Book Review: Sovereignty or Submission? - By Susan Yoshihara, Ph.D.

NEW YORK, August 3 (C-FAM) The US Senate may vote this week on ratification of the latest UN human rights treaty, this one on people with disabilities. Does it really matter whether the US ratifies such treaties? A new book published by a long-time Washington DC scholar says it matters a great deal. John Fonte of the Hudson Institute argues that each treaty saps the very lifeblood of democratic nations by arming a legion of advocates who would replace popular sovereignty with global governance.

Fonte says more than a hundred countries have adopted gender quotas for elected offices after ratifying the Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW). Twenty-two nations have changed their laws on childcare. And Norway has required 40% of corporate boards to be assigned on the basis of sex. Read More

Experts Call “Unmet Need” for Family Planning Baseless - by Susan Yoshihara, Ph.D.

NEW YORK, July 27 (C-FAM) At the same time governments pledged billions of dollars to push contraception in poor countries based on the idea of an “unmet need” for family planning, an elite group of experts dismissed the term as a poor measure of development aid’s effectiveness.

“The usual numbers bandied about for estimates of ‘unmet need’ do not correspond to any definition of ‘unmet need’ that any economist (or just common sense) could agree to. They are an advocacy construct that has been successfully used in the overall political agenda for promoting family planning,” noted Harvard economist Lant Pritchett. Read More