Our History

A full Bureau election took place at the United Nations in Geneva on 25 May 2025, attended by civil-society representatives and the First Vice-President of CoNGO:

• President: Iván Arjona-Pelado (Fundación para la Mejora de la Vida, la Cultura y la Sociedad)
• Vice-President: Jonas Fiebrantz (ADF International)
• Secretary: Stefano Bosco (Latter-day Saints Charities)

The elected Bureau was announced as serving a three-year term (2025–2028).

During the 58th session of the Human Rights Council, the Committee approved clarified and amended bylaws without objection. The amendments retained the original institutional structure while adding a quorum requirement, a procedure for special elections to fill vacancies, a two-person Nominating Committee, a requirement that candidates receive at least two nominations, and a two-thirds majority requirement for future amendments.

Following the resignation of the former President and Vice-President, Iván Arjona-Pelado became President and Jonas Fiebrantz became Vice-President. Internal minutes dated 11 December 2024 confirm the new leadership and record extensive discussion of governance weaknesses exposed by the unexpected resignations.

The Committee held a Bureau election during the 50th session of the Human Rights Council on 23 June 2022 with the following result:

• President: Elizabeth O’Casey (Humanists International)
• Vice-President: Wissam al-Saliby (World Evangelical Alliance)
• Secretary: Michelle Mack Fiore (Jus Cogens)

During the March 2015 session of the Human Rights Council, the Committee elected a new Bureau:

• Chair: Diane Ala’i (Bahá’í International Community)
• Vice-Chair: Elizabeth O’Casey (International Humanist and Ethical Union, now Humanists International)
• Secretary: Ralston H. Deffenbaugh Jr. (Lutheran World Federation)

The composition was notably pluralistic — a Bahá’í representative as Chair, a humanist as Vice-Chair, and a Lutheran as Secretary — reflecting the broad understanding of FoRB protected by Article 18.

Ralston H. Deffenbaugh Jr., representing the Lutheran World Federation, served as Chair of the Geneva NGO Committee from 2011 until March 2015. The Committee continued to follow the mandate of UN Special Rapporteur Heiner Bielefeldt and increasingly addressed violence committed in the name of religion, the relationship between freedom of expression and freedom of religion or belief, and religious minorities.

On 1 January 2008, BIC representative Diane Ala’i was elected President of the Geneva NGO Committee on Freedom of Religion, Conscience and Belief. BIC quadrennial reports covering 2006–2009 confirm its representatives served as Chair of the NGO Committee in Geneva during that period.

The Bahá’í International Community records that its Geneva office chaired the Committee in 2006 and again in 2007. This period coincided with the replacement of the former UN Commission on Human Rights by the Human Rights Council, and the Committee’s work became increasingly centred on Council sessions, the Special Rapporteur, and the emerging Universal Periodic Review system.

The earliest governing document in the Committee’s surviving internal archive was adopted on 18 June 2002: “NGO Committee on Freedom of Religion or Belief (Geneva) — Rules (Bylaws)”. The rules established membership for NGOs holding ECOSOC consultative status, a Bureau structure (President, Vice-President, Secretary), three-year terms, and decision-making by consensus.

A Bahá’í International Community report records that a workshop on solutions to contemporary religious intolerance was sponsored in Geneva on 15 August 1995 by the Committee of NGOs on Freedom of Religion, Conscience and Belief. By 1995, a functioning Geneva NGO committee or predecessor body unquestionably existed.

A United Nations quadrennial NGO report recorded that the World Jewish Congress participated in a “newly constituted NGO group on freedom of religion or belief” meeting under the auspices of CoNGO. This is strong evidence that a CoNGO-based structure was being formed or reconstituted in the early 1990s.

The International Association for Religious Freedom (IARF) played a key role in initiating an NGO Committee on Freedom of Religion or Belief, under the leadership of interfaith and human-rights advocate Homer A. Jack. The initiative was intended to provide an NGO platform supporting implementation of the 1981 UN Declaration on the Elimination of All Forms of Intolerance and of Discrimination Based on Religion or Belief.

A UN Seminar on the Encouragement of Understanding, Tolerance and Respect in Matters Relating to Freedom of Religion or Belief took place. Educational chronologies associate the creation of NGO committees in Geneva and New York with this event, suggesting a possible early institutional antecedent.