Editorial: Countries Must Push Back Tuesday on LGBT in General Assembly

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NEW YORK, December 15 (C-Fam) Powerful Western countries do not want developing countries to speak out against homosexual/trans ideology and abortion when the General Assembly adopts several resolutions next week.

Western powers want to claim there is consensus on abortion and homosexual/trans issues at the United Nations. Developing countries and even dissenting governments of the European Union must speak out next Tuesday and let the world know there is no international consensus on these issues.

The resolutions that will be adopted on Tuesday were negotiated and debated by committees of the General Assembly in recent weeks, mostly in the third committee that deals with social policy. Over sixty countries expressed their objections to controversial terms like “sexual orientation and gender identity” or “sexual and reproductive health” when they were tentatively adopted in the committees.

The problem is that debates in these committees are not recorded verbatim, so these objections remain hidden or lost once the resolutions are finally adopted by the General Assembly in plenary session. This gives the impression that all countries agree to the contents of the resolutions.

Countries that want to prevent abortion and homosexual/trans issues from becoming human rights should say so next Tuesday when these resolutions will be adopted in final form by the General Assembly in plenary session. Unlike in the third committee, statements in the General Assembly plenary are taken down and recorded word for word, creating a permanent official record of countries’ positions.

Western countries who lobbied hard to get controversial terms into UN resolutions don’t want traditional countries to express their opposition in the General Assembly. They want to preserve the fiction that the terms are “agreed” or “consensual.”

The fiction of UN consensus allows UN agencies to implement UN resolutions uniformly across all countries. Western countries then determine the content of policies and to scale them.

More importantly, the fiction of UN agreed language allows progressive political actors to claim that abortion and homosexual/trans issues are human rights through customary international law. The theory is that UN resolutions adopted by consensus will, over time, establish relative human rights through customary international law.

Customary international law is just as binding as treaty law. But unlike treaties that are negotiated by countries over many years, customary norms emerge from the routine interactions of governments between themselves and international mechanisms. The rule is that all countries must act or speak uniformly based on the assumption of legal obligation. And therein lies the problem.

The mere fact that countries speak out against any international obligations based on concepts such as “sexual orientation and gender identity” or “sexual and reproductive health” will block the establishment of such rights. The time to speak out is next week.

Moreover, even if a customary right were to emerge, there is something called the “persistent objector” rule, which closes out customary law claims against countries who object to their imposition. This can only happen if delegates make official statements when the resolutions are voted on next week.

To silence any objections, powerful Western countries cite a decision of the General Assembly in 1979 that recommends for countries to make their positions known only once, either in the third committee or in plenary session. That decision was made when theories about customary international law were in their infancy and the legal significance of UN debates was not fully appreciated.

Statement on the verbatim record of the General Assembly plenary remain, as they have always been, the most legally precise and impactful way to record a country’s positions. They are also the most cost-effective way to ensure there is an official public record of those position.

Over sixty countries who opposed controversial language in th third committee may speak out, most from Africa and the Middle East. But, will any governments in the European Union clarify their positions on abortion and homosexual/trans issues? That is the question.

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