By Janet Karim
” But when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that being justified by his grace we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life.” (Titus 3:4-7
On Tuesday US President Joe Biden signed into law the Marriage Equality Bill, the federal law that codifies the rights of American citizens to marry whomever they want; in other words, if two men or two women want to marry each, then they have the backing of their government their right to do so. That was made possible when Americans from all walks of life lobbied their congress (lawmakers like parliamentarians in Malawi and other British-aligned government systems). Likewise, in Malawi as with other African countries, Caribbean and Pacific Ocean countries, lawmakers were lobbied, and laws were enacted to outlaw men marrying men or women marrying women. The lawmakers in the three regions have as many rights and duties to the citizens that put them in the parliaments as the lawmakers in the US Congress.
This is fine. Really great. This is human rights at work, people deciding what they want, and the bulwark of democracy. In America. Determined by Americans for Americans. The EU and its allies must let ACP determine their own human rights, in the same manner, they determine their human rights laws.
In Malawi, I know for a fact, traditional leaders (the first point of contact of the citizens of Malawi met and discussed this, came to a conclusion, sent their lawmakers to parliament, and said no to gay rights. They then sent their leader in 2010 to sign the continent’s response to gay rights: they said no to foreign notions on African soil.
The EU and US brands of human rights are just that: EU and US. In Africa, we have our brand of human rights, as do the Caribbean and Pacific states.
However, it comes as a deep shock and insult that the European Union locked horns with its African and Pacific partners, using its economic muscle to blackmail African, Caribbean, and Pacific states, coating these and things like access to abortion, contraceptives, and comprehensive sexuality education to minors, as human rights.
All ACP countries must at every corner resist this arm-wrestling by the EU. All presidents, prime ministers, or leaders of the ACP countries must read every paragraph of the post-Cotonou.
The deceptively named ACP-EU Partnership Agreement is a binding 20-year treaty that intrudes into almost every area of the public and private life of EU and ACP states. From dictating sex education to parental discipline to social, sexual, gender, and cultural norms and general education, it goes far beyond the Cotonou Agreement and violates national sovereignty in the following ways:
● Divides OACP into three separate protocols to give the EU more power;
● Bypasses national parliaments ceding lawmaking powers of all treaty parties to a Council of over 100 government Ministers with authority to make binding decisions on state parties;
● Requires the legalization of abortion, prostitution, same-sex marriage, the LGBT agenda, and mandates the mainstreaming of child sexualization, all under the banner of sexual and reproductive health and rights and through requirements to implement multiple innocuous-sounding documents to which it refers;
● Elevates multiple non-binding agreements and consensus documents such as the SDGs, ICPD, Beijing, and any and all of their controversial conference review outcome documents (past, present, and future) as well as controversial regional agreements such as the Maputo Protocol and Maputo Plan of Action, the Montevideo Consensus, and more, making them all legally binding treaty obligations with the EU;
● Requires full cooperation with the UN’s human rights mechanisms such as treaty bodies and UN experts, which often mandate abortion, sexuality education, special LGBT rights, and more;
● Supersedes all other treaties and establishes “human rights” as an essential element of the treaty likely making it impossible for state parties to reserve on the aforementioned controversial issues, most of which are all positioned as “human rights” in deceptive ways.
Call to Action
Leaders from the ACP must stand firm and resist the EU’s presumptuousness, and refrain from signing the document in its present form. They must also:
- Support Malawi’s motion, which was denied a hearing at the JPA in Maputo. The motion calls for the delay of the Head of State signing until national parliaments have adequate time to scrutinize and address the areas that conflict with national laws.
- Do not accept arguments that it is too late to make changes as the text was already agreed upon. It is never too late to protect children, parental rights, family and cultural values, and national sovereignty.
- Propose reverting back and continuing with the Cotonou Agreement, which keeps the OACP united and negotiates any needed updates in consultation with national parliaments, which are the rightful law-making bodies for each nation’s sensitive life, family, cultural, social, and domestic issues.
Respect for human rights in the nations must also include respect for existing human rights of sovereign rights of nations. Anything beyond this is expansionistic similar to colonialism. The EU must stop pushing its brand of human rights!
