General consultative status

The consultative status is a phrase whose use can be traced to the founding of the United Nations and is used within the UN community to refer to "Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in Consultative Status with the United Nations Economic and Social Council" (see list). Also some international organizations could grant Consultative Status to NGOs (for example - Council of Europe; the rules for Consultative Status for INGOs are appended to the resolution (93)38 "On relations between the Council of Europe and international non-governmental organisations", adopted by the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe on 18 October 1993 at the 500th meeting of the Ministers' Deputies). Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) could grant Consultative Status in the form of "Researcher-in-residence programme" (run by the Prague Office of the OSCE Secretariat): accredited representatives of national and international NGOs are granted access to all records and to numerous topical compilations related to OSCE field activities.

Consultative Status has its foundation in Article 71 of Chapter 10 of the United Nations Charter:

In 1948, shortly after the founding of the United Nations, there were 45 NGOs in Consultative Status, mostly large international organizations. Currently there are 3900 NGOs in consultative status with the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC), and some 400 NGOs accredited to the Commission on Sustainable Development (CSD).

ECOSOC Resolution 1296 (XLIV) in 1968 had defined the criteria and rights associated with Consultative Status for almost forty years, during which time there was a substantial growth in the number of NGOs.

The primary impetus for the 1996 revision of the arrangements was the unprecedented level of NGO participation, especially from national NGOs, in the preparations for UNCED - the 1992 Earth Summit. The use of ICT - mostly in the form of electronic conferences on the Institute for Global Communications network, and electronic mail - had played a major role.]

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