Religious Liberty Skirmishes at Third Committee Meeting
The Special Rapporteur on freedom of religion or belief, Heiner Bielefeldt, made a statement at the morning session of the Third Committee yesterday morning. His statement concentrated on inter-religious dialogue…
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Repost: House Advances Bill To Stop Funding UN Women’s Health Program
“The House Foreign Affairs Committee approved a bill on Wednesday that zeroes out U.S. aid to the United Nations Population Fund, a women and children’s health program that works to…
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The ECJ’s judgment on stem cell patents: a tremendous pro-life victory
As readers of this blog have learned from a previous posting, the European Court of Justice (ECJ, the EU’s supreme judiciary instance) yesterday issued a judgment (C=34/10, Brüstle vs. Greenpeace)…
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High Commissioner for Human Rights Mentions Discrimination on the Basis of Sexual Orientation and Sparks Controversy at the UN Third Committee
This morning the UN Third Committee was visited by Ms. Navanethem Pillay, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights. She presented the third committee with her 2010 Report to the General…
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The controversy surrounding “maternal health” in the Philippines
From October 14th to the 15th, ASEAN, The Association of Southeast Asian Nations, held a Human Rights Conference on Promoting Maternal Health in Manila, Philippines. The conference addressed the progress…
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Prenatal sex selection: The Council of Europe recognizes necessary restrictions on abortion.
On 3 October 2011, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) adopted Resolution1829 (2011) and Recommendation 1979 (2011) on Prenatal Sex Selection. For the first time in the…
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Brüstle case: The Court of Justice of the European Union reaffirms that a process involving the destruction of an embryo cannot be patented.
In an important and closely-monitored judgment, the Court of Luxembourg has decided, in the case C-34/10 “Oliver Brüstle v Greenpeace e.V.”, that an invention is excluded from being patented where…
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China’s One-Child Abuses Subject of U.S. Members Letter to Obama and Bipartisan Commission Report
Just two days after the House Foreign Affairs committee advanced H.R. 2059 to defund the United Nations Population Fund (UNPFA), a letter from 100 members of the U.S. House of…
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CEDAW Pushes Radical Abortion Agenda on Costa Rica
The CEDAW Committee Continues to Misrepresent the Convention on Discrimination Against Women and continues to impose its reproductive rights agenda on signatories.
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UNFPA Provides Emergency Reproductive Health kits to Pakistani Flood Survivors
UNFPA, Population control, Pakistan, Reproductive health
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Norway to Ireland: “bring abortion laws in line with ICCPR”
Ireland’s Universal Periodic Review was, as expected, a forum for European countries to bully their pro-life neighbor into violating in policy its constitutional protection of unborn children. Norway went so…
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Columbus Day Shenanigans at the UN
On Monday we witnessed an unusually colorful morning at the Third Committee general discussion on GA Agenda Item 28(a)-(b): The Advancement of Women. A packed house was there to hear…
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UN WOMEN: Right to abortion, right to justice
While many Americans took last Monday off for Columbus day, the Third Committee of the General Assembly at the United Nations was meeting in its 66th session to discuss Item…
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San Jose Articles Press Conference at the UN
Yesterday morning at the UN press briefing room, internationally recognized scholar Professor Robert George of Princeton and former US Ambassador Grover Joseph Rees challenged claims made by UN personnel and…
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House Foreign Affairs Committee Passes Bill De-Funding UN Population Fund
On Wednesday the House Committee on Foreign Affairs voted to support H.R. 2059, a bill to stop taxpayer funding of the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA). The bill introduced in…
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Whither R2P in Syria?
In the Security Council today, US UN Ambassador Susan Rice called it a “cheap ruse” for members of the council (namely Russia) to bring up the Libya intervention in thwarting…
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“The World Will Be More Crowded–With Old People”
Here is Phil Longman’s assesment of the new UN population numbers–an essay in this month’s issue of Foreign Policy. Says Longman: In many countries, such as Germany, Japan, Russia, and…
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New Study: Contraceptives Double Risk of HIV/AIDS
The New York Times front page today carried the story of a new study showing that injectible contraceptives double the risk of contracting HIV. The contraceptive is the most popular…
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UN Reform Bill Gets 100 Sponsors in US Congress
The proposed new US law on UN reform was introduced a month ago by Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen with 57 co-sponsors and now has about 100. Among other things, the law…
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EU@UN Statement on Sexual Orientation/Gender Identity at the HRC
Here is the statement from the EU’s Catherine Ashton on “Sexual orientation and gender identity at the UN Human Rights Council.” Of interest is the aggressive approach EU takes in…
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Study: The Pill Causes Memory Changes
In case you missed it, the world celebrated Contraception Day 2011 on Monday. Here is USAID’s recognition of the day, complete with a happy Indian family with two children, (the…
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US Lambastes $238K Average UN Salaries and more
The US representative to the UN for mangagement and reform delivered a scathing critique of the new UN budget–which was delivered piecemeal and incomplete to donors and reflects a massive…
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UN SG: Criminalizing abortion violates the right to health
During the sleepiest time at the UN, the Secretary General saw fit to release a major policy document calling for universal decriminalization of abortion as an imperative of human rights…
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The Italian ‘Legge 40’ on assisted reproduction challenged before the European Court of Human Rights
Strasbourg, September 14th, 2011 Gregor Puppinck, PhD director of the ECLJ On June 7th 2011, the second section of the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) has communicated to the…
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France: Law allowing nurses and midwives to practise abortion declared unconstitutional
The conseil constitutionnel has declared invalid a legal provision adopted in 2009 that authorised nurses and midwives to practise abortion through the administration of abortifacients. The Decision (N° 2011-640 DC…
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