YOU COULD NOT MAKE THIS UP: IRAN LIKELY TO JOIN WOMEN’S RIGHTS AGENCY
http://www.robinshepherdonline.com/multilateralism-exposed-iran-highly-likely-to-join-un-womens-rights-body/
Multilateralism exposed: Iran highly likely to join UN women’s rights body
You couldn’t make it up. But since this is about the UN, you wouldn’t have to. The latest news from New York is that Iran, where women are stoned to death for adultery, is highly likely to gain a seat on the governing board of the UN’s newly revamped women’s rights agency, UN Women. Quoting diplomatic sources in the UN, the Associated Press (AP) said it now looked possible that Saudi Arabia, where women are forbidden from driving cars, could also take a leading position on the same gender equality body.
This is as big a farce as the dictatorship-ridden UN Human Rights Council. But, more than that, it provides yet another illustration of the impossibility of squaring notions of multilateralist, global governance with liberal-democratic principles. Whatever one’s views of the Bush administration, which pulled out of the Human Rights Council, this is one point they understood with complete clarity. Sadly, that is something one can’t necessarily say of their successors who seem almost as bemused as the hapless Europeans. AP quotes the spokesman for the US mission, Mark Kornblau, as saying that Iranian membership of the governing board “would send the wrong signal at the start of this exciting new initiative.” And, he went on:
“UN Women is a vital new agency tasked with promoting gender equality and women’s empowerment worldwide… We and many other countries are concerned by the negative implications of Iran’s potential board memberships, given its poor record on human rights and the treatment of women”.
Oh, for goodness sake. Of course such a move would be “negative”. But that’s not the point, which is that if you’re trying to effect progress in the world via the United Nations, twisted outcomes of this kind are sooner or later inevitable. That’s what the United Nations is for. It is the global embodiment of the multiculturalist and multilateralist dream. It is there to provide the illusion of a happy and friendly world where all regimes are of equal value and worth. And if that means having violent misogynistic tyrannies such as Iran and Saudi Arabia on the UN’s top rights bodies, so be it.
The big issue, therefore, is not how the United Nations conducts itself, but whether the United Nations should exist as anything other than an international discussion and arbitration forum at all. Some of us would argue for the construction of a League of Democracies, membership of which would only be open to states which respect liberal-democratic values. Others argue for remaining inside the UN while boycotting organisations such as the human and women’s rights councils.
But whatever position one holds on the matter, let’s at least be clear about what the United Nations is really all about.
You couldn’t make it up. But since this is about the UN, you wouldn’t have to. The latest news from New York is that Iran, where women are stoned to death for adultery, is highly likely to gain a seat on the governing board of the UN’s newly revamped women’s rights agency, UN Women. Quoting diplomatic sources in the UN, the Associated Press (AP) said it now looked possible that Saudi Arabia, where women are forbidden from driving cars, could also take a leading position on the same gender equality body.
This is as big a farce as the dictatorship-ridden UN Human Rights Council. But, more than that, it provides yet another illustration of the impossibility of squaring notions of multilateralist, global governance with liberal-democratic principles. Whatever one’s views of the Bush administration, which pulled out of the Human Rights Council, this is one point they understood with complete clarity. Sadly, that is something one can’t necessarily say of their successors who seem almost as bemused as the hapless Europeans. AP quotes the spokesman for the US mission, Mark Kornblau, as saying that Iranian membership of the governing board “would send the wrong signal at the start of this exciting new initiative.” And, he went on:
“UN Women is a vital new agency tasked with promoting gender equality and women’s empowerment worldwide… We and many other countries are concerned by the negative implications of Iran’s potential board memberships, given its poor record on human rights and the treatment of women”.
Oh, for goodness sake. Of course such a move would be “negative”. But that’s not the point, which is that if you’re trying to effect progress in the world via the United Nations, twisted outcomes of this kind are sooner or later inevitable. That’s what the United Nations is for. It is the global embodiment of the multiculturalist and multilateralist dream. It is there to provide the illusion of a happy and friendly world where all regimes are of equal value and worth. And if that means having violent misogynistic tyrannies such as Iran and Saudi Arabia on the UN’s top rights bodies, so be it.
The big issue, therefore, is not how the United Nations conducts itself, but whether the United Nations should exist as anything other than an international discussion and arbitration forum at all. Some of us would argue for the construction of a League of Democracies, membership of which would only be open to states which respect liberal-democratic values. Others argue for remaining inside the UN while boycotting organisations such as the human and women’s rights councils.
But whatever position one holds on the matter, let’s at least be clear about what the United Nations is really all about.
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