As support wanes for its campaign to secure controversial but non-binding “defamation of religion” resolutions at the United Nations, the Islamic bloc is pushing ahead with an alternative route – one that would carry the weight of international law.

The OIC is now attempting to have a key U.N. panel amend an existing international treaty to encompass supposedly religiously defamatory speech.

Unlike the resolutions, changing the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (ICERD) to cover religion would be legally enforceable.

The Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) has for the past decade overseen the passage of non-binding resolutions at the U.N. General Assembly and human rights bodies.

Last week, the most recent effort passed in the General Assembly’s Third Committee, which deals with social, cultural, and humanitarian issues. It will go before the full General Assembly for a vote next month, but the committee vote indicates a continuing, measurable decline in support.

Eighty-one countries voted for the resolution, 55 opposed it and 43 abstained. The result showed less support for and more opposition against the resolution than for those introduced by the OIC over the last three years.

As in past years, most support came from the 57-member OIC (although two members, Burkina Faso, and Cameroon, abstained) plus non-Muslim allies in the developing world, led by China, Russia, Cuba and Venezuela.

Comparisons of voting records from 2006 to date reveal a continuing erosion of support in Latin America. Chile, Mexico, Panama, Uruguay all voted against the OIC-led resolution this year, having abstained in 2008. Elsewhere, Lesotho and Sri Lanka were among those who moved from supporting the resolution in 2008, to abstaining this year.

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