UN Interference in Domestic Affairs Evidences Need for Transparency
HUMAN RIGHTS, LAW & JUSTICE, SOCIETY & CULTURE
Wednesday, January 27, 2010
The most recent session of the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW Committee) provides further evidence of the United Nations' willingness to advance an agenda of global governance through its involvement in governmental affairs and domestic policy, often with little or no transparency.
During the 45th Session, being held January 18 through February 5, 2010 in Geneva, Switzerland, the CEDAW Committee, a panel of twenty-three women's rights experts, will review reports submitted by representatives of selected governments that have ratified the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) to determine each reporting government's commitment to eliminating discrimination against women domestically.
In addition to submitting their periodic reports, the governments scheduled for review at the 45th Session were required to respond to sets of specific issues submitted to them by the CEDAW Committee that concern their compliance with CEDAW. Representatives from those governments are invited to make statements on their respective reports and answer questions that may arise from the CEDAW Committee members concerning their responses to the sets of issues. The review sessions, the written communications between the governments and the CEDAW Committee in advance of the sessions, and the cooperation between the UN national offices and subsidiary bodies in those countries and domestic women's organizations in preparing "shadow reports," evidence the significant degree to which United Nations officials are interfering at the national level in the governance of social and cultural affairs.
Since their creation, the human rights treaty body committees, such as the CEDAW Committee, have evolved from ones dedicated to monitoring governments' compliance with the spirit of the aspirational provisions contained in the treaties into ones that, with the help of international, non-governmental, and civil society organizations, attempt to enforce at the national level the human rights expressed in those treaties while sidestepping democratic processes. In short, the treaty body committees, their New York and Geneva-based staff housed in the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights ("UNOHCHR"), and the United Nations national offices are attempting to globally govern social and cultural rights. As a case study, the Solidarity Center for Law and Justice, P.C., a public-interest law firm based in Atlanta, Georgia, USA, published a report in advance of Ukraine's review session on January 21, an excerpt of which is included herein. The report analyzes the list of issues submitted to Ukraine by the CEDAW Committee and assesses the degree to which the CEDAW Committee and international and non-governmental organizations are attempting to interfere with Ukraine's domestic policy-making abilities. In this regard, the report also examines the shadow report authored by a group of so-called independent Ukrainian women's rights organizations that severely criticizes Ukraine's efforts to advance women's rights domestically.
As one example of the CEDAW Committee's interference with domestic governmental affairs among many found in the list of issues, the CEDAW Committee inquired about the degree to which Ukrainian authorities involved Ukrainian civil society organizations in the preparation of its periodic report. Ukraine responded that it had only consulted governmental agencies involved in matters relating to discrimination against women and had not included civil society organizations in the preparation of its periodic report. Because the CEDAW Committee increasingly partners with civil society organizations to globally govern human rights at the national level, the CEDAW Committee expects government signatories to CEDAW, such as Ukraine, to partner with civil society organizations in preparing responses to the list of issues and in implementing CEDAW at the national level. Obviously, when it became a party to CEDAW, Ukraine did not become obligated to partner with civil society for the preparation of its periodic reports or the implementation of CEDAW, the terms of which are very general, are susceptible to multiple interpretations, and are to be instituted over time with sensitivities for national sovereignty, the rule of law, and democratic processes.
Although the CEDAW Committee raising concerns about the lack of Ukrainian civil society organization involvement in the preparation of Ukraine's periodic report is certainly troubling, what is particularly disturbing is the not-so-subtle involvement of individual United Nations bodies and UN national offices in domestic affairs. According to the website of the United Nations office in Ukraine , the office's main purpose "is to coordinate the efforts of UN institutions and international organizations to provide Ukraine with specific assistance, in order to accelerate the country's steady progress toward humanitarian, social and economic development, and the world's democratic standards, and also in order to resolve current and future obstacles and to facilitate the Ukraine-world and world-Ukraine integration process." Moreover, the United Nations has no less than thirteen of its subsidiary bodies actively working in the country, including the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) and the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) "united by an overriding strategic goal: to assist the people of Ukraine in their efforts to build a better future for the country."
One particularly egregious way that UN national offices and subsidiary bodies "assisted" the people of Ukraine and "accelerat[ed] the country's ... progress toward [social development]," was through their involvement in the preparation of a "Shadow Report" that was submitted to the CEDAW Committee in advance of Ukraine's review session. Perhaps anticipating that Ukraine authorities would not cede responsibility for preparing its periodic reports to representatives of civil society, in 2008, the Women's Consortium of Ukraine, a group of 22 so-called independent civil society organizations based in Ukraine, prepared and submitted to the CEDAW Committee "An Alternative Report on the Implementation of the UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women in Ukraine" (the Shadow Report) with the organizational and technical assistance of the United Nations office in Ukraine and UNICEF. The 51-page Shadow Report contains a detailed petition for the full and immediate realization in Ukraine of each specific CEDAW provision without regard to any contrary or undetermined legal interpretations, financial or practical considerations, political differences, or democratic process limitations.
Most disturbing is the fact that the Shadow Report was released in late 2008, seven months prior to the July 2009 date on which the CEDAW Committee submitted its list of issues to Ukraine. This timeline means that, apparently without the official involvement of Ukraine government officials, in anticipation of Ukraine's upcoming reporting obligation to the CEDAW Committee, the UN Office in Ukraine and UNICEF formed a coalition of women's groups in Ukraine and conducted a national assessment of the degree to which Ukraine has not realized all of the rights contained in CEDAW. This coalition then submitted its Shadow Report to the CEDAW Committee 1) to guide its production of the list of issues to which Ukraine would have to respond and 2) to evaluate (and criticize) Ukraine's responses accordingly. In essence, knowing that Ukraine would not cede control over the production of these important human rights periodic reports to civil society organizations with a one-sided agenda not representative of all Ukrainian viewpoints, the UN Office in Ukraine and UNICEF directly interfered with Ukraine domestic affairs by helping to form a partnership with civil society organizations in an attempt control the outcome of the investigative and interrogatory stages of the CEDAW Committee reporting process.
Obviously, all civil society organizations concerned about the status of women's rights in Ukraine have the right to engage in the political process to promote the implementation of CEDAW and to educate the public about the CEDAW reporting process and demand the right to participate in it. However, the CEDAW Committee, the UN Office in Ukraine, and bodies such as UNICEF abuse their mandates by using the CEDAW reporting process to criticize Ukraine, in essence, for not permitting a group of civil society organizations to take control of the CEDAW Committee reporting process and failing to fully and immediately realize each and every provision of CEDAW. Even more troublesome, however, is the fact that, by providing technical assistance to selected civil society organizations with respect to the preparation and submission of the Shadow Report, the UN Office in Ukraine and UNICEF violated Ukraine's national sovereignty and the organic democratic development of women's rights in Ukraine.
The CEDAW Committee is part of a matrix of human rights governance networks , which includes UNOHCHR staff, national UN offices, and international non-governmental and civil society organizations, national and regional courts, and international foundations. With little transparency, the participants in this Matrix use the human rights treaty body committee reporting process to entrench themselves in the domestic affairs of reporting nations, such as Ukraine, thereby interfering in matters of social and cultural affairs that are best left sovereign governments.
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