DUBLIN, July 13, 2001 (LSN.ca) – Ireland’s largest Catholic paper, the Irish Catholic, has exposed the government’s complicity with the European Union in endorsing a document called the International Guidelines on HIV/AIDS and Human Rights, intended for passage at the United Nations Conference on HIV/AIDS. Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute (C-Fam) reports that the Irish government supported the document even though its provisions countered Irish law in calling for worldwide recognition of homosexual marriage, the legalization of prostitution and “safe and legal” abortions.
Irish Catholic editor David Quinn was told by the Irish government that when the EU accepts an international document, member states still retain the right to reject provisions within that document. However, C-Fam notes that the EU speaks with one voice at all UN conferences, and when it sought recognition of the Guidelines, it did so with no reservations or objections from Ireland.
While the Irish government insists that Ireland will retain control over internal policies concerning family and life issues, regardless of what it might assent to on the international scene as a member of the EU, the potential uses of international law suggest otherwise. Quinn writes that once such radical language is accepted into UN documents, it moves it along to being accepted as international law. C-Fam suggests the EU courts will then be able to cite this language as an international norm, and therefore binding upon its own member states. This will be the judicial mechanism for a “Roe v. Wade for Europe. Given a few years, this will be how some European court quashes our constitutional commitment to life,” concluded Quinn.