NGOs under European Convention on Human Rights / Tymofeyeva

‘NGO’ at all, 117 or they mention NGOs only among many other subjects, as is the case in the Framework Convention on the Value of Cultural Heritage for Society . 118 Article 11 of this treaty enlists the entities responsible for the cultural heritage, including NGOs. 119 The aforementioned may be of interest for a description of the types of activities conducted by NGOs within the Council of Europe. Nonetheless, the simple reference to the expression ‘NGO’ in these international agreements does not allow us to define the studied term. An analysis of the CoE treaties allows us to conclude that the best treaty for comparing the status of non-governmental organisations is the European Social Charter (hereinafter also referred to as the ‘Charter’). The reasons for this preference are numerous. The Charter is the closest to the Convention as regards the content, because it concerned with a wide range of human rights, namely, social rights belonging to all people. The mechanism for the collective complaints, envisaged in the Additional Protocol to the European Social Charter providing for a system of collective complaints, directly provides for the possibility of submissions from NGOs. 120 Moreover, the Charter is not limited to a certain group of people, and the area of social rights is far more extensive than precise areas, such as, culture or cybercrime, as it previously discussed. Accordingly, the comparison with the Convention would be more relevant. Both treaties belong to the system of the same international organisation and follow similar aims of protecting rights. Therefore, theoretically, the terminology of these two acts must be comparable or even the same. They both work with the term ‘NGO’. A detailed look at the European Social Charter shows that the meaning of ‘NGO’, in terms of this treaty, is hardly the same as the one we find in the text of the Convention. Under Article 3 of the Additional Protocol to the Charter providing for a system of collective complaints , 121 national and international NGOs may lodge complaints with the European Committee of Social Rights (hereinafter also referred to as the ‘ECSR’). According to Articles 1 and 2 of the Additional Protocol, organisations entitled to lodge complaints in the case of all states that have accepted the Collective Complaint procedure, 122 may be divided into the four main groups. The first group is international organisations of employers and trade unions, namely, the European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC), BUSINESSEUROPE (formerly UNICE) and the International Organisation of Employers (OIE). The second group consists of employers’ organisations and trade unions in the country concerned. International Non-Governmental Organisations (INGOs) enjoying participatory status with the 117 See, for example, the CoE Convention on Cybercrime, the European convention on extradition and the European Cultural Convention. 118 Framework Convention on the Value of Cultural Heritage for Society, Faro, 27 October 2005. 119 Article 11, Ibid . 120 Additional Protocol to the European Social Charter providing for a system of collective complaints. Strasbourg, 9 November 1995. 121 Ibid. 122 Signatures and ratifications of the Additional Protocol to the European Social Charter Providing for a System of Collective Complaints. URL: accessed 16 February 2015.

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