Sir, – What is to be done if the UN finding does not wake up the Taoiseach and his slow-moving Dáil allies to the urgent need to repeal the Eighth Amendment and to the fact that batting the issue off to a further assembly will impact cruelly on many women in the interim?
Would compensation applications from every woman affected by the amendment to date – and even bigger compensation claims from every woman affected by delays from the moment of today’s ruling – do the trick?
It took years of lobbying and a finding against Ireland at the UN Committee Against Torture to get Mr Kenny moving on the Magdalene women’s cases. Is he going to step up and get rid of this anti-woman constitutional provision or will Irish women have to go that route again? – Yours, etc,
Dr SANDRA McAVOY,
Cork.
A chara, – It is undeniable that there are elements within the UN that are ideologically wedded to the idea of abortion on demand as being some kind of fundamental right despite its inhumane precept that the right to life of the unborn child at all stages of development prior to birth must be subservient to this imaginary right; and they lose no opportunity to promote that agenda in Ireland and around the world.
However, this committee has no power to tell a sovereign nation how to conduct its internal affairs on this issue; and it most certainly has no power to tell the people of Ireland that they must amend its Constitution so that their ideology may be better implemented in this country.
We are an independent nation; and while that independence may have been eroded somewhat on the basis of various treaties we have signed with other nations, it has not been eroded so far that we are subject to the dictates of some committee that regards human life at its earliest stages as being of secondary value to its own agenda. – Is mise,
Rev PATRICK G BURKE,
Castlecomer, Co Kilkenny.
Sir, – Following the landmark judgment yesterday by the UN Human Rights Committee, calling Ireland’s abortion ban “cruel” and a violation of human rights, how long can Ireland go on treating its women as second-class citizens? I suspect it will be when the majority of the people of Ireland – as in the marriage equality referendum – realise that this issue affects the women they love: their mothers, daughters, sisters and friends. Until that day comes, women will continue to travel for the medical care they desperately need. – Yours, etc,
GRACE CUDDIHY,
Moscow.
Sir, – Fiona de Londras is incorrect to argue that Ireland's constitutional protection of the unborn is in violation of international human rights law simply because the UN Human Rights Committee says so ("Referendum required as UN move confirms abortion law is unsustainable", Opinion & Analysis, June 10th).
The content of international human rights law is determined by human rights treaties. It is ascertained from the express wording of the treaties and, in cases of ambiguity, interpretative recourse can be had to supplementary considerations, such as the drafting history of the provision in question.
Ireland is only bound by law contained in those treaties it signs. The treaty upon which the Human Rights Committee (HRC) is established is the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR). The ICCPR contains no right to abortion whatsoever.
The legal instrument which establishes the power of the HRC to review individual cases, such as the one discussed by Prof de Londras, is the first optional protocol to the ICCPR. It does not authorise the HRC to give judicial “rulings” or “decisions” that are legally binding under international law. It merely authorises (via article 1) the HRC to “receive and consider” communications alleging a rights violation, and (via article 5 (4) to give its “views” on the communications.
The “views” of a UN committee are not legally binding. They do not constitute, determine or amend the content of international human rights law. A UN committee is not a court of law. The first optional protocol to the ICCPR nowhere envisages sanctions or enforcement mechanisms to give effect to the views of the HRC.
The views of the HRC carry political weight, certainly. But in the instant case they presuppose that a severely disabled unborn child is not human enough to deserve basic human rights protection. This is troubling, as is the fact that no argument is advanced by the HRC to justify such a contention. – Yours, etc,
Dr TOM FINEGAN,
Iona Institute,
Merrion Square, Dublin 2.