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Under the patronage of
His Excellency Mr. Amr Musa, Secretary General of the Arab League, and
with the support of the European Union, Arab governments and CSOs took
the floor at the Arab League premises, on October 18-19, 2008, to
discuss and debate the phrase "Arab particularity" which is often used
to justify the inapplicability of international standards and criteria
in the Arab context. The ensuing attitude has resulted in
marginalizing civil society, weakening state institutions, and failing
to deliver development plans, to say nothing about human rights
violations.
The conference on the
"Moral Responsibility of CSO’s in the Arab World & the Right to Freedom
of Association" was advertised under the slogan of "Freedom of
Association". To voice their willingness to self-regulate, CSO's
introduced three different contributions: a Code of Conduct for the NGO
Sector, a Charter containing the principles of democratic political
practices, and a set of Guiding Principles for internal regulations of
labor unions.
More than 140
participants from the various Arab and other countries attended the
conference 16 of whom are Palestinians including the Minister of
Justice, Dr. Ali Khashan. Other Palestinian participants included PLC
and SCO representatives.
AMAN, the Palestinian
partner of the host organization, Friedrich Naumann Foundation (FN),
assisted in the logistics of the conference and in the preparation of
the documents presented at the conference including the book “Guiding
Principals on the Right of Assembly and Organization in the Arab World”,
launched during the conference. Furthermore, the Palestinian delegation
participated actively during the conference. Dr. Ali Khashan
participated in the session on Reform Efforts: role of CSO and
governments, Dr. Allam Jarrar presented the regional Code of Conduct,
and Mo’een al-Barghouthi presented the policy paper on the Legal
Framework for NGOs, unions and political parties. Furthermore, each
participant took part in the workshops on the various codes as well as
providing comments when applicable.
It is worthy to note
that the conference constitutes one of the activities of the project
“Enhancing the Legal Framework of Association in the Arab World through
National Dialogue and Empowerment of Civil Society”, implemented by AMAN
and FN and funded by the EU.
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