Biden nominates Senate-rejected pro-abortion attorney to International Court of Justice
(C-Fam — New York) The Biden administration has nominated controversial Columbia Law School Professor Sarah Cleveland to the International Court of Justice despite being rejected for a top job by the U.S. Senate only months ago.
In her new job at the International Court of Justice Cleveland would be able to declare abortion as an international human right. And it is over her abortion extremism and her misunderstanding of international law that the Senate rejected her as the top legal advisor to the U.S. State Department.
In her previous role as a member of the UN Human Rights Committee from 2015 to 2018 Cleveland directly pressured countries to repeal protections for the unborn in their national laws. She was also a leading proponent of declaring access to abortion a part of the “right to life” in a comprehensive legal commentary known as General Comment 36. This notion has never been accepted by UN Member States.
Cleveland aggressively attacked members of the committee who did not think the UN body should declare unrestricted access to abortion as an international right during the debates about General Comment 36. She accused Egyptian Ambassador Ahmed Amin Fathalla, a well-known international legal expert and chairman of the committee at the time, saying that he had “egregiously abused the spirit of this conversation and the position of chair.”
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As chief legal officer at the State Department, Cleveland would not commit to consistently interpret and enforce U.S. pro-life restrictions on funding abortion, including the Helms Amendment. She evaded questions about abortion and implied that the U.S. government’s restrictions on funding abortion abroad are at odds with the interpretations of international human rights that she herself authored and supported as a member of United Nations bodies.
On the other hand, she emphasized that “the United States does not regard access to abortion services as an international human right.”…
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Guest Column·By Stefano Gennarini, J.D.
