In recent days, the international spotlight on Chen Guangcheng, the Chinese lawyer and human rights activist who has spent his life trying to expose and stop forced abortions and sterilizations in China, has refocused attention on coercive population control programs. Meanwhile, the 45th Session of the Commission on Population and Development (CPD) met at the U.N. last week to discuss the priority theme of adolescents and youth. The CPD meeting, typically a favorite of population-control activists and radical feminists, was no different this year. In UN parlance, “sustainable development” is …
As the Universal Declaration of Human Rights celebrated a birthday this month, it is worth noting how this document—noble in its original intentions—is often reinterpreted by advocates of a host of issues, resulting in a laundry list of new rights claims and corresponding government responsibilities thrust upon the 193 U.N. member states. Two prime examples of this misuse concern the rights to life and religious liberty, natural rights often sacrificed to any number of social causes. With regard to abortion, the right to life promised to “everyone” in the Universal …
This week the 49th Session of the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women is meeting at the U.N. to review how Costa Rica, Djibouti, Ethiopia, Italy, Nepal, the Republic of Korea, Singapore, and Zambia have complied with the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW). In the recent issue of Policy Review, Christina Hoff Sommers’ Feminism by Treaty identifies the threats that U.S. ratification of the CEDAW treaty would pose to many of the freedoms that Americans enjoy today. As Sommers explains, longtime …
March 8, 2011, marked the 100th anniversary of International Women’s Day, which the U.N. commemorated following its annual meeting of the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW). The U.S. State Department spared few bells and whistles in its celebration of this milestone. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton penned an opinion piece published on the Bloomberg Newswire on “investing in women” as a strategy for economic growth. With its melodramatic title, “Women’s Work-More Earn-Less Plan Hurts,” the op-ed relied on fuzzy numbers and typical liberal assumptions, touting U.S. efforts to …
February marks the beginning of the season of commission meetings at the United Nations in New York, where the Commission for Social Development wrapped up last week and the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) is just beginning. Delegates to the Commission for Social Development discussed the lofty goal of poverty eradication as their priority theme and debated the effectiveness of social protection schemes in meeting the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). The CSW, typically a forum for international feminist frenzy, is poised to discuss the priority theme of “access …
The Norwegian Nobel Committee held its annual awards ceremony last week in Oslo, where it intended to award the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize to Chinese intellectual and human rights activist Liu Xiaobo “for his long and non-violent struggle for fundamental human rights in China.” Still imprisoned, Liu was prevented from traveling to Oslo to participate in the ceremony, and his family and friends were denied permission to leave China and accept the prize on his behalf. Also notably absent from the ceremony was U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi …
As American children spent last weekend trick-or-treating, many bringing home donations for the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) along with their hauls of candy, U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice congratulated the organization’s 60-year Halloween fundraising campaign. Parents who were worried about how much sugar their little ones consumed would surely be even more concerned if they were aware of the mischief and nonsense that has become run of the mill at UNICEF and its sister U.N. entities. The past several decades have brought a transition away from UNICEF’s founding focus on …
Heads of state and global leaders gathered at the U.N. this week to bemoan a lack of progress on meeting many of the targets for the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) originally outlined in 2000. With the notable exception of President Obama, those speaking at the summit generally ignored the evidence about what consistently works to alleviate poverty and improve the lives of individuals and families across the world: greater economic freedom and rule of law. Instead, the discussions have focused on increasing foreign aid to countries and regions furthest from …
Last week thousands of women (and more than a few men, too) attended the Women Deliver 2010 conference on reproductive and maternal health in Washington, D.C. The Women Deliver conference organizers were supported by the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), UNAIDS, UNICEF, and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and the conference was partially funded by U.S. taxpayers. The conference advisory group included private organizations such as Amnesty International, Family Care International (FCI), and the International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF), whose leaders featured prominently in the discussions and …
As the season of human rights meetings progresses at the United Nations, support for the proposed new entity dedicated to gender issues has been building, despite the fact that, to date, it has no leader, no funds, and an expansive mission statement that promises additional bureaucracy and no real benefit to the victimized women it aims to protect. Calling for a more authoritative and funded gender entity, the co-directors of AIDS-Free World recently released this position paper, Without Operational Capacity, the New UN Entity for Women Will Not Succeed, claiming …
