Mike Pompeo Brought His Backward View of Human Rights to the UN. Europe Wasn’t Buying It.
Pompeo’s speech, which was part of an event hosted by the United States during the UN General Assembly, was marketed as a celebration of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the foundational document for decades of human rights policy. Instead, Pompeo promoted his own narrowly-defined idea of human rights, which was formalized last month in a report from a controversial State Department advisory body. Known as the Commission on Unalienable Rights, the group was stocked with critics of contraception, same-sex marriage, and abortion, including Pompeo’s former boss. In its final report, which was released last month, the commission elevated some rights like religious freedom as “unalienable,” while dismissing abortion and same-sex marriages as “divisive social and political controversies.”
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Pompeo urges other countries to join alternative U.S. view on human rights
“The U.S. Commission on Unalienable Rights is a deeply misguided enterprise with the potential to undermine human rights protections that governments find disagreeable,” said Louis Charbonneau, the U.N. director for Human Rights Watch. “The commission promotes the false premise that too many people, particularly lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people and women, are asserting their rights.”
Other advocates rebuked Pompeo for his emphasis on religion, to the exclusion of other rights.
What they don’t say is that Pompeo is going to use this against China with his lies about the Uyghurs!