Poland and Hungary Break EU Position in General Assembly Debate on Definition of “Gender” in New Treaty

By | April 20, 2023

NEW YORK, April 21 (C-Fam) Poland and Hungary broke ranks with the European Union on how to define the term “gender” in a new treaty on crimes against humanity. This is a surprising move as Poland and Hungary have been reluctant to part company with the EU bureacracy on sexual issues in UN negotiations.

The existing definition of gender in international law—“men and women in the context of society”—comes from the Rome Statute that created the International Criminal Court. The left at the UN has opposed that definition since it was agreed upon in 1998.

In negotiations last week, Poland opposed removing this definition from a new international treaty on crimes against humanity. Hungary also said it would interpret the term according to its own laws and in line with the Rome Statute’s definition.

The rare foray into the UN culture wars by the traditional Central European countries came after a delegate representing the entire European Union had already expressed support for adopting an open definition of gender earlier in the week. Both Poland and Hungary normally join other EU countries in a common position at the UN. This break with the EU is important.

In negotiations, traditional countries, mostly from Africa, insisted that gender must be defined in the new treaty as it was enshrined in the treaty adopted in Rome in 1998 and that came into force in 2002.

Western countries, including the United States and the European Union, argued that the concept of gender has “evolved” since the Rome Statute was negotiated. They want gender to include new categories such as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, intersex, and others based on sexual orientation and gender identity.

Changing the definition of gender would create new categories of crimes against humanity that were never contemplated by UN member states when they adopted the Rome Statute in 1998.

In addition to clear-cut crimes such as murder, extermination, deportation, kidnappings, enslavement, rape, the definition of crimes against humanity in the Rome Statute also includes open ended categories like “persecution” and “other inhumane acts.” These were deliberately designed to be broad. The narrow definition of gender as only referring to the male and female binary helped to limit it somewhat.

Under an open definition of gender, any legal, political, and religious precept that limits the social and political demands of the homosexual/trans movement could be considered a crime against humanity. These might include restrictions on homosexual marriage, adoption, transgender identity change and sports policies, and even access to transgender hormone therapy and surgeries for minors.

Such a broad reading of the statute was suggested by the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) in a recent policy paper on “gender-based persecution”.

According to the paper, gender-based persecution can include “any deprivation” of fundamental rights through “regulations that can impact persons in every aspect of life.” This includes “their reproductive and family options, who they can marry, whether they can attend school, where they can work, how they can dress and whether they are simply allowed to exist.”

Some countries are already following such recommendations.

U.S. Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield recently praised Colombian prosecutors for initiating the first-ever “charges of gender persecution as a crime against humanity when committed against five LGBTQI+ persons” during an Arria-Formula briefing of the Security Council.

She called this a “model” and said she hoped it would be “replicated” across the world.

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