Russia, Ethiopia, Poland and others took the microphones at a meeting – webcast live from UN headquarters – to make clear that abortion and homosexuality are not international human rights. Diplomats especially chastised the UN’s human rights office for an obsession with lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) rights. Russia singled out a booklet produced […]
Eleven countries announced they will continue to hoist the rainbow flag at the United Nations despite setbacks in recent years. U. S. Secretary of State John Kerry and officials from ten countries promised to promote homosexuality at the United Nations in a declaration issued last week. The “Core LGBT Group,” as the eleven countries are […]
Part 1: A Norm is Born Part 2: Reproductive Health Doesn’t Include Abortion . . . But it Does In 2006, the term “reproductive health” made it into a binding international law treaty for the first time, the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. While this was a victory for the reproductive rights […]
A growing sense of urgency surrounds the UN development agenda as major milestones approach and long-term goals are set to expire. Of particular concern to some is the fate of sexual and reproductive health and rights. Indeed many governments are expressing increasing exasperation with abortion advocates. In the closing minutes of a recent conference, delegates […]
Late-night fatigue dogged UN delegates last Friday as abortion advocates had overstayed their welcome. A resolution on migration stalled all week and no one even cheered when it finally passed. Proponents of abortion and sexual rights stifled debate at this year’s Commission on Population and Development, known as CPD46. While the commission addressed something as […]
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. […]
Our first parents, endowed with every good gift and living in friendship with the benevolent Creator, yielded to the temptation to assert an autonomy that was never their own, exalting themselves over God. Thus, as illustrated in the masterwork of St. Augustine, was the “city of men” set in conflict with the “City of God.” […]
Few politicians are interested in making obscure UN treaties a political talking point. Nevertheless, the Republican and Democratic parties stand at polar opposites on the question of whether or not the United States should ratify new UN treaties, particularly human rights treaties. The platform adopted at the Republican National Convention last month specifically names four […]
If you have not seen the briefing paper from the Catholics for Choice (CFC) organization regarding the place of the Holy See in international politics, stop reading now and move on. It just isn’t worth your while to read garbage. But if you have and need some clarification, then you may want to learn about the […]
In many respects, 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 rights, very few delegations exhibit the poise […]
The UN Commission on Population and Development is considering “sexual and reproductive health and rights” for children as young as ten. Even the Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon agrees. In a statement recently released he said, “Young people, as much as all people, share the human right to health, including sexual and reproductive health.” Currently international […]
Are you wondering how many businesses have to become “green” before the dream of the “green economy” becomes a reality? It seems like everything has to be green nowadays, whether its green jobs, green energy, or green skills. Now there is even green dry cleaning. Duh! If you feel like this is going to far, […]
Negotiations for a final document at the UN Commission on the Status of Women were supposed to end more than a week ago. However, they dragged on for another several days and resulted in a stinging defeat for the Obama administration and anger on the part of the developing world. The US was trying to […]
The United States burned diplomatic bridges during this year’s UN Commission on the Status of Women by using force and deception to pass an unpopular resolution calling for international access to contraception. Countries accused the US of manipulating the negotiations process from start to finish through proposing the initial text of the resolution on maternal […]
The United Nations top agencies are actively promoting two root causes of Asia’s massive gender imbalance, charged an expert on population policies this week during a UN women’s conference. Speaking on a panel during the UN’s annual Commission on the Status of Women, Dr. Susan Yoshihara identified three reasons for the “missing girls” phenomenon in […]
Youth attending a UN conference on women’s issues this week say UN security officers confiscated their backpacks after discovering pro-life literature. The confiscated materials were petitions to “Stop Sexualizing Children,” and were connected to a UN approved workshop led this week by Dr. Miriam Grossman, a child psychiatrist and author of “You’re Teaching My Child […]
Last Thursday, a State Department press release announced the delegation they would be sending to the the 56th Session of the UN Commission on the Status of Women beginning this week at UN headquarters in New York and running two weeks. The two co-leaders of the delegation are Susan Rice, US Ambassador to the United Nations and Melanne […]
Last week UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon told African nations to repeal criminal laws that places sanctions on homosexual conduct and to stop discrimination because of sexual orientation or gender identity. Ban Ki-moon addressed the 54 African nations at the African Union Summit in Addis Ababa on January 29. He urged the countries in attendance […]
If Franklin D. Roosevelt and his wife Eleanor were the naïfs who foisted the United Nations on the world, George H. W. Bush was responsible for its revival as a political force. From about 1950 to 1990, the United Nations Security Council was essentially toothless, as the Soviet and U.S. governments disagreed on issue after […]
Tension between free speech advocacy and efforts to curb “hate speech” has arisen over the past year as the result of recent initiatives at the United Nations (UN) and by the Obama administration. Freedom of opinion and expression have long been recognized as fundamental, and a recent UN Human Rights Committee “General Comment” affirmed these […]
For those of you that missed it, December 10th was Human Rights Day here at the United Nations. Sixty-three years to the day, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was adopted in 1948 by unanimous vote at the General Assembly of the United Nations in Paris, France. When the declaration was first authored, it was […]
At UN headquarters [last] week, governments dismissed a high level UN bureaucrat’s claim that abortion is a human right and went so far as to scold him for overstepping his mandate. The Special Rapporteur for Health, Anand Grover, presented his report to delegates of the UN Third Committee linking unrestricted abortion with the right to the […]
While many Americans took last Monday off for Columbus day, the Third Committee of the General Assembly at the United Nations was meeting in its 66th session to discuss Item 28 (a,b) concerning the Advancement of Women internationally. Arriving at the UN earlier than usual, we were surprised to find the Third Committee present in […]
It is commonplace now for UN officials and American law professors to tell foreign governments that they are required by international law to liberalize their abortion laws. Just last month the UN Special Rapporteur on Health issued a report making this claim. The Secretary General endorsed his report. Shortly thereafter the UN High Commission on […]
