The ‘unexpected’ Montevideo Consensus

Abstract

This commentary examines the outcome of the First Latin American Regional Conference on Population and Development, held in Montevideo in August of 2013 to mark the twentieth anniversary of the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) and adopt forward-looking recommendations. While highly appraising the outcomes, this article maps the policy paradoxes of ICPD implementation in Latin America, in particular with regard to abortion, and charts challenges ahead to sustain the intersectional vision propelled by the 1994 Cairo Conference.

Keywords:

• ICPD
• population and development
• human rights
• sexual and reproductive rights
• abortion

Notes

1. The elaboration of this collective comment was triggered by the invitation made by the Global Public Health editors to Sonia Corrêa to write an analysis of the ICPD +20 process. Sonia Corrêa, however, recognising that she had not followed the policy process properly – except through partial engagement in the preparation of the Brazilian civil society position for Montevideo – thought this could be an opportunity for a broader Latin American view on Cairo +20 in the region. She then invited Alexandra Garita, Beatriz Galli and Lilian Abracinskas to respond to three questions in writing: (1) What made Montevideo possible? (2) What are the gaps and contradictions between the consensus language reached in Montevideo and ground level realities of sexual and reproductive health and rights policies and politics? (3) Is there a future for the ICPD agenda in Latin America? If so what is in store for the future? As the manuscript was being revised, in April 2014, the 46th Session of the UN CPD devoted to reaffirm the ICPD agenda took place and additional information from this negotiation has been added to the original draft. This exercise would not have been possible if it was not for the positive and rapid response of all three invited authors.

2. Examples to be mentioned are the Mexico and Nicaragua cases of Paulina and Amalia that deal with access to abortion (see Paulina del Carmen Ramírez Jacinto v. Mexico, Case 161-02, Report No. 21/07, Inter-Am. C.H.R., OEA/Ser.L/V/II.130 Doc. 22, rev. 1 [2007]). Available online: http://www1.umn.edu/humanrts/cases/21-07.html. In Brazil, there is the case of Maria da Penha and domestic violence (see Comision Interamericana de Derechos Humanos, INFORME N° 54/01, CASO 12.051, MARIA DA PENHA MAIA FERNANDES v. BRASIL, 16 de abril de 2001). Available online: http://www.cidh.org/women/brasil12.051.htm. There is also the case of Alyne on maternal mortality (see Comité CEDAW, Caso Alyne da Silva Pimentel v. Brazil. Comunicación N° 17/2008, 25 de julio de 2011, párrafos 7.2, 7.3, 7.6 y 8.2.a). Available online: http://www2.ohchr.org/english/law/docs/CEDAW-C-49-D-17-2008.pdf. Lastly, in Chile there is the Attala case on the right to custody of a lesbian mother (see Corte IDH, Caso AtalaRiffo y niñas v. Chile. Fondo, reparaciones y costas. Sentencia, 24 de febrero de 2012, párrafo 162). Available online: http://www.corteidh.or.cr/docs/casos/articulos/seriec_239_esp.pdf.

3. In Chile, abortion has been totally illegal since 1989, when still under the Pinochet regime the Supreme Court eliminated the possibility of therapeutic abortion. The Honduran legal definition on abortion pertains to the Penal Code 1985 reform, but penalties were aggravated in 1996, and in 2012 the Supreme Court entirely banned access to emergency contraception. In El Salvador, the 1998 Penal Code reform struck down the three possibilities to access abortion as defined by the 1973 criminal law (women's life risk, statutory rape and grave foetal abnormality). The 2006 criminal reform in Nicaragua has also eliminated the possibility of therapeutic abortion enshrined in the law since the late nineteenth century. In the Dominican Republic, since September 2009, a constitutional amendment declaring the right to life ‘inviolable from conception until death’ was approved in Congress, which was confirmed by the country's Supreme Court in 2013.

4. It does not seem excessive to say that this trend was inaugurated by the 2006 Nicaraguan Penal Code reform that simultaneously struck down the crime of sodomy and banned the possibility of therapeutic abortion. Since then, in many other countries we have been witnessing state actors easily trading abortion rights with conservative political sectors, while at the same time advancing the LGBT rights agenda. In other words, these state actors appear to be selling abortion rights to preserve the advancement of LGBT rights and sustain their image as modernisers in the realm of sexual diversity.

5. South Africa, Ghana, Philippines, Nepal and India and, eventually, more flexible positions in Lebanon.