|
 he
first meeting of the 46th session of the U.N. Commission on the
Status of Women opened on March 4 with its first-ever election of
a man — Tunisia's Othman Jerandi — as "chairperson." I had
just arrived for my two-week stint as a U.S. delegate to the commission,
and I figured that this crossing of the gender divide meant that
my multilingual militant sisters had turned soft on men. Over the
coming days, I was to learn the sadder truth: The feminist agenda
has been so wildly successful at the U.N., with "gender mainstreaming"
now all the rage, that real hostility emerges only when it's time
to block some U.S. proposal. The U.N. prides itself on its organizing
principle of "consensus," but delights in defining this
term to mean ideas embraced by everyone but the U.N.'s single largest
benefactor.
This year's
delegation, which was led by conservative stalwart Ellen Sauerbrey
(twice the GOP nominee for governor of Maryland) and included Nancy
Pfotenhauer of the Independent Women's Forum and Winsome Packer,
formerly of the Heritage Foundation, clearly signaled that there
had been a change in management at the State Department: We've come
a long way from Beijing, baby. Hillary Clinton is no longer running
the international sisterhood show. Over the years, conservative
pro-family non-governmental organizations (NGOs) have tirelessly
patrolled the U.N., on guard against the establishment of "international
rights" to engage in behaviors that most parents have nightmares
over. They expect that the U.S. delegations will now be composed
of their allies; feeling like the new girls at a peculiar kind of
high school, we were grateful for their friendly faces.
The commission
met in a large conference room in the basement of the U.N., far
from the carpeted grandeur of the Security Council and General Assembly.
The linoleum floors, pale green walls, snack bar, and bulletin boards
littered with flyers on available activities (e.g., a panel discussion
on "Getting Reproductive Health Results through Microcredit
Interventions in Cost-effective Ways: Evidence from the Field")
contributed to the U.N. High atmosphere. The multilingual conversations,
espresso, Pellegrino, tiramisù, and laissez-faire policy
on smoking evidenced a disproportionate number of foreign-exchange
students. But that old dynamic was present: In this case, there
were popular girls, and then there were the Americans.
As our class
assignment, we were to tackle two themes in this annual session
and reach "agreed conclusions" on them. The first week
was devoted to listening to "inputs" from experts about
"eradicating poverty, including through the empowerment of
women throughout their life cycle in a globalizing world" and
"environmental management and mitigation of natural disasters:
a gender perspective." Owing to Ellen Sauerbrey's terrific
"intervention" in response to one of the expert panels,
we were quickly on the receiving end of "inputs" from
Clinton-friendly NGOs that were less than pleased with the composition
of the new U.S. delegation. Following one expert's assertion that
"poverty does not just happen," Sauerbrey pointed out
that "prosperity is not an accident" either: Its prerequisites
include respect for human rights, the rule of law, property rights,
and democratic governments. Later that day, a couple of dozen earnest
older women representing liberal NGOs dragged their heavy canvas
bags stuffed with reports, brochures, and meeting alerts ("We
Are Pleased To Inform You That We Have Successfully Secured Space
For a Linkage Caucus!!") across the street to the Church Center
to scold the U.S. delegation. One woman complained that Sauerbrey
had prompted "gasps" in the gallery, because her remarks
were "quite arrogant and quite a put-down to other countries."
Three days into our diplomatic gig, we were beginning to appreciate
the demands of international comity.
But we had
an agenda to put forward. Our U.S. resolution had to do with the
"Situation of Women and Girls in Afghanistan"; during
the second week we hosted lengthy "informals" on a daily
basis so other delegations could modify our draft in order to reach
the all-important "consensus." Our straightforward two-and-a-half-page
draft, simply encouraging the Interim and Transitional Authorities
to address the rights and needs of women and girls, grew to eight
pages of specific prescriptive advice from our "negotiating
partners." For example — in a country, remember, where housing
and food are scarce and only 5 percent of women are literate — all
government ministries were instructed to "develop their capacity
to mainstream a gender perspective into their programs."
At every session,
the European Union — represented by Paloma, a clever and charming
young delegate from Spain — had further modifications, all
immediately echoed by a non-EU delegate from Canada, Switzerland,
or Australia, who was eager to be aligned with the popular girls.
All of these serious young women were veteran delegates, some from
their country's "Women's Ministry," who could cite chapter
and verse from an intimidating number of previous U.N. documents
to bolster the case that accepted U.N. doctrine and procedure must
be strictly followed.
As the days
dragged on with no agreement in sight, a call from the U.S. mission
to the Spanish delegates, urging cooperation, was met with that
recognizable European shrug and a sincere protestation: "But
we're only one country among many" (which are anonymous and
unaccountable). That afternoon's negotiating session was attended
by a more conciliatory EU, and, for the first time, a forceful young
woman from Chile — who promptly took up the EU's positions. With about
190 countries attending the commission meeting, we immediately realized
that there was a depressing supply of delegations the EU could hand
off to, given the clearly shared goal of frustrating the U.S.'s
simple desire to express support for the women of Afghanistan.
Ultimately,
Sauerbrey's good humor and flexibility were no match for the determination
of the EU to hand us a defeat. At the U.N., the EU is a voting bloc
to contend with: At this small outpost on the East River, the EU
is powerful enough to thwart the U.S., and so it does. By the time
this session of the commission ended with a whimper, it was clear
that the U.S., and only the U.S., had been negotiating in good faith.
From the outset,
our delegation made it clear that the resolution could not dictate
that Afghanistan ratify the Convention on the Elimination of All
Forms of Discrimination Against Women — which it, like the U.S., has
signed but not ratified. Longstanding U.S. policy holds that it
is inappropriate for the U.N. to pressure sovereign countries to
join international conventions. The U.S. draft, therefore, urged
Afghanistan to "consider" ratifying the convention; and
those who see this as a distinction without much difference haven't
spent time in U.N.-land.
The U.S. has
so few bottom lines that I was very glad to defend this one; all
the more so because the obvious intent of our opponents was to stick
it to the U.S. over our own refusal to ratify the treaty. After
days of negotiations that added pages to the resolution, in the
final hour of the final session, the EU caucused in a back room
and Paloma emerged to explain regretfully that the EU would have
to amend our resolution on the floor to delete the word "consider."
The U.S. delegation opted to let the clock run out, rather than
permit the amendment.
In the end,
there was only one roll-call vote: It was on that hardy U.N. perennial,
the condemnation of Israel (in this case, it was in the context
of a resolution on Palestinian women). A wall of curtains that had
remained closed all week was opened to reveal a huge voting scorecard
listing 190 countries, from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe. Member countries
of the commission registered their votes from their assigned seats,
and within two minutes the vote was "locked": Thirty-eight
green lights appeared, with a single lonely red light next to the
United States. It was a proud moment.
We didn't fare
much better when it came to "agreed conclusions" on the
assigned themes of the two-week session. The large multilingual
commission spent long days editing the conclusions, word by word.
White earpieces offered a simultaneous translation of every syllable
of debate, so, for example, one didn't miss any of the 40-minute
dialogue about whether "create" or "develop"
was the proper opener for a paragraph on sustainable development.
It was an ordeal appropriate to the Lenten season.
Sauerbrey's
modest proposal to add a brief word about the importance of such
preconditions as individual liberty and core labor standards to
the lengthy and repetitive document on eradicating poverty was quickly
shot down. Both the EU and the so-called "G-77 and China"
(which actually represents about 124 developing countries) immediately
objected because they preferred a document that was "short,
concise, and action-oriented." In typical U.N. style, there
was no debate on the merits: The system prefers to continue repeating
"agreed language" from previous documents, rather than
engage any new ideas. After eight years of the compliant, multilaterally
inclined Clinton administration, reports and agreed conclusions
are chock-full of obnoxious language about a boatload of new international
"rights" and assaults on nations' sovereignty.
As a result
of recent U.N. budget cuts, no evening or weekend sessions are permitted,
and midway through the second week a rumor held that a slowdown
was underway to protest the cutbacks. I was on the alert for signs
of the protest, but a slowdown of the tedious work of U.N. delegations
is very difficult to spot. But, ultimately, the clock did run out.
At 6 P.M. on the final Friday, the translators had to be let go,
and the microphones turned off. The commission had reached a consensus
[sic] on "agreed conclusions," attacked Israel,
and passed all resolutions except the American one. All in all,
a happy result for our friends at the U.N.
|
