II. The origins of the Russia-led traditionalist agenda in the human rights discourse of the Russian Orthodox Church

The ‘Traditional values’ resolution promoted by the Russian Federation in the UNHRC has its origin in the Russian Orthodox Church’s discourse on human rights, in particular in, as Stoeckl has shown,^{Footnote 15} the Church’s interpretation of Article 29 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which places emphasis on duties and ‘just requirements of morality’.^{Footnote 16} The Russian Orthodox Church read Article 29 as legitimisation of the argument that contextual parameters constitute guiding norms for the interpretation of human rights. This re-grounding of contextualist arguments in human rights instruments themselves has arguably set in motion a new dynamic in the universalist–contextualist debate. Contextualists today present themselves as more in line with the original intention of the Universal Declaration than contemporary progressive promoters of human rights. Consider the following statement by then-Metropolitan and head of the External Relations Department of the Moscow Patriarchate (and now the current Patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church) Kirill as an illustration of this ‘universalisation’ of the contextualist viewpoint:

What the Patriarch of Moscow presented in this statement is what the discourse coalition approach calls ‘a story line’: a narrative ‘in which elements of the various discourses are combined into a more or less coherent whole and the discursive complexity is concealed’.^{Footnote 18} The Patriarch’s statement, in fact, makes a striking claim: he interprets human rights not in an individual, but in a social and public light. The focus lies not on how human rights protect individuals, but how they enable them to do certain things. The Patriarch wants to set a limit to the enabling side of human rights. This limit is defined, in his words, by ‘traditional morality’. The Universal Declaration, which the Patriarch cites as his source here, does not contain the term ‘traditional morality’; it speaks instead of ‘just requirement of morality … in a democratic society’. In other words, the Universal Declaration indeed envisions limits for human rights, but these limits are understood as the fruit of a democratic process. The Patriarch twists the meaning of Article 29 when, by using ‘traditional morality’, he seals public morality off from change through democratic deliberation, preferring instead past practice and traditional mores as sources of legitimacy.

It is precisely this argument that stands behind the traditionalist agenda promoted by Russia within the UNHRC. This traditionalist agenda before the UNHRC has mobilised a stable coalition of supporters from among non-Western UN member states, and has been met with opposition from Western countries and UN agencies. At the same time, it has acquired considerable support from conservative, mostly Christian civil society actors in the West. In the discussion under scrutiny here, these groups form discourse coalitions,^{Footnote 19} which then battle over questions of what human rights should be and do. The traditionalist coalition has prevailed in all of the UNHRC resolutions discussed in this article, and as a result, the liberal egalitarian human rights position of Western states has been turned into a minority opinion.

III. ‘Traditional values’ and ‘Protection of the family’ in the UNHRC

Between 2009 and 2013 and between 2014 and 2017, two traditionalist causes were debated at the UNHRC, the first being the resolution on ‘Traditional values’, the second the resolution on ‘Protection of the family’. In this section, we give an outline of each of these debates and in the following section, we analyse their content and the strategies used.^{Footnote 20}

IV. ‘Traditional values’ and ‘Protection of the family’ in the UNHRC: Discourse coalitions

The resolutions on ‘Traditional values’ and ‘Protection of the family’ mobilised the same coalitions among the UNHRC member states. Below, a world map (Figure 1) based on the cumulative voting results of all relevant resolutions between 2009 and 2016 shows which countries supported the resolutions and which countries opposed them, and which countries changed position or abstained. In the context of this article, the focus lies on the stable coalitions, leaving aside the motives behind why some countries may have changed their positions. It becomes clear that throughout the process, during which some members in the UNHRC on rotating chairs changed, the overall geographical pattern of the coalitions remained the same. These topics mobilised support from Russia and post-Soviet states, from countries of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, and countries in what is broadly referred to as the Global South. They met with consistent opposition from Western European countries, the United States, and few others.

Figure 1. Countries’ voting for the UN resolutions and NGOs’ location, 2009-2016

However, country voting results show only one side of the unfolding controversy at the UNHRC. The other side is the engagement of NGOs accredited to the UN. NGOs submitted statements in support or opposition to the traditionalist agenda. In the map (Figure 1), we have added all submissions mobilised between 2009 and 2016 in the context of the two sets of resolutions, in order to show that voting blocks are counterbalanced by civil society engagement that is frequently in contrast to a country’s voting behaviour.

Coalition-making over universalist–contextualist topics is, as we already pointed out in the Introduction, not a novelty in the UN context.^{Footnote 36} In the past, the debates on ‘Defamation of religion’^{Footnote 37} or ‘Dialogue of civilizations’^{Footnote 38} pursued similar causes. Also, the campaign and coalition for family values is not a novelty. Conservative mobilisation against topics of sexual orientation and gender identity in the human rights context goes back to 1994, when the Vatican, together with religious and non-denominational conservative NGOs and Islamic States, raised arguments about the ‘natural’ and ‘traditional family’ at the Cairo Conference on Population and Development.^{Footnote 39} Together with the 1995 UN Conference in Beijing, these two large UN Conferences are considered by scholars as the starting point for global activism by a Christian right network.^{Footnote 40}

Should one therefore interpret the traditionalist–liberal standoff in the UNHRC between 2009 and 2016 as business as usual? Two aspects of the recent debate suggest that there are novel aspects to be considered. First, the new leader of this debate is Russia, supported by Muslim states and countries from the Global South; and second, the argumentative strategy employed by the traditionalist agenda has mobilised broad support among NGOs in the West and has turned a formerly contextualist topic into a transversal cause. In this section, we focus on the leadership role of Russia, before turning to the arguments employed in the next section.

Heiner Bielefeldt, former UN Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Religion, confirmed to us that Russia has taken over the leader’s position in a discussion which, ten years ago, was associated with Muslim states.^{Footnote 41} As a matter of fact, Muslim states are still actively involved in the traditionalist agenda, and it was Egypt, not Russia, which tabled the Resolution on the family. However, Russia appears to have been acting behind the scenes. One interviewee from the diplomatic corps of the Republic of Belarus explained to us that it was Russia who initiated the ‘Group of Friends of the Family’^{Footnote 42} in 2014.^{Footnote 43}

Russia’s leadership role was corroborated by two interviewees from the NGO sector, one of which said ‘Russia is taking over. This is quite clear.’^{Footnote 44} Russia is taking over the traditionalist agenda not only from the Muslim states, but, as this last interviewee made clear, also from the Holy See. Interviewee C observed:

Several authors have already started to look into the role of the newly arrived Russian Orthodox in existing coalitions over conservative values created by Catholics, Muslims and US-based conservative Protestants;^{Footnote 46} our article deepens their analysis. It appears that Russia’s leadership role in the promotion of a traditionalist agenda in the UNHRC has opened a new phase in anti-liberal norm protagonism at the UN that was previously associated with Muslim states and the Holy See. The traditionalist agenda under Russian leadership has turned contextualist opposition to universalist equal application of human rights into a transversal topic on its own right. By making an appeal to transversal phenomena like ‘traditional values’ or ‘family’ and by expanding from the demands of one religion (Islam in the case of the blasphemy debates) to religions and cultures as such, the traditionalist agenda has become transversal and has mobilised support in countries whose government representatives at the UNHRC oppose the agenda. In fact, among the NGO submissions, favourable submissions between 2009 and 2016 dominated, with 65 per cent of the total.

The mobilisation pattern of pro-traditionalist NGOs in Southern and Eastern Europe, the United States, and Latin America shows widespread support for the items on the traditionalist agenda upon which country representatives took a contrary or neutral stance. In the EU and the United States, which voted against the ‘traditional values’ and ‘pro-family’ resolutions, a considerable number of NGOs mobilised in favour of this agenda. The geographical pattern of this favourable mobilisation in Europe shows that a greater number of favourable statements came from Orthodox and Catholic countries than from Protestant countries. Also in Southeast Asia NGO mobilisation is in contrast to countries’ voting behaviour, but less unexpectedly so: the literature on norm protagonism in civil society anticipates liberal civil society mobilisation as a counterbalance to authoritarian, conservative, or non-liberal governments.^{Footnote 47} The traditionalist agenda reverses this trend in two ways. First, it enacts a non-liberal norm protagonism rarely considered in the literature so far, and second, it mobilises and gives coherence to a traditionalist section of civil society inside liberal democratic countries. It is particularly the debate inside these countries, the EU Member States and the United States, which is in the focus of the following section.

V. Patterns of argumentation in the debate over ‘Traditional values’ and ‘Protection of the family’

The traditionalist agenda is consciously in conflict with a liberal, progressive, and expansive interpretation of international human rights law. This conflict is not new to the UN context, but what is new, this article argues, is the way in which it is framed by traditionalist actors and the effect this has on liberal democratic states and some civil society stakeholders. The text corpus on which the analysis of the traditionalist agenda and the debate generated is based comprises all the documents related to the ‘Traditional values’ and ‘Protection of the family’ resolutions (including the resolutions, panel reports, and submissions) from 2009 until 2016 (see Appendix 1). This corpus was coded in a bottom-up fashion, identifying recurring arguments and grouping these under coherent categories. From the analysis, one can derive five broad categories that define the battle over traditionalist issues at the UN. Each of these categories stands for one particular set of arguments that actors use in the debate. Each side actively and reciprocally creates arguments by challenging the other’s agenda and advancing claims.

1. 1. Substantial arguments aim at a substantial definition of what the family is or what traditional values are.

2. 2. Functional arguments describe the functional (social) utility and worth of the family and of traditional values or the rejection thereof.

3. 3. Legalistic arguments either claim rights for the family or a traditional group as a collectivity or reject that claim.

4. 4. Genealogical arguments claim coherence of the contextualist, or, respectively, the universalist agenda with human rights instruments.

5. 5. Normative arguments comprise normative statements about equality.

In the traditionalist agenda, arguments that fall into Categories 1 and 2 demand special protection for the family or traditions by the state inasmuch as family or traditions have substantial or functional qualities deserving of such protection. The controversy regarding Category 1 unfolds over the question of definitions. Who or what is to be recognised as family or a traditional value? Battles over the definition of the family in human rights language are not new. Waites has pointed out that ever since the emergence of feminist movements from the 1960s, feminists have problematised key concepts used in the Declaration such as ‘marriage’ and ‘the family’. In light of contemporary feminist and queer theory, redefinitions emphasising the diversity of models of family or marriage as not involving only male–female partnerships are gaining ground.^{Footnote 48} The traditionalist agenda rejects gay marriage and consequently the idea that families of same sex parents and families of heterosexual parents should be considered equal.

Category 2 proves hardly controversial, since both sides tend to agree on the importance of families, and in part even of traditions. Category 3 makes an argument for protection of the family or traditional groups from the state: for example, the right of parents to be left alone by demands of public education. Arguments under Category 3 recall debates on collective rights. This is a controversial move and regularly rejected by egalitarian universalists, who disagree that families are collectives and that traditional groups and practices should be afforded special protections. Categories 4 and 5 develop arguments closely intertwined with the discursive strictures of human rights debate at the UN. Category 4 makes a genealogical argument, claiming coherence of the respective position with established human rights norms. Category 5 establishes the normative threshold of equality, which liberal actors defend in a strictly individualist and egalitarian key, specifying the demands of gender and generational equality. Contextualists also pay lip service to normative arguments. Mostly, however, they expand on substantial and functional arguments, which are the main drivers of their agenda.

When combined, these five categories make up more than 80 per cent of the debates between liberal actors and traditionalists in the text corpus for this article. What is interesting, however, is that the five categories are not distributed equally on the two sides. Normative, legalistic and genealogical arguments are more frequently used by liberal actors, who oppose the traditionalist agenda on principled grounds and try to maintain the interpretive sovereignty of human rights language and instruments. However, traditionalists also use genealogical and legalistic arguments. The use of such arguments requires an advanced degree of expertise in human rights treaty language and the history of debates. One finding from this research is that expertise on argumentation before the UN is being actively built up by traditionalist actors through the sharing of ideas, texts and background information.^{Footnote 49} For instance, the American conservative pro-family NGO United Families International, which has consultative status with the United Nations Economic and Social Council, publishes a regularly updated Pro-Family Negotiating Guide, also known as and hereinafter referred to as the ‘United Nations Negotiating Guide’, which systematically picks apart 70 years of UN treaties with the goal of identifying ‘pro-family’ positions and their opposition. Among the NGOs who use this guide, Concerned Women for America is quoted with the endorsement, ‘As this tool becomes widely available, it will be possible for people of good will to maintain the integrity of UN documents and to prevent their hijacking for ideological purposes.’^{Footnote 50} UN language often reads like a code. The United Nations Negotiating Guide used by pro-family actors gives a good insight into how traditionalists go about interpreting these codes. The Guide identifies which expressions support the traditionalist agenda (e.g., ‘the family is the basic unit of society’) and which terms threaten it (e.g., referring to the place of the child in the family, and the expression ‘the child’s right to confidentiality and privacy’)^{Footnote 51}.

A selection of exemplary passages from the debates on traditional values and the family should make the five categories of argumentation more tangible: Resolution 21/3, entitled ‘Promoting human rights and fundamental freedoms through a better understanding of traditional values of humankind: best practices’, requested that the Advisory Committee of the UNHRC prepare a report. In response to this resolution, the Advisory Committee received 60 submissions between January and March 2013 from stakeholders (countries, NGOs and UN agencies) on the topic of traditional values. Resolution 29/22, entitled ‘Protection of the family: contribution of the family to the realisation of the right to an adequate standard of living for its members, particularly through its role in poverty eradication and achieving sustainable development’ was adopted on 3 July 2015. This resolution also requested the preparation of a report ‘on the impact of the implementation by States of their obligations under relevant provisions of international human rights law with regard to the protection of the family’. As a response to this resolution, the Office of the High Commissioner of Human Rights received, in the second half of 2015, 106^{Footnote 52} submissions from stakeholders (countries, UN bodies and NGOs). Combined, this text corpus gives a valid overview of the arguments used in the debate. The sections below look first at the liberal side and its rejection of the traditionalist agenda and then at the arguments used by the traditionalist side. Finally, we identify moments in the debate where stakeholders reflect on the debate as such and express a position that we call a communicative double bind.

VI. The liberal–traditionalist double bind

So far, this article has tried to show that the traditionalist agenda blurs and redraws the conceptual boundaries between the universalist and contextualist positions in the human rights discourse. The traditionalist agenda calls into question the habitual distinction between the universalist position as liberal, egalitarian and progressive, and the contextualist position as illiberal, restrictive and relativist. Instead, the traditionalist agenda under scrutiny in this article presents itself as conservative, but as equally ‘universal’ as the liberal position promoted by Western states or, indeed, the UN bureaucracy itself.

However, there is one more aspect that should be brought out in this analysis. Not only have the ‘Traditional values’ and ‘Protection of the families’ resolutions put Western states on the defensive, they have also put many traditionalist civil society organisations from Western countries into the awkward position of siding with a coalition of illiberal actors from Russia, Islamic States and the Global South. The traditionalist agenda polarises and effectively blocks a broader debate about the sources and evolution of human rights, reducing it to a ‘zero-sum clash of cultures and values’.^{Footnote 72} This is a problem for a number of actors, who find the traditionalist agenda important and in part persuasive, but do not agree with its strategy nor want to side unconditionally with the states that promote it.

One interviewee from the NGO sector explained to us that the organisation this person worked for supported the traditionalist agenda promoted by Russia since 2012, but preferred not to appear too closely associated. They would, for example, avoid availing themselves of the co-sponsorship from the Russian or the Belorussian delegation directly when organising an event, preferring instead the co-sponsorship of less conspicuous countries like Samoa or Vietnam.^{Footnote 73} Interviewee C from the NGO sector remarked that in his view, Vatican diplomacy was cautious not to be associated too closely with the Russian agenda:

The view was corroborated by one further interviewee from a UN diplomatic delegation, who said while they actually supported the goals of the resolutions on ‘Protection of the family’, they did not support the ‘unhelpful and intense, prescriptive language’ in which the debate had been couched.^{Footnote 75} This interviewee admitted to finding the work of a lot of conservative NGOs who intervened in support of the ‘Protection of the family’ resolution ‘unhelpful’ and specified: ‘I want everything they want, but I disagree a hundred per cent about their strategy.’^{Footnote 76}

These actors, we argue in this final section, find themselves in a communicative deadlock, better described as communicative double bind. A double bind is a communicative situation in which an individual is confronted with two conflicting demands, neither of which can be ignored or escaped. A subject in a double-bind situation is torn both ways, so that whichever demand he or she tries to meet, the other demand cannot be met. Developed in the context of clinical psychology,^{Footnote 77} the constellation of the double bind can also be applied to political communication.^{Footnote 78} The communicative double bind describes well the situation of a particular group of actors in the context of debates inside the UNHRC over items on the traditionalist agenda, namely the position of moderate conservative stakeholders. These are, as expressed in the statements above, often religious NGOs supportive of the goals of the traditionalist agenda, but unwilling to be associated with the illiberal and anti-democratic credentials of the leaders of the discussion. The existence of a communicative deadlock was confirmed by Bielefeldt during our interview, when he said:

But not only some NGOs, also Western states find themselves confronted with two conflicting demands, both of which are considered legitimate and important, but cannot be met simultaneously. Being liberal actors, Western states defend an individualistic and egalitarian application of human rights and oppose any attempt to restrict human rights on grounds of tradition or culture. At the same time, being the wealthiest nations on the planet and – in most cases – implementers of social welfare, the Western states represent political systems that are generally supportive of the practical goals advocated by the traditionalist agenda (for example, in the field of family policies). The double bind for them lies in the discrepancy between the merit of the question and the strictures of the communicative situation in which it is posed: Western liberal states in the UNHRC vote against the promotion of traditional values and the protection of the family. They are subsequently branded by supporters of the traditionalist agenda as enemies of tradition and the family, despite the fact that in practical terms, Western governments frequently provide more support for the causes raised by the traditionalist agenda than those countries that claim to promote it.

A good example for this discrepancy between rhetoric and actual commitment was the intersessional seminar on the protection of the family and disability organised in Geneva on 23 February 2017 by the Group of the Friends of the Family. Under the title ‘The impact of the implementation by States of their obligations under relevant provisions of international human rights law with regard to the protection of the family on the role of the family in supporting the protection and promotion of the rights of persons with disabilities’, members of the group convened a seminar with the aim to discuss ‘the family as the fundamental unit of society’ and ‘recognize the important roles played by families in caring for and supporting persons with disabilities’.^{Footnote 80} The event was accompanied by a photo exhibition on family at the UN Office in Geneva, organised by the Belarusian delegation.^{Footnote 81} Russia and Belarus are two countries with a harrowing record when it comes to giving care and support to persons with disabilities and their families. It is therefore nothing short of paradoxical that these countries present themselves as leaders on the topic of family and disability, whereas research clearly shows that it has been the influence from Western European countries, in particular Western NGOs that is slowly helping to improve the situation for persons with disabilities in the region of the former Soviet block.^{Footnote 82}

The traditionalist agenda inside the UN has created a communicative situation in which Western liberal states and moderate conservative actors stand to lose. Most of the stakeholders seem to be aware of this. The following statement by Caritas Internationalis echoes the sense of irritation experienced by Western religious NGOs, who see their countries in opposition on a topic they support. The statement identifies a communicative deadlock over definitions at the heart of the conflict:

The actors which we interviewed for this article also lamented the polarisation of the debate. Asked whether the resolutions on ‘Protection of the family’ had led into a communicative deadlock, Bielefeldt confirmed and suggested that only a new type of conversation may solve the impasse:

The argument made here is that in order to overcome the situation of the double bind, a real dialogue between the stakeholders would be necessary, but that the institutional speech situation hardly allows for this. This argument came up more than once in our research, with another interviewee telling us:

In this speech situation, the traditionalist agenda provokes ‘reflexes of purification’ on both sides, according to Bielefeldt, furthering the ‘clash of cultures and values’ also observed by McCrudden.