A/HRC/39/58 activities. 43 According to the online monitor run by CIVICUS, civil society space is narrowed, obstructed, repressed and even closed in most countries around the world, with only a few northern European countries and New Zealand classified as truly open. 44 Shrinking civil society space suggests that NGO efforts to create subregional and regional mechanisms from the bottom up cannot succeed unless they receive sustained support and coordination by international actors. VII. Implications for the protection of human rights through regional and subregional human rights arrangements 38. The foregoing analysis of the achievements and challenges of regional human rights arrangements suggest that the most important factors determining the success or failure of regional human rights mechanisms include the following factors: (a) Commitment: (i) The intent and will of individual States to conform to regional and international standards; (ii) Signing and ratification by most, if not all, of the States in the region; (iii) Changes in laws or legal practices by individual States in the region; (iv) Securing adequate human and financial resources for the regional and subregional human rights arrangements; (b) Procedures: (i) Ensuring the institutional independence of judges from national interests and influences; (ii) Resolving backlogs and delays in human rights mechanisms (especially courts) and preventing future backlogs; (iii) Establishing enforcement mechanisms for decisions by regional human rights mechanisms; (iv) Monitoring mechanism to follow up on decisions and increase transparency; (v) Maintaining the integrity and neutrality of regional mechanisms; (c) Collaboration: (i) Alliances between global and local human rights organizations to uphold international standards and hold perpetrators of violations accountable; (ii) Role of national human rights institutions in coordinating and strengthening the implementation of decisions and increasing the likelihood of compliance; (iii) Protection of and participation by members of civil society in submitting petitions, representing victims, pressuring responsible actors and following up on court decisions. 39. Ideally, the efficient functioning of a regional mechanism requires all three factors to operate in unison. A lack of member State commitment undercuts the vitality of the entire structure, while a mismatch between commitment and collaboration will create adversarial relationships that complicate the procedural level. Although the potential for procedural flaws and inefficiencies exists in all regional arrangements, a synergistic relationship between member State commitment and collaboration with international and civil society 43 44 14 Council on Foreign Relations, International Institutions and Global Governance Program, “The global human rights regime” (May 2012), Available from www.cfr.org/human-rights/global-human-rightsregime/p27450. See https://monitor.civicus.org/.