The meeting of the Preparatory Committee for Beijing + 5 ended on March 17, 2000 with its agenda still unfinished. The negotiations during the preceding two weeks were painfully slow and subject to endless delays and delaying tactics. While a small minority within the Group of 77 dragged their heels on women’s rights, some Northern delegations were as usual hard on the economic issues. The tendency of some governments, during the conferences of the 1990s, to hold progress towards women’s rights and gender equality hostage to traditional South – North battles over resources was evident yet again. This time around, this problem was compounded by inexperienced chairing of many key sessions, and apparently inadequate technical support from the Conference Secretariat for the negotiations. Having participated in a decade of UN negotiations of difficult and contentious issues, the inability to move the negotiations forward was painfully obvious.

In the meantime on the NGO side, the subterranean corridors of the UN suddenly saw an influx of Franciscan and Dominican priests in full robes, nuns, and large numbers of other (mostly) North Americans wearing blue buttons that only said “The Family”. Rumor had it that most of them (over 350) had been registered by only a handful (less than 10) of North American conservative organizations. Their sudden interest in the Beijing + 5 negotiations would have been touching if some of them had shown any concern for or interest in women’s rights. This was hardly to be expected however since many seemed to be quite ignorant of what had happened at Beijing. One of DAWN’s team for instance was startled when she was asked naively by one of the ‘Family button people’ what the PFA stood for on her badge which said “I support the PFA”! When asked if she had ever heard of the Beijing Platform for Action, she said she hadn’t! These bumbling conservative storm-troopers would have been amusing if they had not also resorted to more intimidating tactics.

In some ways, the slowness of the negotiations at this stage is nothing new. For those of us who have been participating in the conferences of the 1990s, there are at least two precedents for the current situation.

In March 1995, the final Prepcom before Beijing was in disarray. By its end, the conference rooms were empty and women activists were roaming the corridors in distress. Meanwhile the draft text being negotiated – what finally was completed as the Beijing Platform for Action – was bristling with square brackets, including on the term [gender]! Nevertheless, the negotiations were resumed and the text of the PFA negotiated. However, differently from March 1995, we do not have five months until September to restore sanity to the current process. Between now and the UN General Assembly Special Session (UNGASS) in early June, there are less than 70 days.

Even fresher in our memories is the Cairo + 5 Prepcom at about the same time last year, when the same disturbing pattern emerged: deliberate and constant delays within G77; the ongoing insensitivity of the North to the right to development and the inequalities within the global economic order; a blatant alliance between the Vatican (and its ‘satellites’ such as Nicaragua) and some Islamic countries; a deadlock on the “obstacles and achievements”[i] section of the text under negotiation; and a document loaded with square brackets after two weeks of painful efforts.

In both these cases the overwhelming majority of governments that support gender equality and women’s rights activists prevailed in the end over the small conservative minority. But in the UN system of building consensus, this took a lot of effort. Sen and Correa in “Gender Justice and Economic Justice: Reflections on the 5 year reviews of the UN conferences of the 1990s” (www.dawn.org.fj) identified a major factor behind the difficulties of the Cairo + 5 negotiations a year ago: “Women’s organizations were also faced with the problem of the mindset of New York based diplomats whose daily negotiations are heavily influenced by South-North conflicts and global, regional, or national geopolitical agendas. Gender equality tends to fall relatively low on their priorities… Implementation can and ought to be discussed and evaluated by implementers… it should not be handled by those who have had little to do with implementation.”

Sadly, despite this warning, the same picture has materialized yet again, if anything more blatantly. In negotiations among the G77 countries during the Prepcom, gender equality issues and women’s rights are apparently being more openly subordinated to traditional South-North issues. Partly this is happening because there appears to be an imbalance between the negotiating experience of conservative delegations (mainly composed of skilled diplomats) and progressive ones (mainly composed of envoys from national capitals, implementers from national machineries for the promotion of women’s rights, empowerment and gender equality). The latter are often strongly committed to women’s rights but have insufficient experience with UN-level negotiating procedures and complexities. Thankfully, by the end of the two weeks, many of the progressive delegations proved themselves fast learners and the scenario may be different in late May and June. But we have to be concerned about the informal inter-sessional negotiations in April and May when the New York UN mission staff may be heavily present.

There are also some crucial differences between the Cairo + 5 negotiations and what is going on now for Beijing + 5. The original draft that was debated in the Cairo + 5 process was much better structured than the so-called second Outcomes document that is being struggled over now. Although short, it is so poorly structured that it is very difficult (especially for small and inexperienced delegations) to keep track of issues. Cairo + 5 also appeared to have much greater technical and political capacity at the level of the conference Secretariat and the Bureau. A third and rather appalling difference has been the almost complete absence of other UN agencies (including the World Bank) with the exception of UNIFEM to provide technical support during these negotiations. Where are UNDP, WHO, UNFPA, ILO, etc? Where is the UN system’s vaunted support for gender equality?

Another disturbing element in these negotiations is the relative timidity of the JUSCANNZ (Japan, US, Canada, Australia, Norway, New Zealand) and EU negotiating positions which can usually be counted upon for strong stances on gender equality and women’s human rights (at least the social and political ones). Somehow, they appear to have believed that by self-censorship on issues such as women’s health, abortion, reproductive and sexual health and rights, they could buy peace and speedy negotiations. In doing so, they may have forgotten possibly one of the most important lessons of the Beijing negotiations (and of Vienna in 1993 and the struggles during the negotiations for the International Criminal Court last year).

While the conservatives are certainly most virulent (and the Vatican nearly hysterical) on abortion or sexual orientation, this is only symptomatic of their core objection to gender equality itself and to women’s right to be full and self-affirming agents as men have always been. They are therefore equally adamant in their refusal to recognize the brutality of domestic violence against women in all societies (hence their sanctification of the myth of ‘the’ happy nuclear family as a norm); in their vehement assertion of the sanctity of ‘cultural’ and ‘religious’ beliefs and practices however harmful to women; and in the insidious attempt by the Vatican in many recent negotiations to substitute ‘human dignity’ (a term empty of substantive content in international agreements and national laws) for women’s human rights.

This core opposition of a small minority of governments to women’s human rights as such became very obvious in Beijing. In the current negotiations these same forces have insisted on full respect for religious beliefs and cultural diversity while contesting respect for the diversity among women. They have also orchestrated efforts to pepper the document with ‘prostitution’ and ‘pornography’ wherever gender-based violence and human rights abuse are mentioned as if these were equivalents. It is clearly not possible to buy peace with this minority through ill-considered self-censorship on women’s health and rights – too much will have to be given up before they are ever satisfied. And going by past experience, a number of them will not join the Consensus any way after doing their best to water down the document.

Of some concern is a key event that occurred near the end of the Prepcom. Suddenly on the very last day, a contact group (EU, JUSCANZ, Egypt, Algeria, Chile) whose negotiations (existence?) had been almost invisible up to that point emerged with an agreed text for a two-page Political Declaration. This text which is supposed to provide some kind of overarching reaffirmation of commitment to the Beijing PFA without any details regarding obstacles, achievements or future actions, had been heavily bracketed from the beginning. Practically all the substance including women’s human rights and CEDAW were in brackets, as were financial resources and development assistance. These brackets are now gone.

This outcome is being evaluated in some quarters as a breakthrough. Our assessment is more mixed. While a Political Declaration is both needed and useful, the substance of the text that has been agreed to largely reaffirms the Nairobi and Beijing recommendations without particularly moving forward. On women’s human rights, the Declaration simply reaffirms “commitment to accelerate the achievement of universal ratification of CEDAW”.. CEDAW as we all know has of course been with us since 1979 (and should by now have achieved maturity having reached the age of 21!). But the Political Declaration makes no mention, howsoever weak, of the CEDAW Optional Protocol which only a few countries have ratified to date. On financial resources, the text is rather vague in its “reaffirmation to strive to fulfill the yet to be attained internationally agreed target of 0.7% of the GNP of developed countries for overall ODA as soon as possible”. This is more or less like saying: one day we may be able to think about doing what we have not been able to do until now. A positive achievement can be identified in para 5 ter that calls for gender mainstreaming and coordinated follow-up of the outcomes of other major UN conferences and Summits. Behind this vague language we may read that, in spite of everything, Vienna and Cairo are not to be thrown away.

But, regardless of its content, the Political Declaration was never intended to provide implementers or activists with the substantive contents on which to draw for actions from here on. It should be clear therefore that the Political Declaration cannot be a substitute for the Outcomes document which is where the substance and details are. And that document as we have seen is still covered with brackets. Only the preambular paragraphs of the critical section IV (Future Actions section) have been somewhat cleared. The Group of 77 has not even completed its own internal first reading of this section!

The need of the hour therefore is for all those concerned to advance women’s rights and gender equality to work towards timely completion of the Outcomes document.

· insist on timely completion of the Outcomes document; in Beijing, those who opposed and delayed made reservations in the end anyway – a small minority should not be allowed to block progress;

· strengthen their delegations for the Prepcom’s resumption so that they include both those from capitals with knowledge about Beijing implementation, and diplomats with expertise in negotiations;

· provide committed negotiators from national capitals, or at least give clear directives to UN mission staff for the intersessional negotiations;

· Include on their delegations knowledgeable members of the non-governmental community as full members or as technical experts for the continuation of the Prepcom in May/June.

· Should be more bold in their support for women’s health and rights and particularly the important agreements reached at Cairo, Beijing and Cairo + 5;

· add experts on Human Rights and reproductive and sexual health and rights to their delegations.

· should lobby their governments to push hard for timely completion of the Outcomes document in such a way that we have clear directions for moving forward, and where the priority actions to be taken for the fulfillment of women’s human rights (including reproductive and sexual rights commitments made in Cairo, Cairo +5 and Beijing) are clearly spelled out;

· provide political and substantive analysis of the negotiations to date to each other and to governments;

· The technical capacity of the secretariat for the conference needs to be strengthened;

· Technical and other agencies should be present in strength during both the inter-sessionals and the Prepcom.

Despite the obstacles we currently face, we know we can succeed. Women’s rights and gender equality can no longer be suppressed or made pawns in other games. We have prevailed before and we will prevail again.

[i] The main documents negotiated at the + 5 reviews of the 1990s conferences include an assessment of achievements in and obstacles to implementation, and a critical section on future actions to be taken. Delays in the assessment of achievements and obstacles drastically cuts the time for serious discussion of future actions to be taken – something that obviously suits those who were opposed to the original documents in the first place.

March 31, 2000

Beijing + 5 Negotiations: Serious Risks and Disturbing Repetitions