Monitoring the Monitors
As reported in last week’s Friday Fax, Alliance Defending Freedom took the floor recently at a General Assembly forum on how to reform United Nations Treaty Bodies, calling on the Treaty Bodies not to usurp functions that do not rightfully belong to them. These treaty monitoring bodies, also called “Compliance Committees,” are generally empowered to [...]
Are Homosexuals Less Safe under Obama?
As John Kerry replaces Hillary Clinton as US Secretary of State, the White House made clear that Hillary’s priority of women’s rights will carry on. What, some wonder, will happen with another top priority – a totalitarian insistence on LGBT rights, to the point of threatening aid to developing countries? Some UN delegates believe LGBT [...]
Freedom of Speech and LGBT Rights: Many Traditions Don’t Agree With Homosexuality
In recent years same-sex marriage proponents and groups claiming a host of new international LGBT rights have been able to make even international law somewhat interesting. It is no secret that International law is not terribly exciting – reading the minutes of a meeting of the UN International Law Commission or an international human rights body is [...]
The Culture of Death, the Dictatorship of Relativism and the Inter-American Court
Late yesterday the Inter-American Court of Human Rights released a lengthy opinion (Murillo et al. v. Costa Rica, dated November 28, 2012) holding that Costa Rica’s law which protects life at its earliest stages by prohibiting in vitro fertilization violates the American Convention on Human Rights. In so doing, the Court turned the Convention, which protects [...]
Cooler heads prevailed on Disabilities Treaty
The Hill, a newspaper for people who work on U.S. federal legislation, ran Dr. Susan Yoshihara’s op ed today on the defeat of the vote on the UN Disability treaty. Dr. Yoshihara, who participated in the negotiations of the UN treaty, anticipated the political attacks that may come against the dissenting senators. Her op ed [...]
Human Rights Official Riles Up UN Delegates, Fire Alarm Goes Off
Yesterday was UN Day. A day to celebrate the accomplishments of the world’s only universal international organization, and the progress of the world’s nations towards a brighter more peaceful future. But UN delegates at the third committee meeting of the 67th plenary session of the General Assembly were more concerned with highlighting overreaching by the High Commissioner for Human Rights, Ms. [...]
Will UN Disability Treaty Burden Abortion Clinics?
They didn’t see that coming. Planned Parenthood’s support of the UN Disability treaty has put the abortion group in an awkward position. In the abortion group’s zeal to support the treaty because it endorses the right of persons with disabilities to access “reproductive health care,” it neglects to notice that the same treaty would require [...]
UN Global Tax for Health?
It sounds incredible, but it is true. The United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Right to Health, Anand Grover, is calling for a “treaty-based global pooling mechanism, comprising compulsory progressive contributions from States allocated based upon need and driven by transparent, participatory processes…” This is what the nations of the world are being told by UN officials. Anand [...]
No Need to Ratify New UN Treaty
Yesterday Wendy Wright and I spent our lunch hour at the new state of the art US Mission to the UN at 45th St and 1st Ave. We attended a side event hosted by the US delegation to the UN on Disability Rights. The side event was held because of the ongoing Conference of States Parties [...]
The Hidden Cost of a UN Interpretation of New UN Treaty
Will ratifying the newest UN human rights treaty place additional financial burdens on the U.S., international institutions and others? Advocates are heavily lobbying the U.S. to ratify the newest UN human rights treaty, the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disability. Some promise U.S. decision-makers that ratification will not change anything domestically, but will [...]
Human Rights Roulette: What it Means to Ratify a New UN Treaty
The United Nations Convention on the Protection of Persons with Disabilities is certainly a nobly inspired document, but it creates more problems than it solves. The Senate thankfully has not been able to vote on the ratification of the new treaty, this week, in time for the summer recess. But sooner, rather than later, and possibly as soon [...]
House Members Letter Highlights Problems with UN Disability Treaty
The UN Disability treaty, the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD), is advancing due to Senator Kerry, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, expected filing of the approved Resolution despite concerns by members of Congress and conservative leaders. The treaty passed out of committee last week and once the resolution has [...]
Abortion Advocates Introduce Outline to Advance Contraceptive Services as a Human Right
A one day conference meant to be a lead-up to the UK Family Planning Summit in London reporting the findings of a series of Family Planning studies by Lancet medical journal included an announcement by one researcher proclaiming that national and international law mandated by human rights requires all states implement family planning programs. Paul [...]
CEDAW Expert Supervillains Keep Hurting Women
Staff from every major, and not so major, UN entity, human rights agency, program and organization showed up yesterday morning in Conference Room 3 of the temporary North Lawn Building at UN Headquarters in New York at a commemorative event for the 30th anniversary of the CEDAW Committee. Later during the evening, the same crowd [...]
Rio + 20: Green Economy Loses, Sovereign States Win, Civil Society Disappointed
Rio + 20 was touted as the most important United Nations Conference ever by the UN bureaucracy led by the Secretary General, Ban Ki-moon. It was also touted to be a UN Conference where we would witness unprecedented collaboration between Governments and civil society. To that end, for the past two years civil society had [...]
Rio + 20: Holy See Shines Light in the Midst of Darkness
If you are reading this, you are probably afraid that what is going on in Rio de Janeiro right now during the UN Conference on Sustainable Development is nothing other than the proverbial “blind leading the blind”. As countries hurry to make politically expedient and alarmist statements about climate change, the green economy and reproductive [...]
Rio + 20: Brazil Takes Control of Document
It was almost expected, and everyone here in Rio is taking it on the chin. Late Friday night it became inevitable. The outcome document of the Rio + 20 UN Conference on Sustainable Development will not be the result of multilateral negotiations carried out under the rules of the United Nations, but will be controlled by Brazil, the host [...]
Rio + 20: No Guarantees of a Sustainable Future
The UN Conference on Sustainable Development in Rio De Janeiro, Brazil, is now in its third day. It has been touted as the most significant UN Conference ever. That’s what we’ve been hearing from the Secretary General and his UN political sales fleet made up of high and low ranking UN staff and delegations for [...]
Rio + 20: The Future We Want and Population Control
“The Future We Want” is the title chosen for the document that will be the outcome of the Rio + 20 UN Conference on Sustainable Development. For the moment, it looks as though Population Control will not feature in that document as a result of developing countries’ refusal to bow to demands from western countries [...]
Non-Aligned Movement Meeting in Egpyt this Week to discuss UN Reform
The Ministerial Coordinating Bureau of Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) is meeting in the Red Sea resort city of Sharm-el-Sheik, Egypt this week in preparation for the 16th annual NAM Summit Conference to be held in Tehran in November later this year. The coordinating bureau has announced that it will discuss the following: A review international law; promotion [...]