Fertility 2.1
Fertility is plummeting around the globe and countries are at a loss to solve the problems created by aging and population decline. Without robust workforces it will be impossible for African countries with emergent fiscal systems to sustain any kind of social protection floor in the future. While countries negotiate a document to address the challenges countries and [...]
Global Abortion Lobby Stuck at the Rubicon. A Hobbit is Sneaking By…
“Though Shalt not pass!” Last week at the Commmission of the Status of Women, nations that cherish traitional values were able to halt the advance of the global abortion lobby towards abortion as a human right. Despite attempting to do so for over 40 yrs, nations and groups that want abortion to be a human [...]
US, EU Ask to Delete “Inherent Right to Life, Liberty” at UN
As countries are deadlocked over negotiations going late into the night at the UN Commission on the Status of Women, the US and European Union have played a deadly card. One that contradicts a foundational principle of citizens and civilizations worldwide, as expressed in the Declaration of Independence and the UN Declaration of Human Rights. [...]
The story of a statistic: how one activist is exploiting a good cause and bad data to push abortion on an unwilling world
As negotiations intensify over the outcome document of the 57th Commission on the Status of Women (CSW), many participants in the two-week event are hearing the same sobering statistic being repeated, unaware that it is a disingenuous misrepresentation of the facts, and that one of the women who created it twenty years ago is currently [...]
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 [...]
Slanted media reporting on Commission on the Status of Women
As the 57th session of the Commission on the Status of Women begins today, two news stories are already disingenuously implying that the Holy See, the Russian Federation, and Iran are effectively enablers of violence committed against women. These and several other UN member states oppose the inclusion of language that could be used to [...]
Press Release Mischaracterizes Nature of Holy See’s Routine Human Rights Review
According to a press release from the Center for Constitutional Rights, (CCR) the Vatican has been “summoned before UN Committee on Rights of the Child,” allegedly to answer for the sexual abuse scandal. Omitted from the press release was the fact that Congo, Germany, Portugal, Russian Federation, and Yemen were likewise “summoned” to appear [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
The UNFPA’s Miserable Failure to Control the World’s Population at Rio +20
The UNFPA left the Rio +20 conference on sustainable development without anything to show for its efforts. Not a single one of their hard fought suggestions ever made it into the text. Their presence at the conference could hardly even be felt, except through a few countries like New Zealand, Norway and Iceland, which were [...]
Rio + 20 in Pics
You can check google for more pics of the conference. Here is a selection of pics to give a different perspective. The Earth is Sick and Humans are the Problem. A poster hangs in the main entrance of the Rio +20 pavillion in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, showing that human beings are the disease that plagues the earth. Some [...]
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 [...]
Hey “Civil Society”: Rio +20 is OVER
Just so we are clear, for all intents and purposes, the real Rio +20 conference is over. The next few days exist only for the media and the heads of state that now swarm the “Rio Centro” like bees. Negotiators sealed and delivered the document on Monday night at 3:30am. It will be signed in [...]
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 [...]
Live from Rio +20: Part 4
Well folks, it’s day three. The atmosphere here is one of utter exhaustion and frustration. The shuttle buses to and from the city center are never on time. Delegates are missing their meetings. The negotiations are dragging on and have yet to reach any conclusions. Small countries, with tiny delegations have all but given up [...]
Rio +20 Re-post: “Royal Society call for free access to reproductive health services despite protests from Vatican”
Full article here and here. The world’s 105 science academies, including the Royal Society, have warned international leaders that a failure to act now on population growth and over-consumption will have “potentially catastrophic implications for human wellbeing” The Royal Society also released a study in the months leading up to the conference calling for population [...]
Holy See releases Position Paper on Rio +20 Negotiations
“Human beings, in fact, come first. We need to be reminded of this. At the centre of sustainable development is the human person. The human person, to whom the good stewardship of nature is entrusted, cannot be dominated by technology and become its object. A realization of this fact must lead States to reflect together [...]
Following Rio +20
There is a website with decent, relatively non-biased coverage of Rio +20 which I encourage anyone interested in the Rio +20 process to follow. They publish a daily synopsis of negotiations here. Additionally, Stakeholder forum has some good analysis as well.