REALity Volume XXXV Issue No. 3 March 2016
The UN was established in 1945 to maintain peace and harmony in the world. It was to do so by bringing all the nations together to achieve agreement by consensus, while ensuring, at all times, that the dignity and sovereignty of each member state be maintained.
The UN today is markedly different, abandoning these founding principles. It has become, instead, a divisive, mean-spirited organization with bureaucrats dictating policies to the Member States. This is the case, even when the policies are contrary to the religion and culture of many countries, and contrary to international treaties and laws. The dignity and sovereignty of the Member States are ignored in the process.
In effect, over the past few years, UN bureaucrats have assumed control of the organization and are ignoring the consensus-led processes laid out in the UN Charter. Activists are doing so specifically to advance abortion and homosexual rights. The Secretary-General, Ban Ki-moon, along with his bureaucrats in the top positions in UN agencies, as well as the UN monitoring committees who review compliance with treaties, have been publicly championing these controversial issues, even though no UN document has ever included them, and the vast majority of Member States strongly oppose them.
- Abortion
In 2015, the UN Human Rights Committee, which is supposed to aid nations in understanding and complying with UN human rights treaties, such as the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), announced that Article #6 of that Treaty, which states that “every person has the inherent right to life” must be interpreted to mean that abortions be legalized. If this interpretation is accepted, it would be cited by pro-abortion lawyers and activists as evidence of a supposed international consensus in favour of the right to abortion.
In April, 2015, The United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) harassed and maligned UN delegations on sexual and homosexual rights. This led to African delegates complaining publicly about this unprecedented pressure by UNFPA to promote sexual activity of children as young as five.
In September, 2015, UNFPA pressured Nigeria to accept abortion and sexual rights for adolescents. UNFPA’s annual report predicts that freely available abortion for adolescents, removing the age of consent policies, and reducing parental involvement in children’s sexual formation will occur soon. This report also criticized laws against same-sex behaviour, drug use and selling sex or sex work. How much more anti-family/life can UNFPA become? Its views are not a reflection of the UN Member States but rather that of powerful UN bureaucrats.
On September 25, 2015, the General Assembly adopted Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) for the years 2015 to 2030. These Goals apply to every country in the world and are intended to guide development and eradicate poverty. Unfortunately, these Goals include two targets which are problematic from a pro-life perspective.
Target 3.7 seeks to “ensure universal access to sexual and reproductive health care services” and Target 5.6 aims to “ensure universal access to sexual and reproductive health and reproductive rights”.
While the plain reading of this language does not include abortion, these expressions have been applied by pro-abortion forces in the past to promote abortion rights. Consequently, there is no doubt that these targets, unless carefully defined, will be used by wealthy, pro-abortion nations, such as the US and EU nations to pressure smaller, poorer, developing countries to provide abortion. In effect, the ambivalent language in these guidelines will be used to force other nations and their populations to include abortion in their national policies as a condition for financial assistance. It is significant that the US provides 33% of all government funded UN aid, which is four times larger than the next largest donor, the UK. As a result, the US, under President Obama, is more or less calling the shots, which is causing unacceptable conditions being placed on UN aid.
In the spring of 2016, the UN will consider these SDG targets. Pro-life nations will be fighting for unambiguous language to make it utterly clear that no nation under these Sustainable Development Goals will be legally obligated to liberalize its abortion laws.
2. Homosexual Demands
The major push at the UN for LGBT rights can be traced back to July, 2013 when the UN launched “Free & Equal”, a massive campaign designed specifically to advocate LGBT demands at the UN and around the world.
In July 2014, UN Secretary-General, Ban Ki-moon implemented a major policy change, without consulting any member, proclaiming that same-sex marriage is a human right and that human rights are the core purpose of the UN. He called upon all members of the UN family to reject “homophobia”.
Further, in 2015, UN agencies appointed 30 new staff persons, designated as facilitators for LGBT rights.
In addition, UN bodies, one being the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), has explicitly stated in its publications, that it supports same-sex marriage. Similarly, UN Treaty monitoring bodies are openly promoting same-sex marriage in their interpretation of treaties, despite the fact such advocacy falls entirely outside the scope of their mandates, and outside the parameters of the treaties themselves. In fact, existing UN documents support the traditional understanding of marriage, which is the union of one man and one woman only, such as stated in the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Yet, in September, 2015, twelve UN agencies released a joint statement promoting a long list of LGBT so-called rights, including same-sex marriage.
It is significant that currently only 23 countries around the world support same-sex marriage. Consequently, of the 193 member states that make up the UN, almost 90% refuse to re-define matrimony to include same-sex couples. In fact, in recent years, 13 countries in Europe have re-written their laws to specifically ensure that marriage is defined as being between one man and one woman.
UN Stamp Celebrating LGBT Rights
If anyone doubts the determination of the UN bureaucracy to push LGBT rights, this should be dispelled by the fact that UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and the UN bureaucrats rolled out on February 5, 2016 a UN postage stamp celebrating homosexuality and transgenderism.
While the UN periodically issues stamps to promote various positions or to commemorate events, such stamps are usually non-controversial. However, these provocative stamps depict same-sex couples embracing, a homosexual couple with a child, and a butterfly that symbolizes transgenderism.
This stamp launch was part of the UN Human Rights Office “Free and Equal” campaign that promotes LGBT rights worldwide, much to the consternation of many UN Member States that oppose the campaign.
The good news, however, is that the launch of these LGBT stamps has sparked a major pushback against the radical sexual rights agenda at the UN. In the past, UN bureaucrats have been successful in pushing homosexual policies because there has been no organized pushback to reign them in and force them to keep within internationally agreed upon policy boundaries. However, more and more nations are finally standing up to the western countries and UN agencies about this. The issuing of the UN stamps promoting LGBT homosexual rights has led to the formation at the UN of the “Group of Friends of the Family” Coalition of UN members. This consists of 24 countries who have signed a letter stating that the promotion of sexual orientation and gender identity is supported by only a distinct minority of UN members and vehemently opposed by the rest of the UN members. The letter also notes that:
Such actions by UN bureaucracies “thwarts in a most unfortunate manner” the need to foster “unity, dialogue and mutual respect” among UN Member States.
In addition, other powerful UN blocs sent letters to the UN Secretary General, Ban Ki-moon, objecting to the stamps. These included the Organization for Islamic Cooperation representing 57 UN member states and the 54-member African Group. The Secretary General refused to even acknowledge these letters.
An incensed Nigerian UN Ambassador, Usman Sarki, also issued a stinging rebuke of these outrageous stamps. He stated:
It is in that regard that we wish to remind the UN to limit itself strictly to activities mandated by Member States and especially to promote issues that are beneficial to mankind rather than lend itself as tool to promote aberrant behaviour under the guise of promoting human rights.
The UN should not take unilateral decisions on such sensitive matters that offend the sensibilities of the majority of its Member States, and contradict their religious beliefs, cultures, traditions and laws. If it must act in this fashion, the UN should promote issues that enjoy consensus and, at the same time, advance the dignity of people and their genuine human rights.
He then requested the stamp be cancelled. There is a precedent for this set in 2007, when a stamp was cancelled involving a dispute between China and Taiwan.
It seems that the UN bureaucracy has finally met resistance to its agenda.
Summary
It is now absolutely clear that the UN bureaucracy, using its influential position within the UN structure, is dictating policy to the Member States of the UN. This is causing a great divide within the organization. This action is directly contrary to the original intent of the UN – that the Member States determine policy, by way of consensus. The situation is intolerable. The bureaucracy is supposed to serve the Member States, not boss them around. These bureaucrats, with a few exceptions (such as those on the treaty monitoring committees), are paid employees of the UN and have created a totalitarian organization giving to themselves unprecedented power and influence, serving special interest groups, such as the LGBT, at the expense of the public good. Such bureaucrats have been supported in this tyranny by the wealthy western nations (the source of most funding for the UN) in order to impose western, anti-life/family policies world-wide. As a result, the UN has become a tool for the destruction of society world-wide.
Whether the UN can be restored to its original purpose – with its Member States, rather than the bureaucracy, in control is creating great tension within the UN. The future of the UN depends on the resolution of this problem.
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