Meanwhile, the rest of the world carries on

Hiding from all the election news (good for London, neutral for the rest of the country, expectedly bad in France and confusing in Greece) I came across this article by Hillel Neuer of UN Watch in the Canadian National Post.


It would be hard to deny that there are serious problems with food shortages and, indeed, famine in many parts of the world, though, as ever this is caused by political decisions. When one bears that in mind it will not be so surprising that one of the places with growing difficulties is Syria, a highly productive country.

According to the World Food Program, half a million people don’t have enough to eat in Syria. Fears are growing that the regime is using hunger as a weapon.

Quite so. Shouldn't the UN Human Rights Council' so-called hunger monitor be interested and perturbed?

Apparently not.

This is the kind of emergency which should attract the attention of the UN Human Rights Council’s hunger monitor, who has the ability to spotlight situations and place them on the world agenda. Yet Olivier de Schutter of Belgium, the “Special Rapporteur on the right to food,” is not going to Syria.

Instead, the UN’s food monitor is coming to investigate Canada.

That’s right. Despite dire food emergencies around the globe, De Schutter will be devoting the scarce time and resources of the international community on an 11-day tour of Canada—a country that ranks at the bottom of global hunger concerns.

A key co-ordinator and promoter of De Schutter’s mission is Food Secure Canada, a lobby group whose website accuses the Harper government of “failing Canadians…and [failing to] fulfill the right to food for all.” The group calls instead for a “People’s Food Policy.”

I asked De Schutter if his time wouldn’t better be spent on calling attention to countries that actually have starving people.

“Globally, 1.3 billion people are overweight or obese,” he responded via his spokesperson, “and this causes a range of diseases such as certain types of cancers, cardio-vascular diseases or (especially) type-2 diabetes that are a huge burden.”

Does this mean the Special Rapporteur on the right to food is actually more interested in people having too much food than with them having too little or not at all?

Possibly this curious anomaly has something to do with the history of the specific mandate.

First, consider the origins of the UN’s “right to food” mandate. In voluminous background information provided by De Schutter and his local promoters, there’s no mention that their sponsor was Cuba, a country where some women resort to prostitution for food. De Schutter does not want you to know that Havana’s Communist government created his post, nor that the co-sponsors included China, North Korea, Iran and Zimbabwe.

These and other repressive regimes are seeking a political weapon to attack the West. That is why the first person they chose to fill the post, when it started in 2000, was Jean Ziegler. The former Swiss Socialist politician was a man they could trust: In 1989, he announced to the world the creation of the Muammar Gaddafi Human Rights Prize.

The award spread propaganda for its namesake, and elevated his ideological allies. Recipients include Fidel Castro and Hugo Chavez. In 2002, the prize went to convicted French Holocaust denier Roger Garaudy — and to Jean Ziegler himself.

From 2000 to 2008, Ziegler’s UN reports and probes turned a blind eye to the world’s hungry. Instead he attacked America, the West, capitalism and Israel. The human rights council applauded him, and repeatedly renewed his mandate. Only because of term limits did they replace him in 2008 with De Schutter, who praises and emulates his predecessor.

Normal behaviour on the part of UN organizations and, in particular, on the part of the UN Human Rights Council.

Well, it could be the answer

Forget the EU and the ill-fated euro, says the Progressive Party in Iceland. Why should we not adopt the Canadian dollar (the loonie?). Why not go the whole hog, say I, and join NAFTA? After all, they are in the North Atlantic. Or, even better, why not unite EFTA and NAFTA?

Another trade war with Canada?

The Wall Street Journal reports

The European Union's executive body will propose that oil extracted from sands should be treated as dirtier than conventional oil, a move that will inflame a spat with Canada, a major producer of oil from sands, an EU official familiar with the matter said Tuesday.

The European Commission, which has executive powers within the EU, agreed Monday to set a higher value for carbon-dioxide emissions from tar sands compared with crude oil extracted from conventional wells, the official told The Wall Street Journal.

This would discourage the use of oil from sands in Europe, where companies have an obligation to cut their CO2 emissions by 2020. To do so they will have to use the cleanest fuels.

Monday's decision is likely to deepen the EU's dispute with Canada, which is negotiating a free trade agreement with the bloc and says such a provision discriminates against one of its key exports.

Is this a random decision to ensure that European countries use oil from the Middle East in preference to oil from Canada? Just asking. Glenn Reynolds asks even more bluntly: "I wonder which Arabs bribed which officials?"

Canada stands up for the rights of ALL women

The admirable Phyllis Chesler reports that the Canadian government has changed the rules whereby citizenship is granted to immigrants.

The document is titled “The Rights and Responsibilities of Canadian Citizenship.” According to Canada’s National Post,

“In Canada, men and women are equal under the law,” the document says. “Canada’s openness and generosity do not extend to barbaric cultural practices that tolerate spousal abuse, ‘honour killings,’ female genital mutilation or other gender-based violence. Those guilty of these crimes are severely punished under Canada’s criminal laws.”

And about time, too, you might say and I have to agree.

In the past I have contended that there was no need for special legislation to make honour killing or forced marriage illegal. After all, murder is murder and forced marriage (not arranged marriage, which is a different kettle of fish) involves kidnap, unlawful imprisonment, grievous bodily harm and rape. Why not simply try the perpetrators and those who aid and abet them?

Sadly, this has not worked in Western countries. Ms Chesler praises Britain for slowly beginning to act on these matters but the truth is that until recently hardly anybody was prosecuted for "honour killings", otherwise known as murder of young women; that nobody has been prosecuted for genital mutilation though it is known to be carried out; that forced marriages occur all the time and women who escape from them are handed over by the police to advisers from "their own community", which results in the unfortunate victim being taken back to the abusive family.

It is almost as if giving well-known crimes culture-specific crimes our society washed its hands of the victims and of any concept of law and order. If that is so, we need to name those crimes quite specifically. If those guilty of "honour killing" are not to be tried for brutal murder then we must make "honour killing" a separate crime. We must make forced marriage a separate crime if we cannot put those who kidnap, imprison, maltreat and rape young women (and sometimes young men) in the dock.

As Ms Chesler points out, an old case was recently reopened in Britain with the mother of the victim, astonishingly, giving evidence against her husband. A growing number of girls and young women as well as the occasional young man, run away from forced marriages even when these happen during a "holiday" in Pakistan and Bangladesh, and successfully claim assistance from officials and dedicated organizations.

For all of that, I approve the Canadian government's attitude. It needs to be stated quite clearly that what applies to some, applies to all and Muslim women (it is usually Muslim though there is the odd case of Sikh and Hindu "honour killing") have all the rights that others possess.

When we have sorted that out we must turn our attention to those girls' and women's education.

A few links that might be of interest

Firstly, the Czech Constitutional Court has finally assembled to examine the complaint that the Constitutional Lisbon Treaty may not be in accordance with the Czech Constitution. Luboš Motl gives a blow by blow account of the first day, which has decided nothing, as one would expect. It is unlikely that the decision will be anything but the obvious one: yes, indeed, the treaty is entirely in accordance with the Czech Constitution even if the latter has to be rewritten completely. Still, we shall be watching this.

Meanwhile, in Iceland public support for EU membership is falling, as reported by the invaluable blog EU News from Iceland.

The majority of Icelanders don't want to adopt the euro or join the European Union according to the results of a new opinion poll published yesterday. The poll was produced by the company Miðlun for the news website Pressan.is. The question asked was: "What currency arrangement do you think would best suit Iceland?" Some 55 percent wanted a policy which does not involve EU membership.

Only 24 percent said they though Iceland should adopt the euro by first joining the EU. However, 26 percent said they thought it was best for Iceland to keep its own currency, the króna. Some 29 percent said Iceland should adopt foreign currency unilaterally, of those only 9 percent wanted the euro. Finally 21 percent were undecided.

If the undecided are excluded some 70 percent of Icelanders do not want to adopt the euro by joining the EU. Only about 30 percent are in favour of that. Even if the 9 percent who want the euro unilaterally are put together with those who want the single currency by first joining the EU it only slightly alters the picture.

But punishment for Icelandic fiscal improvidence is stern: McDonalds is leaving the country. As the Wall Street Journal reports, the nearest place for the inhabitants of Rejkjavik to get a Big Mac will be in Dublin. Then again, they think Iceland would have been better off in the eurozone, which is not the experience of countries that are in it. Mind you, they are not losing their McDonalds outlets. Not yet, anyway.

And finally, the other tranzi organization – the UN. From UN Watch Briefing we get the following fascinating and not unexpected news:

Ms. Gay McDougall, the U.N.'s chief monitor of discrimination against minority groups, and a leading defender of the 2001 Durban conference, just wrapped up a 10-day investigation of Canada by accusing it of failures and "significant and persistent problems." She has never investigated any of the countries listed by Freedom House as the world's worst abusers: not China, Cuba, Libya, Saudi Arabia, Belarus, Burma,Chinese-ruled Tibet, South Ossetia in Georgia, Chechnya in Russia, or Zimbabwe.

I am shocked, I tell you, shocked.

In a related development, the U.N. human rights office is also investigating the United States as a country of singular concern. The “special rapporteur on the right to adequate housing” has decided to conduct her next investigation in the U.S., particularly in New York City. Writing in the Opinio Juris blog, Professor Julian Ku of Hofstra Law School notes that the U.N. monitor "is going to spend her time on a country which is unlikely to be in the top ten places with lack of adequate housing, and which in any event, is not a party to any of the treaties which form her mandate." But the anti-Western voting blocs that control the U.N. Human Rights Council -- and appoint its experts -- will no doubt be very pleased.

Indeed. Remind me, why are the United States, Canada and other Western countries paying for this?

The National Post has a rather sarcastic piece on the subject. So mean.