Overreaching by US and EU Angers Developing World, Stalls Cairo+5

By Austin Ruse | 1999

     (NEW YORK – C-FAM)   The final preparatory committee meeting of the Cairo+5 conference ended last week without completing its main task which was to write a document for the UN General Assembly. There are many reasons for what has become an embarrassing circumstance for the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), the United States, the European Union and radical feminist NGOs. Essentially, this group overplayed their hand and slowed the debate by introducing new and highly controversial language into the document. In the process they angered the 133-member Group of 77 from the developing world.

     From the very beginning of this nearly ten day process, the G – 77 played by the rules, established by the UN General Assembly (GA), that no new language be introduced into the document. The GA wanted to prevent opening old ideological wounds from the contentious Cairo conference in 1994, particularly in the area of "reproductive rights."

     From the opening days of the conference, the G – 77 played by these rules. Each proposal which advanced through the G – 77's working group had to find antecedents in the original Cairo Programme of Action. If no antecedent was found, the proposal was dropped. Mostly from less developed countries, the G – 77 is keenly aware that they must play closer to the rules than the more powerful countries of the developed world.

     The developed world, led by the US, did not show the same restraint. For instance, they insisted upon wholly new language on "emergency contraception." Considered by many in the scientific and medical communities to be frequently abortifacient, "emergency contraception" was objected to by the G – 77 as a violation of the GA's order against new language. The US insisted, with the vocal support of the EU, and Canada, so "emergency contraception" had to be "square bracketed" and held for a later debate.  

     The G – 77 was also angered by the US's attempt to get parental rights eliminated from the document. A big push at the conference has been in favor of adolescent sexual rights, again advanced by the industrialized west. The G – 77 insisted upon parental rights. The German delegate, representing the EU, remarked during the debate that "parents have too many rights already." Much of this language was also "square bracketed."

     The G – 77 showed particular discomfort toward the aggressive radical feminist NGOs. At one point, radical feminists formed an intimidating gauntlet outside the conference room through which delegates had to wade. Attempting to shame developing world diplomats, feminists waved leaflets saying "Group of 77 -7 = Consensus." The Libyan delegate waved the leaflet in the air and shouted to the conference, "this kind of demonstration has never been seen inside the United Nations." Another G- 77 diplomat complained bitterly that pro-life NGO voices were deliberately discriminated against by the Cairo+5 Secretariat and by UNFPA.

     With so much controversy, and with so many "square bracketed" passages, the conference simply ran out of time. They are expected to reconvene for a few days in May.   

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