A new global force is fighting liberal social mores
At the UN, an unlikely Russo-Islamic front is pushing back against Western liberal ideas
By ERASMUS
The United Nations Human Rights Council (HRC) has long been a contentious body in Western eyes for at least two reasons. America and its allies complain that the council criticises Israel far more than any other country; and second, the Geneva-based body (pictured) used to be in the habit of passing resolutions which deplored the "defamation of religion" in terms which seem to justify harsh blasphemy laws.
This month, a third front seemed to be opening up, and it was symptomatic of a wider trend in diplomacy. Liberal ideas on sexuality and reproduction, which have become an important plank of external as well as domestic policy for many Western countries, are being resisted successfully by a socially conservative coalition led by Islamic countries and Russia.
On July 3rd, the council passed a resolution whose centrepiece was the statement that "the family is the natural and fundamental group unit of society and is entitled to protection by society and the state". It was backed by 29 countries, including Russia, China and many members of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation, such as Indonesia, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan. America, South Africa, South Korea and 11 European countries (including Britain, France and Germany) voted against, on grounds that it put too much emphasis on traditional family structures.
South Africa unsuccessfully tried to insert language that took account of same-sex marriages and other non-traditional arrangements. Efforts by Western delegations to include the point that family structures can sometimes be oppressive likewise came to nothing.
Not much attention was paid to the resolution when it was passed, but a week later, the news was picked up as a success story by some socially conservative websites in America as well as Russia. Defence of the "traditional family" and opposition to gay rights has been part of Russia's foreign policy since at least 2012.
America, by contrast, has committed itself to using diplomacy to promote the cause of sexual freedom since 2011, when Hillary Clinton, as secretary of state, spelled out the new policy to the United Nations. The Supreme Court's recent ruling on gay marriage is likely to become a selling point, or the opposite, for American soft power in many parts of the world. With a mixture of disapproval and satisfaction, an influential Russian politician has already predicted that America will soon try, and fail, to impose same-sex marriage on all other countries.
Some diplomatic disputes over human rights can be finessed. For example, the Islamic world's drive to denounce "defamation of religion" in global bodies was diverted, with a modicum of success, by Mrs Clinton when she was secretary of state, albeit at a diplomatic price. She helped stitch together a compromise whereby America would join Muslim countries in denouncing things like discrimination and stereotyping on religious grounds, while the Islamic countries would stop short of implicitly demanding that strong statements about religion should be punished.
It is much harder to see how this latest clash can be the subject of a compromise, given the utter disconnect between the two camps. Pasquale Annicchino, an Italian scholar who writes on religious freedom and diplomacy, said the resolution reflected a broadening diplomatic showdown between a Western liberal bloc and an anti-liberal coalition in which "Russia and some other states portray Western ideas of human rights, and LGBT rights in particular, as a Western imposition..." And on these issues, the "anti-liberal" side has allies within the Western world as well as outside it.
