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This workshop focused on areas such as how NGOs are forced to deal with a variety of CTMs and the fact that violation can bring harsh civil and criminal penalties to agencies and their staff. It highlighted how the good intent of the NGO does not prevent regulatory or legal sanctions.
Further, the burden of compliance with CTMs weighs most heavily on Southern NGOs who have to certify to Northern counterparts that they do not violate Northern CTMs. This can alienate Southern NGOs and adds to a climate of distrust and suspicion that undermines international partnership.
The session concluded with discussion on how to create an alternative discourse on CTM, trust and state–civil society relationships.
Points raised at this workshop included:
• Discussion of this area in the US is limited and guarded
• CTMs and government limits are narrowing the space for civil action, and US NGOs are already showing signs of self censorship
• The shifting aid system and CTMs may put NGOs in situations where their true purposes and goals are compromised
• NGOs feel CTMs may be a pretext for imposing limitations on civil society
• US NGOs must find ways to engage in an alternate discourse on this subject – within civil society, and with government representatives. To do this, NGOs must be able to clearly state their added value, and the rationale for relaxing CTM limitations on NGOs and civil society.
The views expressed in this section are those of civil society organisations in different regions, and do not necessarily reflect those of INTRAC.
"There seems to be a general subordination of NGO goals to the goals of ‘security’. But whose security? What is security? Security and CTMs become the new Cold War."
Inter-Mediation