Distinguished
participants, presenters, and observers, honored
guests: As we spent Tuesday at the airport
greeting you, I was continually struck at the
delight I felt in welcoming you to Utah and to
our University. We are honored that so many of
you were willing to travel great distances,
sometimes at great personal hardship, to meet
with us. We understand, and are touched, that
many of you sacrificed by leaving your homes
during Ramadan to be here with us. It was a
pleasure to greet friends we have made at the
United Nations, and to meet those of you whom we
hope will become new friends as we work together
in this important effort.
I have watched several of you work at the
United Nations, and have admired your skill. At
the last session of the Commission on Social
Development, I watched Faith Innerarity, who is a
member of the Bureau of the Commission, chair
meetings. She handled her duties with tact and
good humor, using her uncommon intelligence to
inject common sense into the proceedings. This
was no easy task, because it has been my
impression after observing United Nations
meetings for a year or so, that common sense is
often controversial.
At the last negotiating session of the
Optional Protocol to CEDAW, only a handful of
delegates seemed to fully appreciate the
potential of the draft document to intrude into
areas of domestic governance and precious
national sovereignty. Among those who understood
was a colleague of our distinguished participants
from the People's Republic of China. The Chinese
delegate was a young woman who looked fragile,
but had a mind like a steel trap. She had an
encyclopedic memory and could recite precedents
at length. Though she took strong positions in
defense of her nation's interests, her manner was
so disarming that even when she opposed Western
positions, the Western delegates, especially the
men, would sit there wearing silly grins. It was
extremely amusing to watch.
It was also at the Optional Protocol meetings
that I first met Amany Fahmy, from Egypt. I
noticed immediately that Amany's training in law
made her an especially effective advocate. She
understood every aspect of the problems with the
document, and she wasn't afraid to defend her
country's interest and her culture. She -- and
the few others who would not simply accede to the
wishes of the women's caucus -- were subjected to
intense pressure and attempts at intimidation,
but they withstood.
I have watched Mr. Munawar Bhatti, from
Pakistan, at the Commission on the Status of
Women and other meetings. He is tireless. I have
seen him remain smooth, calm, and resolute
through marathon negotiating sessions. He sees
quickly through the nonsense and the rhetoric and
gets directly to the heart of the matter. He is a
committed defender of the family and of the
values that have protected and strengthened the
family in cultures around the world.
Those of us from NGO Family Voice have watched
many times as delegates from G77 nations stood up
in support of what is right, sometimes in the
face of condescension, and even ridicule, from
Western delegates. You have our admiration and
gratitude, because it is you, not the West, that
is a light to the world on these issues. It is
you who are holding the line for the family. We
salute you.
It is also wonderful to welcome our friends
and NGO colleagues. Juliette Sayegh, with her
education and many years of experience with the
United Nations system, is helping us learn the
ropes. Her assistance has been invaluable. Austin
Ruse, Peter Smith, our friends from the VPM, each
moved by their own faith and commitment, are
dedicated to the pro-family cause. We are happy
to host their first visit to Utah.
As this conference has unfolded, we have
appreciated the many fine comments from our new
friends. You are helping us to understand the
problems facing families in other parts of the
world. Though there are diverse issues, there is
a deep common commitment, springing from our
common humanity and our shared understanding that
humanity depends on the family. By your
participation here, you are helping us develop
and refine our efforts on behalf of the family.
We hope this conference will be just the
beginning of a long, fruitful dialogue.
We have had presentations from distinguished
scholars who have devoted their careers to the
family and to the moral and ethical values that
support it. I am so grateful to have been present
to hear them. Though many of us are motivated to
defend the family by our religious faith,
research and logic are also on our side. The
arguments simply need to be heard.
My own background is as a practitioner of law.
My firm specializes in civil rights litigation,
and I have litigated against some of the same
lawyers who are now at the United Nations
promoting agendas which undermine the traditional
family. I have seen their tricks. Some of the
same language and tactics I have observed
first-hand in lawsuits here in the United States
are showing up in the documents I have reviewed
at the United Nations.
On Wednesday, two of our distinguished
presenters told you about methods successfully
used by some activists in the United States to
force their views and norms on an unwilling
majority. Those of us in the majority in the
United States were unwary. We thought twenty or
thirty years ago that our society could never be
altered as it has been. I want to briefly discuss
this phenomenon again, not to belabor the point,
but because the same methods are now being used
at the United Nations, and, as they say,
forewarned is forearmed.
The last three or four decades have seen a
noticeable decline in American morality and
culture, and the resulting disintegration of many
American families. Some of this decline has been
driven by changes in the law. But many of these
changes have not come about through the
democratic process. Rather, these changes have
been forced on the majority by committed
activists who use the courts.
The individual rights contained in the
American Constitution cannot be overridden by the
popular will. The American Constitution was
designed to make government responsive to the
people and to keep government from intruding
unnecessarily into the lives of the people. It
was also designed, however, to make sure that the
majority could never oppress the minority in
certain critical areas, such as freedom of
religion and freedom of speech. Thus, if a right
is protected by the Constitution, then that right
cannot be infringed no matter what the majority
thinks.
In the last half of this century, American
courts began coming up with interpretations of
the Constitution that its authors, clearly, never
intended. For example, many American schools once
opened their school day with a prayer, a
reflection of the religious roots of this
country. The Supreme Courts, a few decades ago,
declared that the Constitution forbade such
prayer, even though it had been accepted for 150
years.
Until 1972, most states in the United States
would not allow abortion except in the hard
cases, such as when the life of the mother was
threatened, or in cases of rape. In 1972, even
though the word "abortion" never
appears in the Constitution, the Supreme Court
suddenly "discovered" that the
Constitution contains a right to abortion. The
Supreme Court was divided on this decision, and
this decision has divided American society ever
since.
As Lynn Wardle and David Coolidge mentioned,
homosexual rights activists are now going from
state to state, bringing lawsuits, hoping to find
a court that will declare that a state
constitution or the federal Constitution contains
a right to homosexual sodomy, and that homosexual
partners should receive the same legal status as
husband and wife. If they succeed, then this
homosexual regime can be imposed, first on the
citizens of that state, and then on the rest of
the Country, against the clear wishes of the
majority.
This same pattern of "discovering"
new rights in long-accepted human rights
documents is now under way at the United Nations.
At the same time, there is a concerted effort to
diminish long accepted, explicit rights, such as
the right to free religious practice, the right
to freedom of conscience, and -- near and dear to
my heart -- the prior right of parents to direct
the education and upbringing of their children.
Simultaneously, there is a constant to effort
enhance the power of United Nations to coerce
compliance with human rights pronouncements. For
example, the proposed Optional Protocol to the
Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination
against Women (CEDAW) will give unprecedented
power to the CEDAW Committee to intrude into the
domestic affairs of nations unless it is
substantially altered. As Professor Wilkins
mentioned in his opening remarks, there was an
attempt to insert language into the International
Criminal Court statute which would have made
criminals out of those who oppose these newly
"discovered" rights.
In 1994, in Toonen v. Tasmania, which is attached to
my remarks as Appendix A, the Human Rights
Committee declared that the right to privacy in
the International Covenant on Civil and Political
Rights embodies a right to homosexual sodomy, and
that laws against such behavior therefore violate
the ICCPR. Early this year, Mary Robinson, the
High Commissioner on Human Rights, gave an
address, Appendix B, in which she extolled the
virtues of the Universal Declaration of Human
Rights as a "living document" in which
she had discovered, surprise of surprises, a
right to protection based on sexual orientation.
As recently as a few months ago, Elizabeth Evatt,
a member of the Human Rights Committee, declared
categorically that "intolerance of
homosexuality was a clear case of discrimination
and inequality. It fell clearly within the scope
of human rights protection and there should be no
debate or controversy." A copy of the press
release containing that assertion is attached as
Appendix C.
In 1996, the heads of the Human Rights Treaty
Bodies held a Round Table at Glen Cove, New York.
The report of the meeting has recently been
published, and will, I'm told, be a centerpiece
of the next Commission on the Status of Women.
That document talks openly about reinterpretation
of human rights documents, and suggests several
options, including reinterpreting the "right
to life" to include an unchallengeable right
to abortion, which the women's caucus could never
succeed in winning in an open and democratic
process. The Round Table Report also mentions,
with approval, the determination that homosexual
sodomy is a fundamental human right.
At the same time, this Round Table Report
explicitly takes aim at religion as an
"obstacle" to the realization of these
newly discovered rights. Thus, we have the
bizarre situation where freedom of religion -- an
express, long-accepted right which was adopted by
consensus -- is trumped by rights which are being
read into documents by a powerful minority, and
on which consensus could never be achieved.
Some of you have undoubtedly already received
copies of this Round Table Report. If you do not
have a copy, and would like me to send you one,
give me your name after the meeting.
Parental rights, like religious rights, are
also being denigrated. The Universal Declaration
of Human Rights give parents a "prior
right" to direct the education of their
children. The lCCPR and the International
Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights
also explicitly protect the right of parents to
guide the moral and religious upbringing of their
children. Yet, in Portugal last Summer, I
attended a Youth Forum at which the organizers
were promoting "reproductive health
education and services" for "young
people." The term "young people"
was defined to include children as young as ten.
The organizers -- who carefully manipulated the
outcome of the Youth Forum -- adamantly refused
to acknowledge that these fundamental human
rights, parental rights, even exist. We have seen
similar phenomena at the Commission on the Status
of Women, in discussions dealing with
reproductive health of the
"girl-child."
These documents do not, of course, have the
binding effect of treaties, which must be
ratified by individual states. Nevertheless, we
fear the slow creep of so-called "customary
law," by which, if language is repeated
often enough in internationally negotiated
documents, someone will claim that
"customary law" has been created, and
that nations are bound whether they have
consented, or not.
I have asked Desmond Eppel and Jacob Allen,
two of our very fine students, to review some of
the committee reports of the Committee on the
Rights of the Child and the CEDAW Committee and
to extract some of the pronouncements of these
committees which appear to us to have an
anti-family effect. These excerpts are attached
as Appendices D and E. We think it will be useful
to you to know exactly what you are dealing with
when you are considering whether to cede any of
your sovereign power to these committees.
Though study after study shows, across
cultures, that the weakening of the parents'
supervisory roles leads, even more surely than
poverty, to serious dysfunction such as drug
abuse and crime, Desmond and Jacob reported that,
as time progresses, the Committee on the Rights
of the Child appears to be more and more willing
to interpret the Convention on the Rights of the
Child in ways that intrude on the parent-right
relationship.
The Committee seems to view the child as a
miniature adult, with rights to privacy, freedom
of expression, and freedom to decide what he or
she will learn, even as against their parents.
The Committee has labeled any form of corporal
punishment, however slight, as a violation of the
rights of the child. (Appendix D at 9-14) The
Committee routinely admonishes states to
establish mechanisms whereby children can lodge
complaints, even against their parents. The
Committee has condemned traditional attitudes
concerning the role children play in the family.
(Appendix D at 5, 7) The Committee has found the
United Kingdom out of compliance with the
Convention simply because that country has laws
which permit parents -- in the exercise of their
fundamental right to guide the moral upbringing
of their children -- to decide whether their
children shall be enrolled in public school sex
education courses. (Appendix D at 7)
The excerpts from the CEDAW Committee reports
are more lengthy. You can peruse them. You will
see that the Committee routinely criticizes
governments for limiting abortion, even though
abortion is nowhere mentioned as a right. The
Committee labels motherhood as a mere
"stereotype" that holds women back.
When some countries have attempted to follow the
admonition in the Universal Declaration of Human
Rights that motherhood deserves special
protection and care, the CEDAW Committee has
complained that those efforts are
paternalistic," or that they enforce this
awful "stereotype" of women as mothers,
thus discouraging women from seeking greater
fulfillment in paid work. For example, the
Committee admonished Armenia, in a mocking tone,
to "use the education system and electronic
media to combat the traditional stereotype of
women 'in the noble role of mother."'
(Appendix E at 18)
The Committee, however, wants to assure that
lesbians can become mothers, as it has taken the
position that governments should assure that
doctors not discriminate against women seeking
artificial insemination "on the basis of
their marital status, sexual preference or
lifestyle." (Appendix D at 6)
The Committee frequently takes aim at religion
and culture, expressing the view that
"cultural and religious values cannot be
allowed to undermine the universality of women's
rights." (Appendix E at 7-8), and stating
that "[i]n all countries, [one of] the most
significant factors inhibiting women's ability to
participate in public life have been the cultural
framework of values and religious beliefs."
(Appendix E at 8) The Committee lectured the
Libyan Arab Jamahirya as follows:
[E]fforts should be made to proceed to an
interpretation of the Shariah that was
permissible and did not block the advancement
of women. The government was urged to take a
leading role in its interpretation of the
Shariah as a model for other Islamic
countries. Reservations that were
incompatible with the goals of the Convention
were not acceptable.
The Committee then warned, ominously:
[I]mplementation of an anti-discrimination
policy required that policies be coherent
even though they touched upon religious and
ideological issues. True gender equality did
not allow for varying interpretations of
obligations under international legal norms
depending on internal religious rules,
traditions and customs.
(Appendix E at 11)
Regarding the appropriate care of children, in
one amazing comment, the CEDAW Committee bemoaned
the fact that only 30 percent of the children in
Slovenia under 3 years of age were in formal
daycare, while the rest were cared for by family
members and other private individuals. The
Committee took the position that these tiny
children were better off in day care than with
their families, and urged the government to
establish more formalized day care for children
under 3. (Appendix E at 23)
I spoke earlier about the goal of some
activists to place the so-called "new
rights" above long-accepted human rights.
This is, in fact, happening in some places. We
have included one comment in Appendix E, at page
7, which came, not from the Committee, but from
the French representative who was presenting her
country's report. She reported proudly that
people exercising their right to freedom of
conscience and expression, without any violence,
had been targeted by a new law which forbade even
peaceful demonstrations against abortion, because
such freedom of expression interfered with the
right to abortion. The CEDAW Committee, for its
part, has also taken the position that the right
to abortion trumps a doctor's right to freedom of
conscience. The Committee has stated that when a
hospital does not provide abortions because
doctors refuse to perform them on grounds of
conscience, the woman's rights have been
violated.
I point all of this out in some detail,
because some very important negotiations will be
undertaken in March on the Optional Protocol to
CEDAW. CEDAW itself contains extremely intrusive
provisions. It commits governments to intervene
in virtually any setting, no matter how private
or consensual, where, in the view of the CEDAW
Committee, women are not considered equal. The
CEDAW Convention, as interpreted by radical
feminists, would require coercion within any
familial or religious system which did not
conform to the feminists' utopian vision.
Compounding this problem, the proposed
Optional Protocol is unprecedented in its reach
for power. The real question in negotiating the
Optional Protocol is, "How much of your
national sovereignty are you willing to turn over
to the Western feminist lobby whose views
dominate the proceedings?"
I am in the midst of preparing a detailed
memo, outlining what I see as the most
overreaching aspects of the draft Optional
Protocol. If you are interested, when I have
finished the memo, I will forward you a copy.
Today, I will touch upon five of what I believe
are the worst problems with the draft Optional
Protocol.
First, an attempt is being made to allow NGOs
to bring complaints on behalf of
"groups" of unidentified people. The
lawyers who proposed this language undoubtedly
wish to abuse the human rights complaint process
as they currently abuse the so-called "class
action" process in United States law. In
this kind of action, the complaining organization
makes broad allegations about terrible things
that are happening to "many women."
These allegations can neither be proven nor
disproven, because you don't know who these women
are. While bad things may happen to a few women,
you have no idea whether it happens often enough
to justify a change in the law. It is critical
that only named individuals be permitted to bring
complaints of violations of their own individual
rights. This is required by most other protocols.
Only in this way, can the facts alleged be
verified. Under other human rights protocols,
individuals can be helped by organizations in
bringing their complaints, so a woman can clearly
get assistance if she wants to complain. Thus,
there is no justification for this
"group" complaint, and it would only
open the door to outside NGOs who would bring
complaints of violations, even if no woman in the
country wished to bring a complaint herself.
Second, drafters of the Optional Protocol want
to allow women to bring complaints if the country
does not live up to its "obligations"
under CEDAW. This would allow any woman, even if
she was not necessarily adversely affected, to
bring a complaint that the government was not
living up to its "obligations" by, for
example, failing to allocate its resources in a
way that satisfied the CEDAW Committee. Other
human rights protocols do not provide for such
complaints. Individuals should be allowed to
complain only of violation of rights that are
expressly granted to them by CEDAW.
Third, the CEDAW Committee wants a right to
conduct "inquiries" in a country, even
if no complaint has been lodged. This
"inquiry" procedure exists only in the
Convention Against Torture, where the victims may
be incarcerated and unable to complain. None of
the other human rights protocols contain such a
procedure, and it is unjustified in the context
of CEDAW.
Fourth, the CEDAW Committee is seeking the
right to request governments to maintain the
"status quo" after a complaint is
brought, but before a decision has been reached
on the merits. This is analogous to the
"injunction" process under United
States law. Some feminist lawyers use this
procedure domestically to stop duly passed laws
from going into effect before a trial can even be
held. This "status quo" provision is
usually invoked under international human rights
instruments only when someone is about to be
executed, and the relevant committee asks the
government to wait, so that the complaint won't
be rendered moot by the complainant's death.
Again, this provision is not necessary in the
context of CEDAW.
Fifth, the draft Protocol attempts to force
nations to give up their sovereign right to make
reservations.
I strongly urge you, in these negotiating
sessions, to be very wary of these attempts to
give unprecedented power to the CEDAW Committee.
The United Nations Charter states at Article 2,
paragraph 7, that it does not "authorize the
United Nations to intervene in matters which are
essentially within the domestic jurisdiction of
any State." National sovereignty is
important to women, as well as to men. The right
to self-determination matters to women, as well
as to men. The right to one's culture is as
important to women as it is to men.
I acknowledge that, by virtue of having been
born in this country, I have enjoyed freedoms and
blessings that many women in other parts of the
world do not. I am sure that I do not have a full
appreciation for the hardships endured by women
in other places, or even in this country, for
that matter. But there is a saying in the
American legal profession that "hard cases
make bad law." By focusing only on the worst
abuses and setting up an aggressive international
mechanism to stamp them out, we risk creating a
system under which important rights and freedoms
are lost to all.
I also believe that, as people are exposed to
new ideas, and as education improves in all parts
of the world, there will be a natural evolution
toward fairer systems where those are needed.
Fairness is, after all, the ultimate goal. Men's
and women's life experiences are different, and
if the human race is to continue, those
experiences will continue to be different. What
we really should be seeking, rather than absolute
equality, is "equity." This is a
familiar concept in the law which recognizes that
things which are different, can nevertheless be
fair.
It wasn't that long ago that American law
unfairly treated women as less than men. But we
have evolved. And we did it without an
international committee telling us what laws we
should have, how we should interpret our
scriptures, and what parts of our culture we must
discard. Don't other nations deserve the same
privilege to evolve toward these ideals in ways
which are consistent with their own values and
which don't cause severe dislocations in their
cultures and families?
Moreover, the current feminist utopia does not
sound all that utopian to many women, and it
certainly overlooks the crucial needs of
children. I realize that anecdotes don't prove
anything, but I have, since taking this job,
conducted my own informal survey of young women
with whom I come in contact, including single
moms. In this country, of course, any woman has
the right to choose to work. However, many work,
not to achieve self-actualization, but out of
economic necessity. Most of the young working
mothers I meet do not want to be liberated from
their children, they want to be liberated from
their jobs, so that they can be with their
children during their brief, wonderful, growing
up years. They want to be the ones to inculcate
values in their children. They want to know that
their little ones are looked after by someone who
loves them.
Most of the single mothers I meet do not tell
me they want more help from government. To a
woman, they say they wish their children's
fathers were as committed to the children as they
are. They want a whole family.
If you'll forgive me for getting personal, I
have looked at life from both sides. For the
first 20 years of my marriage, my husband, who is
kind and devoted, was the sole provider while we
had six children. I was able to be with those
children to see all the adorable things they did:
their first steps, their first words. I knew they
were cared for by someone who loves them. I knew
that they were learning my values, not someone
else's. We had to be resourceful sometimes to
make ends meet. But I got tremendous satisfaction
from sewing and cooking, and doing creative
things to enhance our lives that didn't cost a
lot of money.
When my youngest child went to school, I
entered law school. I have been unbelievably
fortunate in my work since that time. Let's face
it, most paid work is not as interesting as the
work done by those of us in this room. Like many
of you, I have had wonderful opportunities for
paid work that is intellectually stimulating and
financially rewarding. I don't say this to boast
in any way, but as a predicate for this: I'm
convinced that most jobs don't get any better
than the jobs I have fallen into. Yet, while I
have more money to spend than I did when I stayed
home full-time, I am cognizant every day that the
most meaningful things I have done in my life are
the things I have done with my family. Nothing I
do as a lawyer will make me feel any more
validated or worthwhile as a person than my
relationship to my children and my soon-to-be 7
grandchildren. My deepest joys, and sorrows, come
from my work within my family. Nothing about paid
work can touch me in that way. I know I'm not
alone in feeling that way.
A world view which denies the simple and
fundamental importance of family, motherhood and
children, can't have all the answers for
everyone. A world view which would force
grotesque social experiments, undermining the
values which have held families together for
millennia, cannot be right for everyone.
Proponents of this view -- a small minority of
the world's people -- should not be permitted to
capture and hold international human rights
mechanisms. They should not be permitted to warp
and distort fundamental human rights language
into something strange and repugnant to most of
the world's people.
The language of the "International Bill
of Rights" -- that is, the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights, the International
Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and the
International Covenant on Economic, Social, and
Cultural Rights -- as that language was
understood by the states who agreed upon it,
gives a central place to family, home, and the
prior right of parents to guide the education of
their children. These human rights are
fundamental. These must be constantly reaffirmed
in international instruments and thereby
preserved.
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