LABOUR RIGHTS International organizations carry out a great deal of development assistance – training minority and indigenous groups in their rights and helping them to achieve economic development – and often engage national organizations to help them. They can fund projects, and work in partnership with national research or development organizations. The standards provide the international rights foundation for protecting minorities and indigenous peoples. However, they require solid and concentrated action by national and local authorities, and their implementation will not be effective unless the groups themselves organize for their own protection and demand action of national authorities. They can increase their visibility by appealing to the international community, but will have also to increase their political impact and influence in the countries where they live. Complaints The UN allows NGOs to bring complaints to their bodies, attend their meetings, and make statements. The ‘1503’ procedure of the CHR allows individuals and NGOs to bring complaints of patterns of human rights abuse. The local office of the UN and the UN website can advise on how to do this. Publicizing the fact that a complaint has been submitted in the national media will increase impact. In the ILO system, only a trade union or an employers’ organization can make a formal complaint. Other NGOs can form alliances with workers’ organizations to bring matters to the ILO’s attention, or contact the local affiliate of one of the international trade union bodies, such as the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions, or contact that organization direct in Brussels.21 Submitting information The UN allows a wide range of NGOs to submit information either to so-called ‘charter-based bodies’ (e.g. Special Rapporteurs) or to the treaty bodies established to supervise the different treaties. The Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, created in the UN in 2001, has a special mandate to coordinate the work of the international system on indigenous issues.22 Information can also be submitted to the Working Group on Indigenous Populations, a working group of the UN Sub-Commission on Protection and Promotion of Human Rights, through the Office of the High Commission for Human Rights. Finally, as has been noted throughout this guide, information can be submitted to the Special Rapporteurs, including the Special Rapporteur on the Situation of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms of Indigenous People. Information on other minorities may be submitted to the Special Rapporteur on Contemporary Forms of Racism, the UN Working Group on Persons of African Descent, or the UN Working Group on Minorities. 77