Legislation and Policy

Joint Submission by The Foundation for Law and International Affairs (FLIA) and The Coalition for Peace and Ethics (CPE) on the Call for inputs - Report of High Commissioner – "Civil society space in multilateral institutions"

The Foundation for Law and International Affairs (FLIA) and the Coalition for Peace and Ethics (CPE) welcomed the invitation, from the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, for contributions from national human rights institutions, civil society and other stakeholders for the forthcoming report of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, pursuant to Human Rights Council resolution 32/31 on civil society space. In connection therewith, FLIA and CPE hereby submit the following contribution.

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The research project "A Study on the 'Go Out' Policy System for Chinese Social Organizations" was sponsored by the Ministry of Civil Affairs of People's Republic of China. Among the received 422 proposals, FLIA was the only foreign institution out of the 70 approved. The reserach report includes three parts: (1) “The evaluation to the policy environment and framework for the internationalization of Chinese social organizations” (中国社会组织国际化的政策环境评估与建议), (2) “On the internationalization of social organization in the United States and the European Union” (美国与欧盟地区社会组织国际化研究报告), (3) “Chinese social organization in the New Silk Road Policy” (一带一路战略下的社会组织)

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Joint Submission by The Foundation for Law and International Affairs (FLIA) and The Coalition for Peace and Ethics (CPE) on the Themes for the First Session of the Forum on Human Rights, Democracy, and the Rule of Law

The Foundation for Law and International Affairs (FLIA) and the Coalition for Peace and Ethics (CPE) welcomed the invitation, extended in a letter from the Secretariat of the Forum on Human Rights, Democracy and the Rule of Law, dated 23rd June 2016, to reach out to their networks to identify possible topics for discussion at the Forum's inaugural session on “Widening the Democratic Space: the Role of Youth in Public Decision Making”, to be held in Geneva, at the Palais des Nations, on 21st and 22nd November 2016.

Between 24th June and 3rd July 2016, FLIA and the CPE reached out to their respective networks, to involve all interested stakeholders in the identification of possible topics to be discussed during the meeting. FLIA and the CPE reached out to a total of 42 institutions, which included:

1. American and European NGOs;
2. academic and research institutions based in the United States of America, China, The Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, Sweden, Great Britain, Italy, Albania, Australia, Austria, Japan, Korea;
3. U.S. government institutions;
4. students' networks based in China, Europe, India and Bangladesh; (5) Europe-based Chinese trade associations;
5. alumni associations;
6. informal transnational parallel-trade networks based in Lagos, Nigeria. We estimate to have reached a total of nearly 1,000 stakeholders.

Based on and incorporating the thrust of the reactions of the responding stakeholders to which FLIA and the CPE reached out, we submit the following suggestions about the topics to be discussed during the inaugural session of the Forum:

1. Education and Human Rights
2. Education and Democracy
3. Education and Knowledge as Preconditions for the Rule of Law
4. The Role of Chinese Youths' Training in Effective Political Engagement
5. The Role of Chinese Youth in Politics
6. The Role of Transparency in Youth Participation in Public Policy-Making

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FLIA welcomes the opportunity to comment on the draft of the People's Republic of China Charity Law. We believe that the Draft Law offers several possibilities to encourage a greater transparency and accountability of foreign as well as domestic NGOs, and improve the contribution of the civil society sector to local and global good governance. Some of these possibilities have been correctly identified but, other possibilities deserve a closer consideration. We have attached Professor Larry Catá Backer's general comments, and a table of technical comments on the Draft Law prepared by Flora Sapio, Jędrzej Górski and Zhu Shaoming...

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This commentary considers the Second Draft of the People's Republic of China Foreign Non-Governmental Organizations Management Law. In summary, while the general thrust of the Draft NGO Law is consistent with the CCP line, it is not clear that it avoids the possibility of contradiction with the CCP’s fundamental line of modernization. The Draft NGO Law can be improved to meet this fundamental obligation in the following ways...

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