What are you thoughts on this UN decision?

What was it necessary? My guess is it is in order to get the “kill the gays” nations on board the “no arbitrary executions” bandwagon.

Very ironic, no?

@wundayatta It’s blatantly so – it’s saying ‘these arbitrary murders shouldn’t happen but these can’.

After reading that I’m disgusted that it has slipped through unannounced! Not one mention of it in any media whatsoever!
Thank you for bringing it to my attention.

@Mat74UK Of course. And, exactly.

I actually did read about this somewhere; perhaps the NY TImes? It is disgusting of course.

It’s shameful, I don’t understand at all why they would do that.

I think it’s just as disgusting as you do, but unsurprising. They probably just dont want to intervene with nations that do approve of killing LGBT. They’re following and not leading in this situation.

It seems on a large scale that people are still in between the stages of accepting it, recognizing the rights and equality LGBT deserves and actually taking that a step further and doing something about it. They recognize the problem, but no one wants to step up to the plate and spend any resources doing anything about it.

I have my own resolutions. One of them is to not let the UN or any other governing watchdog be my king.

@Mat74UK The BBC covered this in a blog

@flutherother – Not the six o’clock news though is it?

@Mat74UK Not even the News at Ten

I saw this here a few days ago, but it isn’t a major news outlet. Being at college, I’m kind of in a bubble, so I don’t know how or if it’s been covered by major networks or publications. It anyway seems like a disgusting (I hate to repeat, but there’s no better word) and cowardly decision by the United Nations.

I’m sorry…what!?!?

What made you think the UN gave a shit about you in the first place?
It is a third world club, with a constituency that mutilates genitals, kills queers, stones women and cuts people’s tongues off before setting them on fire with a tire filled with gasoline. And they hold their meetings in NYC.

I’ve read that the UN is also doing something to the effect of supporting death camps for the Roma (Gypsy) people, so I’m not that surprised, but it’s still fucking horrible that the UN isn’t standing against executive murder.

I’m surprised that the HRC hasn’t sent me an email about this (at least I don’t think they have).

Does anyone have a link to the current version? All I can find are the versions here and here. The death penalty moratorium is still an issue, so I’m ambivalent about the effect of this edit. The ICCPR also contains requirements that a country prevent extrajudicial killings.

I’ve assisted in the drafting of a couple U.N. Resolutions, and the problem is always that the language must be written in order to increase the chances that it will be approved. The U.N. is much more concerned, in terms of its workings, with diplomacy as opposed to justice. The more general and less suggestive of blame, the better.

I think that, of course, it’s terrible. But with a body so diverse, the more human rights documents we can get through the better. Further, statements that they will not commit these extrajudicial executions have already occurred…it doesn’t mean that they won’t.

I just read a blog post on the net, where a comment was made that it must be the fault of Christian missionaries in these countries causing this to happen.
I’m not buying that.

The increase in anti-gay sentiments in Uganda came in conjunction with evangelical presentations regarding the danger of a ‘gay agenda’ to Ugandan citizens in 2009. Interviews with one of the pastors leading the discussion showed that he refused to speak out against attempts to punish homosexual acts with the death penalty.

There’s an incredibly strong link, unfortunately, @wilma.

This is a direct violation of EU law

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGBT_rights_by_country_or_territory#Europe

“Membership in the European Union not only requires repeal of anti-homosexuality legislation, the Treaty of Amsterdam also requires anti-discrimination legislation to be enacted by its member states.”

@mattbrowne – I don’t think that’s a violation of EU law though. U.N. GA Resolutions are non-binding (unlike Resolutions from the Sec. Council) – and the binding nature isn’t much without any real enforcement mechanism to back it up.

Besides that, the EU mandate requires the member-states to enforce provisions against discrimination in their state laws – the removal of sexuality-based requirements against extra-judicial executions is an absence in a resolution expressing a solidarity among the signing states that they will put forward best efforts to prevent them from happening. Regardless, EU States are required to be abolitionist, which makes the resolution superfluous to them.

I guess that ”...African, Middle East and Carribean [sic] nations…” aren’t exactly a paragon of enlightened societies.

If it’s any consolation, UN resolutions don’t carry any force of law anywhere…it’s all political posturing. It’s the individual countries’ laws that matter in such things.