Subject: PRESS RELEASE: ILGA HAS OBTAINED NGO STATUS WITH THE COUNCIL OF
From: [email-masked]
Date: Thu, 15 Jan 1998 23:18:14 +0100 (MET)

THE INTERNATIONAL LESBIAN AND GAY ASSOCIATION (ILGA) WAS GRANTED CONSULTATIVE
STATUS WITH THE COUNCIL OF EUROPE

As of 15 January 1998, ILGA has finally gained consultative status with the
Council of Europe. "It took quite some time to achieve this", explains Steffen
Jensen, ILGA-Europe board member from Denmark who has been co-ordinating this
second application for NGO status. 

"ILGA's first application dates back to July 1989, and it was rejected in 1990
because our activities were not ‚directly related to the present work
programme of the Council of Europe‘. It was only
in March 1995 that ILGA submitted a new application. On 15 October 1997, the
Secretary-General of the CoE informed the Committee of Ministers and the
Parliamentary Assembly of his decision to grant consultative status to ILGA.
Since no objection has been raised by these two organs of the CoE within three
months, the decision has become effective from 15 January 1998."

In his substantiation, the Secretary-General writes: "The ILGA is an active
and representative organisation in its field of competence. It has already
established working relations with the Council of Europe. Furthermore, the
organisation has a specific contribution to make to any discussion on
discrimination generally as well as on more specific issues such as
discrimination against people with HIV and AIDS."

"Indeed", explains Steffen Jensen, "ILGA and its member organisations have had
working relations since the early days of ILGA. They gave input, for example,
to the Voogd report which led to the landmark Recommendation 924 of the
Parliamentary Assembly in 1981, and many ILGA members supported lesbian and
gay test cases to the European Commission and Court of Human Rights. In 1981,
the Court ruled that a total ban on homosexuality constitute a violation of
the Convention, and in 1997 the Commission declared unequal age of consent
laws for heterosexuals and homosexuals to also be a breach of the Convention.
ILGA's lobbying also influenced the admission policy of the CoE for new
members from the former East-bloc. Applicant countries had to agree to adapt
their penal codes to certain European standards, including the
decriminalisation of homosexual acts between consenting adults. A policy that
influenced law reform in Lithuania, Albania, Moldova, Romania, and Macedonia."

ILGA has also lobbied the Parliamentary Assembly for a motion to establish an
Additional Protocol to the Convention which would add "sexual orientation" as
a non-discrimination category in Article 14.

These efforts, so far, did not turn out successfully. The motion got stuck in
the Parliamentary system. "But ILGA's new status will hopefully increase the
impact of our lobbying efforts", says Steffen Jensen. "We have also contacted 
the
European Commission against Racism and Intolerance (ECRI), a high-profile body
set up according to the Plan of Action on Combating Racism, Xenophobia,
Anti-Semitism and Intolerance adopted at the First Council of Europe Summit in
Vienna in 1993. ECRI also feels that the existing protection in Article 14 is
too weak and also has proposed that an additional protocol to provide a wider
protection under the Convention be considered."

The consultative status of ILGA will also mean that the organisation will be
heard before the Council takes measures in the field relevant to the
organisation. Furthermore the CoE has three bodies for co-operating with NGOs:
the Plenary Conference of NGOs, the Liaison Committee of NGOs and the
Parliamentarians/NGOs joint Committee. ILGA will be invited to be part of all
three bodies.  

The Council of Europe is an intergovernmental organisation founded in 1949
which today comprises 40 member states (all 45 European countries except from
Belarus, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Monaco, the Vatican, and Yugoslavia, e.g.,
Serbia/Montenegro). In 1953, The Council of Europe established the European
Convention on Human Rights and an enforcement machinery whereby states and
individuals may refer alleged violations of the Convention to the European
Commission and the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg.
The Council of Europe should not be confused with the European Union or the
European Council, the European Court of Human Rights not with the European
Court of Justice, the Court of the EU in Luxemburg!

***************************
Steffen Jensen
E-mail: [email-masked] 
http://inet.uni2.dk/~steff
Tel. +45 3324 6435 or +45 2033 0840  Fax: +45 2036 7856