United Nations

San Jose Articles Challenge UN Position of a Universal Right to Abortion

Deprecated: trim(): Passing null to parameter #1 ($string) of type string is deprecated in /home/aoiusa/public_html/wp-content/plugins/sexybookmarks/public.php on line 388

Deprecated: trim(): Passing null to parameter #1 ($string) of type string is deprecated in /home/aoiusa/public_html/wp-content/plugins/sexybookmarks/public.php on line 394

Deprecated: trim(): Passing null to parameter #1 ($string) of type string is deprecated in /home/aoiusa/public_html/wp-content/plugins/sexybookmarks/public.php on line 400

Source: Touchstone Magazine – Mere Comments

Download the San Jose articles (.pdf).

This relates to a press conference yesterday. At the end you will find a link for the San Jose Articles. It is a strong and impressive statement of principle, with impressive signatories.

PRESS ADVISORY, October 5, 2011

UN Officials Wrong. No Right to Abortion.
New Expert Document Issued at United Nations

Where: UN Press Briefing Room, Dag Hammaskjold Auditorium

When: October 6, 2011, 11 a.m.

What: Launch of the San Jose Articles

Tomorrow morning [Oct. 6] at the UN press briefing room, internationally recognized scholar Professor Robert George of Princeton and former US Ambassador Grover Joseph Rees will challenge claims made by UN personnel and others that there exists an international right to abortion in international law.

As recently as a few weeks ago the UN Special Rapporteur on Health, the High Commissioner for Human Rights and the UN Secretary General have all said such a right exists. And, according to Human Rights Watch the CEDAW Committee has directed 93 countries to change their laws on abortion.

Professor George, Ambassador Rees and 30 other international experts are releasing the San Jose Articles to refute these claims and to assert the rights of the unborn child in international law.

Other signatories to the Articles include Professor John Finnis of Oxford, Professor John Haldane of the University of St. Andrews, Francisco Tatad, the former majority leader of the Philippine Senate, Javier Borrego, former Judge of the European Court of Human Rights, and Professor Carter Snead of UNESCO’s international committee on bioethics.

“The San Jose Articles were drafted by a large group of experts in law, medicine, and public policy. The Articles will support and assist those around the world who are coming under pressure from UN personnel and others who say falsely that governments are required by international law to repeal domestic laws protecting human beings in the embryonic and fetal stages of development against the violence of abortion.” said Professor George

Ambassador Grover Joseph Rees, former US Ambassador to East Timor, said, “When I was in Timor I witnessed first-hand a sustained effort by some international civil servants and representatives of foreign NGOs to bully a small developing country into repealing its pro-life laws. The problem is that people on the ground, even government officials, have little with which to refute the extravagant claim that abortion is an internationally recognized human right. The San Jose Articles are intended to help them fight back.”

To schedule an interview with Dr. George, Ambassador Rees or any of the San Jose Signatories, contact Austin Ruse, 202-393-7002, 202-531-3770 (cell).

The Articles and support material may be viewed at www.sanjosearticles.org

Signatories

Source: San Jose Articles

* Institutions named for identifications purposes only.

Lord David Alton, House of Lords, Great Britain
Carl Anderson, Supreme Knight, Knights of Columbus
Guiseppe Benagiano, Professor of Gynecology, Perinatology and Childcare – Università “la Sapienza”, Rome, former Secretary General – International Federation of Gynecology and Obstetrics (FIGO)
Hon. Javier Borrego, former Judge, European Court of Human Rights
Christine Boutin, former Cabinet Minister – Government of France, current president Christian Democratic Party
Benjamin Bull, Chief Counsel, Alliance Defense Fund
Hon. Martha De Casco, Member of Parliament, Honduras
Jakob Cornides, human rights lawyer
Professor John Finnis, Oxford University, University of Notre Dame
Professor Robert George, McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence, Princeton University, former member of the President’s Council on Bioethics
Professor John Haldane, Professor of Philosophy, University of St. Andrews
Patrick Kelly, Vice President for Public Policy, Knights of Columbus
Professor Elard Koch, Faculty of Medicine, University of Chile
Professor Santiago Legarre, Professor of Law, Pontificia Universidad Catolica Argentina
Leonard Leo, Former Delegate to the UN Human Rights Commission
Yuri Mantilla, Director, International Government Affairs, Focus on the Family
Cristobal Orrego, Professor of Jurisprudence, University of the Andes (Chile)
Gregor Puppinck, Executive Director, European Center for Law and Justice
Ambassador Grover Joseph Rees, former US Ambassador to East Timor, Special US Representative to the UN on social issues
Austin Ruse, President, C-FAM
William Saunders, Human Right Lawyer, Senior Vice President, Americans United for Life, former delegate to the UN General Assembly
Alan Sears, President, CEO and General Counsel, Alliance Defense Fund
Marie Smith, President, Parliamentary Network for Critical Issues
Professor Carter Snead, Member, International Bioethics Committee, UNESCO and former U.S. Permanent Observer to the Council of Europe’s Steering Committee on Bioethics, University of Notre Dame School of Law
Douglas Sylva, Delegate to the UN General Assembly
Hon. Francisco Tatad, former Majority Leader, Philippine Senate
Hon. Luca Volonte, Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, President of the European People’s Party (PACE)
Lord Nicholas Windsor, Member of the Royal Family of the United Kingdom
Susan Yoshihara, Director, International Organizations Research Group
Anna Zaborska, Member of the European Parliament, former Chair, Women’s Committee of the European Parliament

Touchstone Magazine has published a number of articles on the global push to use international treaties and regulations to force governments to go beyond their own national laws, or in some case overturn their own laws, among them:

Austin Ruse on Rulers Without Borders (a signatory)
Stephen Baskerville on Family Takeover
Allan Carlson on The UN: From Friend to Foe

Green Patriarch backs UN climate change framework

7 Comments

Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I weighs in on the Bangkok Climate Change conference where delegates were greeted with “stern pep talks”:

Istanbul, Turkey, 9/28/2009

In view of the international negotiations on climate change commencing in Bangkok, Thailand, and only two months before the crucial United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen, we urge the international community to undertake courageous commitments for the prevention of the most severe consequences of global warming.

The accomplishment of a good agreement within the framework of the international negotiations in Copenhagen does not solely constitute a moral imperative for the conservation of God’s creation. It is also a route for economic and social sustainability. Taking action against climate change should not be understood as a financial burden, but as an important opportunity for a healthier planet, to the benefit of all humanity and particularly of those states whose economic development is lagging behind.

We pray for the achievement of the best possible international agreement during the United Nations Conference on Climate Change in Copenhagen, so that the industrialised countries undertake generous commitments for a total reduction of the polluting greenhouse gas emissions by 40% until 2020, compared to the 1990 levels, as well as for the provision of important financial support to the developing countries.

The urgency of the situation and the progress of science and technology pave the way for a low-carbon global economy, the development of renewable energy sources and the aversion of further deforestation. We all need to collaborate, in order to make sure that our children will be able to enjoy the goods of the earth, which we bequeath to them. We need to secure justice and love in all aspects of economic activity; profit and more specifically short-term profit making can not and should not constitute the sole incentive of our deeds, specifically when it undermines our common and God-given natural heritage.

Source: Order of St. Andrew the Apostle

Deprecated: str_replace(): Passing null to parameter #3 ($subject) of type array|string is deprecated in /home/aoiusa/public_html/wp-content/themes/genesis/lib/functions/image.php on line 116
class="post-3309 post type-post status-publish format-standard hentry category-blog-archive tag-culture tag-economics tag-ecumenical-patriarch-bartholomew-i tag-environment tag-green-patriarch tag-news tag-orthodox-church tag-united-nations entry">

Green Patriarch: Human Economy Failing

93 Comments

One would think that, having established a worldwide reputation as the Green Patriarch, Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I — and his advisers — would approach the writing of a statement on Orthodox Christian stewardship of the environment with a certain gravitas, a sense of responsibility to those in the Church searching for answers on the weighty and complex problem of how to live in this Creation, deeply troubled but still productive and beautiful. One would also hope that these environmental statements from the Phanar would be informed with the sort of intelligence and insights that display some familiarity with environmental science, economics, public policy, the political realities of living in advanced democracies, and the awareness that these problems are often technical and leave ground for well-meaning Orthodox Christians to debate or even disagree on the particulars. This sort of approach to understanding environmental problems does not in any way undermine the non-negotiable demand to practice stewardship of the environment in a sacramental, liturgical and ascetical way that is truly Orthodox. We are, after all, called to be “priests of creation.”

Unfortunately, the latest brief “message” on the environment from the patriarch amounts to little more than pious Sunday School affirmations (“We need to bring love into all our dealings”) and simplistic denunciations of capitalism and globalization that, in effect, indict just about anyone with a job in today’s market economy as an accomplice to the destruction of the planet.

We do get a blessing for a forthcoming environmental conference sponsored by the United Nations, an organization led by a man who recently warned that we have only four months to act if we are to save ourselves. I believe that is what’s known as alarmism.

This patriarchal statement does not portend well for the forthcoming “symposium” at various locales along Mississippi River in October. What will Orthodox Christian young people learn about environmental stewardship from this event? What witness will we offer to the wider culture?

This brief message is notable for its really one sided “exhausted Earth” view of stewardship (which really isn’t a guide to stewardship but to despair). There’s not a word about how exactly we are to help the poor if we replace “big business” with something else. But what?

Having endured, for the past year, one of the worst financial crises in decades, with much attendant suffering, and endless analysis as to its root causes — again a subject on which Orthodox Christians can charitably find room to disagree — we are now told that the market economy is “failing.” Certainly, the rapid rise of unemployment in the United States in the last year has caused a lot of anguish and suffering. We have an obligation as Christians to take this problem seriously. But we did not get a serious statement from the Phanar on the subject.

It seems not to have dawned on those composing this message that you cannot begin to address the very real problems of pollution and environmental degradation, including what goes on in lesser developed countries, unless you first create wealth. Things like solar power technology, hybrid vehicles, energy saving appliances, and thousands of other products and services designed to be green, are really luxury goods. They are, by and large, created by the same market economy that the patriarch condemns without qualification.

This statement is also mute on the question of social and human development. Which economic model is best suited to lift people out of dire poverty? Or is that a problem that can be cured by aid from rich countries — as is hinted at in the text? If simply throwing more money at the problem of dire poverty solves it, we would have “cured” poverty long ago. Whoever worked on this encyclical should buy a copy of Dead Aid, by Dambisa Moyo, for circulation at the Phanar. Continue reading →