Today is International Human Rights Day, marking the promulgation in 1948 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
One of the important questions that will be discussed today – including by Baroness Anelay, the Foreign Office’s Minister with responsibility for human rights issues, when she hosts a reception in London – is the role of civil society.
Civil society is often thought of as synonymous with non-governmental organisations – in the sense of organisations with full-time staff and funding working on a particular kind of social issue. But it means a lot more than that. It’s a term that properly covers all the structures and systems that represent citizens’ or society’s common interests independently from government structures.
The biggest membership organisation in the UK is the National Trust, which protects historic buildings and landscapes and also owns and administers nature reserves. It was founded in 1895, and now has almost four million members. The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds has more than one million members – about twice as many as all the UK political parties put together – and is the biggest conservation organisation by membership in Europe. People join both those organisations because they care about conserving nature and our historical heritage. Although the National Trust has some statutory powers and the RSPB has a royal charter, neither is essentially pro-government or anti-government. There are times when they may have fierce arguments with government policy, and others when they may work hand in hand with government.
But civil society also exists at a much smaller scale. For me a perfect example is the neighbourhood where my family and I live in London. Ours is one of a row of houses that at the front are across the street from a school and at the back share a wall with another site of the same school. Over the last few years a lot of redevelopment has been done on both school sites, with consequent noise and disruption, and also creating long-term changes to the environment in which we live. The neighbours in the houses affected have organised themselves into a group to engage in dialogue with the school authorities and the local council to make sure that our views are heard and taken into account when important decisions are taken. There’s no formal organisation, and nobody receives any money for what they do – although some undoubtedly put in more work than others (and as someone who is often away working overseas I admit to being a relatively inactive member) – but this is civil society at work.
All these are examples of citizens getting together to pursue their shared interests and concerns, and that network of action and association is an important part of the fabric of British society. They are also examples of people – citizens – taking responsibility for issues that matter to them, and I think that’s good.