The UN is at it Again

A gaggle of gangs, with more letters than Dr Seuss's alphabet, are conspiring with the United Nations Population Fund, to host the "first ever" briefings on "reproductive rights" (code word for abortion) for the committee responsible for monitoring compliance with the Convention Against Torture (CAT) and the International Covenant on Economics, Social and Cultural Rights ( ICESCR ). This gaggle includes the Center for Reproductive Rights ( CRR ) and Amnesty International ( AI ).

 

If you can get through the letters, you might get to the point. The point is this; the term "reproductive rights" never before has been included in any binding UN Treaty. The CRR briefing with the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultureal Rights ( CESCR ) co-sponsored by the United Nations Family Planning Agency ( UNFPA ) will address maternal mortality "as a human rights issue". CRR bills this meeting as part of its' "ongoing advocacy" with the UN Committee "as it develops its' new general comment on sexual and reproductive health rights."

 

In a C-FAM paper "rights by stealth" the authors explain that general comments "are the treaty body members own interpretations of the articles of the convention" and that "once created, they serve as the committee's official interpretations. This, in spite of the fact that the states never agreed to any abortion provisions, a new general recommendation on reproductive rights and sexual and reproductive health signals, that the committee will seek to expand the treaty beyond the boundaries set by those, who carefully negotiated the language.

 

Iraq, on behalf of the Arab group, led the successful opposition to general comment 20, and noted at the time, that it was "of paramount importance to make it clear that international agreements should not be strangely interpreted." This is why we need allies and alliances.