The Impact of INGOs on the State of Sovereignty

Introduction

As a citizen, you are a member of a nation. A nation is a group of people who share a sense of belonging and solidarity, while a state is a nation has a presence of sovereignty. Sovereignty refers to the principles that states have the supreme authority within their territory. However, independent from governments, all individuals are entitled to Human Rights, which consists of a set of rules, or norms, that apply to every human by virtue of being human (). In developed countries, these rules are presented naturally in the daily lives of the citizens, whereas, in developing countries, the citizens struggle to properly attain the entities of the Human Rights. International Nongovernmental Organizations (INGOs) are organizations that work under humanity and protect the human rights of each human being. Some of the essential roles INGOs play is to protect the human rights are building a language, monitoring the areas in people by conducting interviews with the citizen, naming and shaming the issues through the use of social media. INGOs played a crucial role to ensure all citizens are aware of the proper human rights they are entitled for while keeping a peaceful state. This paper will talk how Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, two INGOs, tried to impact the state sovereignty by naming and shaming the issues over social media, but failed to reach a peaceful resolution. Instead, they misuse their power, address the wrong problem and lead into a destruction of state sovereignty by damaging the relations between one’s government.

Human Rights Watch

Human Rights Watch is “one of the influential human rights organizations in the world, that launches campaigns” () it was first found in New York, 1978 (). HRW took a significant role when the Olympic Committee was selecting the 2000 Olympic Games’ host country, by flavouring countries. One of the countries that bid to host the Games, was China. At this time, Beijing was facing controversies of being an undemocratic country, and political prisoners conflicts. As China was facing this problematic matter, the HRW increased the pressure on China by advocating the proper use of Human Right and began to hold anti-campaigns against China. To get the public more aware of the issue, the HRW publicized the current issue on social media. The results of HRW’s actions was resulted to be a success in shaping the public awareness on human rights, and significantly influencing the decisions of the Olympic Committee.

Although the ultimate goal of the Human Right Watch was to devise a way to apply human rights standards to armed conflict, and effectively invent a new filed of human right advocacy (), HRW can also significantly impact the image of the country’s sovereignty. A state sovereignty is not only the ability to have the ultimate authority, but it is also getting recognised within the citizens. If humanitarian organizations, such as HRW, sway the citizens to believe and draw their governments flaws and mistakes, this damages the sovereignty that the state is trying to achieve. For instance, after the bid to host the Olympic Game, the US opinions on China was to “somehow punish and correct China” in order to prevent the state from obliterating.

Amnesty International

Amnesty International is one of the most controversial and long-standing INGOs that was founded in Britain in 1961. In the “Case of Amnesty International”, it reveals Amnesty International, and INGO, inspect to abuse their power when advocating campaigns to protect human rights. Initially, when the organization was first founded, their main objective was to help fight abuses of human rights by bringing tortures to justice. However, it examines Amnesty International abused the privilege to categorize the issues to ranks – social, structural, contextual, psychological, and spiritual – in accordance to their sources. Given the fact that this organization ranks their priorities to make awareness of the issues, portrays the abuse of power to manipulate the views of the individuals. Naming and shaming those violating the human rights is one of the key roles INGOs participate in, and if Amnesty International is providing the citizens with fabrications. The citizens will view the INGOs above the government’s sovereignty when it comes to following the orders.

However, the Amnesty International do try to impact the state’s sovereignty in a constructive method. Amnesty International emphasises on recognizing and reinforcing the local efforts. There are seven million people worldwide who are involved in helping Amnesty International, campaign and support the human rights in every parts of the world. By having a multi-nation of citizens who are actively recognizing and addressing the conflict, it represents diversity. Despite the fact, the Amnesty International rank their prioritizes in which conflicts are put on spotlight, they try to name and shame all the conflict at a point of time.

Conclusion

The main objective of INGOs is to advocate, protect the human rights equally to everyone with the virtue of human, and create a shared vision of a better world, an international community. However, recent humanitarian organizations are misusing their power by getting the citizens to question the state’s sovereignty instead of coming to a peaceful, equal society. Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, two INGOs, that tried to impact the state sovereignty by naming and shaming issues over social media but failed to do so. In previous cases, it was shown that they misused their power, addressed the wrong problem and led to a destruction of state sovereignty by damaging the relations between one’s government and ruining the reputation of nation’s sovereignty. Hence INGOs do try impacting the state sovereignty by emphasising on the importance of human rights. However, in the case of Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, it resulted in a negative matter.