C-Fam Investigation Reveals Lack of Agreement and Nefarious Connections in UN Human Rights Mechanism

By | February 10, 2022

WASHINGTON, D.C. February 10 (C-Fam) UN human rights bodies increasingly pressure countries to accept redefinitions of gender and the family, and to liberalize abortion laws.  One mechanism, the Universal Periodic Review (UPR), reveals how little agreement exists for this agenda. This is occurring despite concerted efforts by wealthy Western countries to steer the process according to their priorities.

Unlike other human rights systems in the UN, which involve experts telling countries what to do, in the UPR, each country’s human rights record is reviewed in turn by its fellow countries.   This week, the third cycle of reviews concluded in Geneva.

Since the 1990s, the UN’s treaty monitoring bodies and special rapporteurs have become increasingly aggressive in pressuring countries to comply with their controversial positions on social issues.  In contrast, when nations talk to each other in the Universal Periodic Review, the result is a far more diverse mix of voices and concerns.

Out of the thousands of recommendations made in each cycle, sexual orientation and gender identity (SOGI) and abortion make up a relatively small minority: about four percent and half a percent, respectively.  Recommendations on these topics are also much more likely to be “noted” rather than “supported” by the country being reviewed.

The pressure on abortion and SOGI comes from a relatively small group, mostly wealthy Western European countries and their allies.  In each UPR cycle, less than half of the almost 200 UN member states have ever made a recommendation on these issues.  Iceland has distinguished itself as the most aggressive in promoting both abortion and SOGI. In the recently concluded cycle, Iceland made more than ten percent of all SOGI recommendations and more than twenty percent of all abortion recommendations.

Like the findings of other UN human rights experts, none of the recommendations made in the UPR are legally binding.  However, the structure of the UPR shows how little agreement exists among UN member nations on abortion and SOGI. It also reveals how closely aligned the UN’s human rights experts are with the priorities of rich donor countries.

A C-Fam investigation reveals that the influence of these wealthy countries has also infiltrated the UPR at the level of regular citizens. Non-government stakeholders are invited to submit their own reports on countries’ human rights records. C-Fam has found local organizations submitting abortion and SOGI friendly reports are actually funded by the European Union, Canada and other powerful governments. These organizations present themselves as part of the grassroots.

A coalition called the “Sexual Rights Initiative” receives funding from Denmark, the Netherlands, and Canada to assist locally based organizations in submitting reports to the UPR promoting SOGI and abortion.  The donor countries then make recommendations in the UPR—sometimes verbatim—based on the content of the reports they helped to create.

Some countries, such as Egypt and Kenya, have made pro-life and pro-family recommendations in the UPR, although these are far fewer in number, in part because there is not an alliance of wealthy countries and other philanthropic organizations working with local organizations to flood the UPR system with reports reflecting their priorities.

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