NEW YORK, Sep 30 (IPS) – Last week, UN member states adopted the Future Treaty and its two annexes: the Global Digital Compact and the Declaration for Future Generations. These action-oriented documents are designed to address emerging threats to the advancement of Agenda 2030 and to accelerating progress. Nonetheless, little political priority remains for reproductive justice on this agenda.
This despite continuously increasing threats to sexual and reproductive health and rights, with approximately 43% of women globally lacking autonomy to make choices about their sexual and reproductive health, putting their lives at risk and jeopardizing their chances of living a full life. It happens despite this. Potential.
Consider that the treaty, which contains over 56 action items, has only one provision on sexual and reproductive health. The two appendices do not address this topic area. The three texts are considered jointly and all-encompassing, but topic areas such as climate and conflict are presented broadly across the three texts and, in some cases, are repeated.
While the ongoing threats of climate and conflict are indeed important, unilateral advancement of some goals and demotion of others will ultimately prevent us from realizing our shared goals for people and planet.
Remarkably, more than 30 countries have signed the Geneva Consensus Declaration (GCD), committing to securing reproductive health by adopting this convention. This is a regressive anti-abortion declaration led by anti-gender activist Valerie Hoover, former U.S. President Donald Trump’s advisor to the Department of Health and Human Services, who falsely claimed that there was no international right to abortion.
Nevertheless, this right is explicitly provided for in international legal frameworks, including: UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW); and Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa – Commonly referred to as the Maputo Protocol.
Additionally, the right to abortion has been determined by international human rights organizations such as the UN Human Rights Committee, the European Court of Human Rights, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, and the African Commission on Human Rights.
Moreover, the Geneva Consensus Declaration encourages states to hide under the principle of sovereignty in order to ‘liberate’ them from their obligations under international law.
This ideological stance runs counter to the purpose of the Future Agreement, which is to restore trust in multilateralism and promote international cooperation. We already know that membership in the realist school of thought led to some of the world’s worst crises, including the historic Great War and violent wars across Africa, the Middle East, Eastern Europe, and beyond.
The Geneva Consensus Declaration advancing this position is therefore an affront to the progress made under international relations towards peace and development.
Despite this, countries like Kenya remain a signatory to the declaration, which violates their own domestic laws. The Constitution provides for the right to the highest attainable standard of reproductive health. There are also provisions ensuring access to safe abortion in certain circumstances.
This has been particularly supported by case law. 2020 Constitutional Petition E009It strongly affirms that abortion care is a fundamental right under the Kenyan Constitution and makes it illegal to arbitrarily arrest and prosecute patients and health care providers who seek or provide such services.
Kenya must therefore cancel its signature on this document, which violates domestic and international law and conflicts with its foreign policy positions.
The GCD is not legally binding, but it could serve as the basis for how future norms are launched. In fact, Valerie Huber started a mechanism called Protego to operationalize the manifesto through the Women’s Health Institute. We have also been involved in campaigns targeting First Ladies of African countries to secure their countries’ political commitment to the Declaration.
As a result, Chad and Burundi recently signed it. We are expanding its scope. It must therefore be challenged to prevent it from becoming the primary basis for incorporating anti-abortion ideology into international law.
Following the Future Summit and during the UN General Assembly, governments and philanthropies pledged $350 million in new investments for sexual and reproductive health services. While this is a welcome step forward in securing these rights, it does not close the funding gap for SRHR.
This vacuum requires critical funding to mitigate the threat of a well-resourced and well-organized anti-rights movement that uses family values ​​as a misguided weapon to deny human rights. Moreover, it is important that promises are translated into actual expenditures that benefit the intended beneficiaries.
As the gears shift in the negotiations and adoption of future treaties, countries will need to withdraw their signatures on this declaration and align their foreign policy positions with their domestic and international legal obligations.
Moreover, the harmful effects of anti-gender/anti-gender should be taken into account, together with charities, civil society and the private sector through the imPACT Coalition – designed to drive reforms and proposals towards future summits and the Pact implementation process beyond. -Rights movement to advance the development agenda; Develop strategies to mitigate your footprint. This should include universal withdrawal of the GCD. Until then, women and girls in low- and middle-income countries will continue to die preventable deaths every year from complications of unsafe abortion.
Stephanie Musho He is a human rights lawyer and senior New Voices fellow at the Aspen Institute.
© Interpress Service (2024) — All Rights ReservedOriginal source: Interpress Service
