UN Human Rights Treaty Bodies Continue to Violate their Mandates

By | November 9, 2023

WASHINGTON, D.C., November 10 (C-Fam) UN human rights experts do not have the authority to press governments to change laws. But they do. And they are getting even more aggressive in doing so. Recent sessions of several UN human rights treaty monitoring bodies demonstrates this, especially on controversial issues like abortion and sexual orientation and gender identity.

The Human Rights Committee, which monitors adherence to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, ordered the United States to “provide legal, effective, safe and confidential access to abortion” and harmonize its laws and policies with the abortion guidance of the World Health Organization (WHO).

The committee went after the U.S. for state-level restrictions on “gender-affirming health care for transgender persons” and discussions of these topics in schools, particularly among young students. Gender affirming care refers to surgical removal of healthy breasts and penises.

None of the core UN human rights treaties mention abortion, sexual orientation, or gender identity, and any references to such topics would have been rejected as their texts were carefully negotiated by the world’s governments.  Nevertheless, the treaty bodies associated with all of these treaties have resorted to citing other committees as authority for rewriting hard law treaties that were negotiated by sovereign states. For instance, while ordering the U.S. to liberalize its abortion laws, the Human Rights Committee referenced the recent review of the U.S. by the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination. The committee on racial discrimination has indicated its intention to become more aggressive on abortion. Abortion does not appear in that treaty.

The Human Rights Committee has also recently pressured Iran, Kuwait, and Trinidad and Tobago on homosexuality, and Venezuela and the Republic of Korea on abortion.  Nineteen governments were reviewed by the committee in 2023. All but one were pressured on sexual issue.

The Human Rights Committee is not the only one. The committee monitoring the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), directed Guatemala, which has become known as the “pro-life capital of Latin America,” to legalize abortion.  Other countries facing calls to decriminalize abortion included Bhutan, Jamaica, Malawi, Nicaragua, and the Philippines.  Uruguay was told to guarantee that conscientious objection to abortion by health care providers “does not prevent women from accessing safe abortion services” and to remove counseling requirements for women seeking abortions.  Even France, whose president Emmanuel Macron is seeking to add abortion to its constitution, was criticized by the CEDAW Committee for lacking “a minimum number of health professionals performing abortions in parts of the State party.”

The CEDAW Committee called on Albania, Bhutan, Guatemala, Nicaragua, to ensure students receive comprehensive sexuality education, and for Uruguay to specifically make such education mandatory.

Of the twenty-five countries reviewed by CEDAW in 2023, all but two were pressured to liberalize their laws on abortion, and seventeen included pressure on matters of sexual orientation and gender identity.

The Committee on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights also recently concluded a session in which it called on Qatar to decriminalize homosexuality, for Palestine to decriminalize abortion, and Brazil to adopt comprehensive anti-discrimination standards including on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity.

Unlike the texts of the treaties themselves, the communications of treaty bodies are not legally binding.

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