George Monbiot wrote a Guardian article about Clare Short, the UK's former International Development Secretary, after she resigned:

"Who represents the people of the world?" she asked the BBC World Service in November 2001. "It's the governments who come from civil societies. Having lots of NGOs squawking all over the place won't help. They don't speak for the poor, the governments do."...

There is, in other words, no such thing as society, unrepresented by government. The people's organisations that seek to question governmental decisions - the trade unions, peasant syndicates, associations of shanty dwellers or indigenous people - are an irrelevant nuisance, the surly and recalcitrant natives who cannot interpret their own best interests.

I'm pleased to see that Monbiot doesn't think that society is the same as the state. But I'd suggest that he misses the point of what Short is getting at. Far too many NGOs are tedious anti-development campaigners, arguing for policies not in the interests of poor countries. Giving them votes at international conferences, for example, would hardly be democratic, and not in the interests of the countries they are supposed to be helping. It is right and proper that governments - despite their faults - decide trade deals.