ANALYSIS: Can the West Impose a Human Right to Abortion and Homosexuality?

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NEW YORK, September 9 (C-Fam) In a public but unguarded moment, U.S. Ambassador Jeffrey DeLaurentis approached abortion and LGBT lobbyists sitting in the gallery of the General Assembly and said the document about to be adopted was important because it would contribute to “customary international law.”

Moments later, he took the podium before UN member states and said the opposite. He said the resolution under discussion had no legal implications.

Such is the lack of honesty in the UN debate, especially from Western powers that seek to advance radical social policies and try to fool more conservative nations.

The document DeLaurentis was referring to last Friday was the first stand-alone resolution on justice for survivors of sexual violence. It also included language that promotes abortion as a human right and has terms used by UN agencies to promote homosexuality and transgenderism.

“In cosponsoring this resolution, the United States does not recognize any change to the current state of conventional or customary international law,” DeLaurentis said in the official statement of the U.S. Government during the debate on the resolution. He was emphatic and unambiguous.

One wonders if DeLaurentis was lying to his pro-abortion friends in the gallery or to UN Member States?

He went on, “The resolution does not create rights or obligations under international law, nor do we read it to imply that states must join or implement obligations under international instruments to which they are not a party,” repeating the long-standing position of the U.S. government in UN meetings.

DeLaurentis’ remarks in the gallery of the General Assembly reflect the legal theory followed by most Western countries according to which past UN agreements with ambiguous terms relating to controversial social policies can become binding over time. According to this theory, UN resolutions become binding as customary international law when the General Assembly adopts them repeatedly by consensus, that is, unanimously and without a vote. It is this view that prevails in practice at the United Nations, notwithstanding the official U.S. position.

Diplomats and officials from Western countries are often misleading about whether UN resolutions are binding, nowhere more so than when trying to force acceptance of abortion, homosexuality, and transgender issues.

Western diplomats often say that UN resolutions “are not binding” to diplomats from traditional societies who object to controversial elements of UN policies, as if to allay their concerns about accepting language that would not pass muster in their countries. The same diplomats then turn around and insist that phrases and sentences adopted in UN resolutions are considered “agreed language” and are set in stone to quash any objections made in the future. They do this precisely to enshrine the agreements as part of customary international law.

These tactics are an effort to bypass national policy debates and any political accountability. They are used to promote notions that are politically unpopular in most of the world, including in many Western countries.

The heated debate on the resolution on access to justice for survivors of sexual violence that took place in the General Assembly last Friday and Wednesday this week underscored how confusing it can be to establish the legal implications of purportedly non-binding General Assembly resolutions and how contentious abortion, homosexuality, and transgender issues continue to be internationally.

The debate was not just about whether abortion or homosexual and transgender issues are in fact human rights, it was also about whether purportedly non-binding agreements with ambiguous terms relating to controversial social policies can become binding over time.

The fiery exchanges in the General Assembly over the course of this week and last reminded Western countries that while they may manage sometimes to steamroll over smaller delegations who are outmanned and out-resourced in UN negotiations, in the final instance they always have to contend with sovereign states who exercise their full prerogative to represent their countries and peoples.

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