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The Civil Society for the Geneva Consensus Declaration Coalition, which brings together 111 organizations from 32 countries, including Poland’s Ordo Iuris Institute, began its work during the latest session of the UN General Assembly.

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The Declaration itself, adopted in 2020, affirms that there is no international right to abortion, nor any obligation on the part of states to finance or facilitate it.

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In 2026, the International Court of Justice confirmed that the positions of UN committees are not binding interpretations of treaties.

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Poland withdrew its support for the Declaration in 2025, but five Polish civil society organizations have joined the Coalition.

On September 14, at the start of the 81st session of the UN General Assembly in New York, the Civil Society for the Geneva Consensus Declaration Coalition, which brings together 111 organizations from 32 countries, launched its activities. Its aim is to support the governments that have signed the Geneva Consensus Declaration in promoting the protection of life, the family, and women’s health in their domestic policies and at the UN. On September 23, Honduras, Trinidad and Tobago, and Algeria acceded to the Declaration itself, raising the number of its signatories to 46. The Ordo Iuris Institute is a member of the Coalition, while Poland, one of the original signatories of the Declaration, has remained outside it since 2025.

What is the Geneva Consensus Declaration?

The Geneva Consensus Declaration on Promoting Women’s Health and Strengthening the Family is an international political document adopted in October 2020 at the initiative of the then U.S. administration. Its co-sponsors, alongside the United States, were Brazil, Egypt, Hungary, Indonesia, and Uganda. More than 30 states endorsed the Declaration on the day it was signed. It was then transmitted to the UN Secretary-General and circulated as an official General Assembly document under the symbol A/75/626.

The Declaration rests on four principles: securing meaningful health and development gains for women, protecting life at all stages, defending the family as the fundamental unit of society, and working together across the UN system to realize these values, with full respect for the sovereign prerogatives of states in the area of social policy. The document is not a binding international agreement. Nevertheless, organizations supporting the Declaration point out that it enshrines the position of the signatory states in an official UN document, which matters for the work of diplomats, politicians, and researchers.

Poland’s then Minister of Foreign Affairs, Zbigniew Rau, expressed Poland’s support for the Declaration on October 22, 2020. The ceremony was also attended by a representative of the Ordo Iuris Institute, who had been invited directly by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. On April 29, 2021, Ordo Iuris, together with pro-family organizations from the Three Seas region, organized an international conference on the Declaration, attended by, among others, representatives of the governments of Poland, Brazil, and Slovakia.

A coalition of non-governmental organizations

The newly established Coalition is meant to spread knowledge of the Declaration among civil society actors and the governments of UN member states. Its initiators stress that civil society groups have been working with governments to promote the document and attract new signatories since 2020, and that the new structure is intended to give this cooperation a formal framework. It is also meant to support the signatory states in implementing the Declaration’s principles in their domestic policies and in the work of the UN system.

The Coalition’s work is directed by a Steering Committee made up of six organizations: the Center for Family and Human Rights (C-Fam), Family Watch International, the Heritage Foundation, Alliance Defending Freedom, the Global Center for Human Rights, and the Institute for Women’s Health. The Committee reviews membership applications, which can be submitted through a website available in all official UN languages. Members may co-organize events and join statements delivered on behalf of the Coalition during official UN meetings. Under the agreed rules, members cooperate solely within the scope of the Declaration’s objectives and need not share views on other social or geopolitical issues.

Besides the Ordo Iuris Institute, the Polish members of the Coalition are the Jeden z Nas (One of Us) Foundation, Human Life International Polska, the Polish Federation of Pro-Life Movements, and Proelio Group. The members also include the American Eagle Forum, founded by the late conservative activist Phyllis Schlafly. Explaining the decision to join, its president, Kris Ullman, pointed to the harm done by abortion and gender ideology. The task of the Coalition’s participants is to persuade their governments to sign the Declaration and, in countries that have already done so, to press for the adoption of laws and policies consistent with its priorities. On September 23, the Coalition held the first-ever side event of the UN General Assembly devoted exclusively to the Declaration.

The Declaration as an instrument of so-called soft law

The Declaration does not establish new obligations but recalls standards contained in international documents and treaties. It refers, among others, to Art. 6(1) of the 1966 International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which guarantees every human being the inherent right to life; to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which recognizes the family as the natural and fundamental group unit of society; and to the preamble of the 1959 Declaration of the Rights of the Child, which points to the need for legal protection of the child before as well as after birth. It also invokes the Programme of Action of the 1994 International Conference on Population and Development in Cairo, according to which abortion should in no case be promoted as a method of family planning, and regulations in this area fall within the competence of states. On this basis, the signatories firmly emphasize that there is no international right to abortion and that states have no international obligation to finance or facilitate it.

The adoption of the Geneva Consensus Declaration should be seen as a response to attempts to establish abortion as a human right through so-called soft law instruments, such as recommendations of UN treaty bodies or resolutions adopted by vote against the will of some states. The term refers to acts that have no formal binding force but which, owing to the authority of the bodies issuing them, influence legislation and the practice of applying the law. The Ordo Iuris Institute has pointed out for years that the positions of UN committees do not create international obligations. This was confirmed by the International Court of Justice, which, in its advisory opinion of May 21, 2026, held that the pronouncements of expert bodies are not binding interpretations of treaties, but merely a subsidiary means that no one is obliged to accept. The Declaration likewise belongs to the category of soft law.

Poland outside the Declaration

Poland’s withdrawal from the Declaration was confirmed by the Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs in a letter dated April 9, 2025, in response to a request submitted by the Ordo Iuris Institute on February 28. The decision was taken by the head of the ministry without consulting civil society organizations. Ordo Iuris expressed concern at the time about both the withdrawal from the initiative itself and the lack of transparency surrounding this step. Since the Declaration is not an international agreement, neither Poland’s endorsement nor its withdrawal was subject to a ratification procedure; both depended solely on the government’s decision. As a result, Hungary remains the only European Union member state among the signatories. The document’s principles also have their counterparts in Poland’s Constitution, which in Art. 38 ensures the legal protection of the life of every human being and in Art. 18 places marriage, the family, motherhood, and parenthood under the protection and care of the state. At the same time, five Polish organizations, including Ordo Iuris, have joined the Coalition, pledging continued support for the Declaration’s principles.

“The establishment of the Civil Society for the Geneva Consensus Declaration Coalition is another example of the consolidation of groups working at the international level to protect human life and the family. It is part of a broader process that has included, among other things, the signing of the Declaration itself in 2020, regional initiatives such as the conference organized by the Ordo Iuris Institute in 2021, and the support of 48 states for an amendment tabled in 2025 that sought to remove the ambiguous term ‘sexual and reproductive health’ from the UN resolution on the rights of the child. Until now, cooperation among civil society organizations around the Declaration has been informal and has depended largely on the activity of individual governments. The new structure, which brings together more than one hundred entities from dozens of countries, gives them the opportunity to act jointly at the UN, including by delivering statements during official meetings. This is particularly important at a time when treaty bodies and other organs of the United Nations system are formulating positions that present abortion as a human right. A consolidated voice of civil society organizations can strengthen the position of the states that oppose such an interpretation and serve as a reminder of the position of the states that adopted these treaties. The participation of Polish organizations in the Coalition also shows that, despite the government’s withdrawal from the Declaration, Polish civil society remains an active participant in this cooperation,” comments Patryk Ignaszczak of the Ordo Iuris Center for International Law.

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Source of cover photo: iStock