Terre des Hommes France’s Secretary General until the establishment of Kids Empowerment. She holds an LL.M in Legal History and Theory from UCL, University of London, a degree in International Law from MGIMO (Moscow State Institute of International Relations), and a graduate degree from HEI in France (Ecole des Hautes Etudes Internationales).

Ms. Newman was invited to participate in AGS's class on NGO Management on the initiative of Fazola Nasretdinova, an AGS Master's student in International Relations and Diplomacy who interned with her last semester.

On the photo below, Caroline Newman (on the right) with Ruchi Anand and Larry Kilman, who each teach a semester course in the one-year NGO Management Certificate program at AGS.