View the original post here

Expanding the US Right to Counsel

By Margaret Drew

 Share

Co-Editor Lauren Bartlett discusses the growing US movement to expand the right to counsel beyond felony cases and limited civil areas.  The movement, often referred to as Civil Gideon demands expansion of the legal counsel in compliance with the International Covenent on Civil and Political Rights.  In part the Covenant demands that "all persons shall be equal before the courts and tribunals."  (Art. 14) The right to civil counsel is a growing movement of advocacy and literature that recognizes the need for counsel in order to meaningfully secure basic human needs.

Expanding  the  Right to  Counsel  in  the  U.S.

By Lauren E. Bartlett

Last year, institutions across the U.S. celebrated the fiftieth anniversary of Gideon v. Wainwright, 372 U.S. 335 (1963) with events, reports, and more. After the excitement over the anniversary of this groundbreaking right to counsel decision died down, what became clear, as it has after past anniversaries, is that there remains a right to counsel crisis in the U.S.  The right to counsel is not being fulfilled for many low-income people, not only in the criminal justice system, but also in civil cases and immigration proceedings in the U.S.   Today, public defenders offices across the U.S. cannot keep up with demand and individuals are not getting the defense they need, which exacerbates our mass incarceration problem.  Although the right to counsel for juveniles charged with serious crimes was established soon after Gideon, many youth are not able to exercise the right or are pressured to waive the right.  At other times counsel is appointed so late in the process that the right becomesmeaningless.

 Tens of thousands of immigrant children may face deportation proceedings in the coming year, there is no right to counsel for immigrants in detention (but see Franco-Gonzales v. Holder).  Moreover, there has been a growing movement towards a civil right to counsel, or Civil Gideon, with growing evidence that providing counsel to low-income families in civil cases, such as housing and child custody cases, provides extraordinarily better outcomes for the low-income individuals involved and saves courts a good deal of time, frustration, and money. Many possible solutions to this crisis have been proposed, and a couple of local jurisdictions have taken it upon themselves to try out new ideas. Yet, individually and structurally, barriers to the right to counsel crisis persist.

In an effort to charge the conversation and use international pressure to push the movement forward, U.S. advocates have begun using the human rights framework to advocate for the expansion of the right to counsel in both the misdemeanor criminal and civil contexts. Human rights law provides for more expansive protections for access to justice.  For example, human rights law has been cited as requiring the right to counsel to apply for certain cases for civil litigants, individuals detained at police stations, and immigrants in detention. Although much of human rights law is not directly enforceable in U.S. courts, advocates can make policy and comparative law arguments using human rights that can be quite persuasive to some judges and policymakers.

As Risa Kaufman mentioned in her post earlier this week, this is the year of U.S. human rights reviews at the U.N. and access to justice is key to the discussion.  Here at home, U.S. advocates have the chance to directly engage with the U.S. government on how access to justice can help promote the implementation of United States human rights obligations and commitments.  On April 1, 2014, the Local Human Rights Lawyering Project at the Center for Human Right and Humanitarian Law at American University Washington College of Law will host a Civil Society Consultation with the U.S. Government on Access to Justice. This is the first-ever consultation with the U.S. government focusing on access to justice in the human rights context.  The consultation will allow U.S. advocates, as well as persons directly affected, to directly address U.S. government officials both regarding the upcoming Universal Periodic Review and the review by the Committee on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination. By the time the sixtieth anniversary of Gideon rolls around, we hope to move leaps and bounds closer to fulfilling our human right of access to justice for all.  This consultation provides a unique platform to launch us towards that goal.  Please join us in D.C., or at least tune into the live webcast of the consultation.  All are welcome.

View original post here

UN Human Rights Committee review of US implementation of the ICCPR: Day 1 

by Edward Hasbrouck 

Public questioning by the UN Human Rights Committee (UNHRC) of a delegation from the US government on the subject of US implementation (or not) of theInternational Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) began today in Geneva, Switzerland, and will continue tomorrow. The proceedings are part of the periodic review of each party to the ICCPR, which the treaty itself mandates be conducted every five years by the UNHRC.

The UNHRC consists of independent individual experts, not representatives of national governments as in the confusingly similarly-named UN Human Rights Council. The ad hoc 32-member US delegation consists of high-level but not top-level officials (e.g. the Acting Deputy Assistant Secretary of Homeland Security for Policy) from half a dozen Federal executive (administrative) agencies led by the Department of State, along with officials from one state (Mississippi) and one municipal (Salt Lake City, UT) government.

With well-designed symbolism, the members of the the US government delegation and the UN Human Rights Committee, facing each other across the central well of the circular Salle XVIII in the UN’s “Palais des Nations”, were almost encircled by rising rings of observers from an NGO delegation of unprecendented size and diversity. Almost 100 human rights activists, mainly from the  the USA but also from other countries where people are concerned about human rights violations in the US and by the US government, came to the UNHRC session. Many more organizations who couldn’t afford to attend the session in Geneva in person made written submissions in advance to the UNHRC of suggestions for issues, questions, and “concluding observations”.

Members of the UNHRC welcomed the NGO presence — unprecedented in scale and diversity — despite describing it in their opening remarks as “overwhelming”.  Human rights aren’t just an issue for women or for people of color, and the US rainbow is well represented. But it says a great deal about the unbalanced gender and racial burdens of human rights violations in the US that perhaps 80% of the US NGO delegation are women and a similar percentage are people of color. Traditional leaders and tribal governments of Native Americans, Native Alaskans, and Native Hawaiians are also in attendance, lumped together by UN procedural rules with “non-governmental” organizations.

The proceedings today were webcast, as those tomorrow will be, and will also be archived for streaming on demand. “Every animal is equal,” UNHRC Chair Nigel Rodley quipped as he called today’s session to order, “But not every animal can get UN TV to the Human Rights Committee,” a small and normally quiet corner of the complicated system of UN treaty bodies. But this is the US, and no other country’s actions have such extraterritorial impacts, good or bad, on the human rights of people around the world.

The UNHRC is authorized by the ICCPR to issue “Concluding Observations” after its review of each country’s implementation of the treaty, but has no power to enforce its recommnedations. Despite this major limitation, the extreme reluctance of the US to accept any external oversight over its actions leaves the UNHRC as the sole international body with the authority to compel the US government, on a regular basis (albeit for only two days every five years), to respond publicly to cross-examination  about its human rights record.

For those tuning in for the first time to the UN TV webcast today and tomorrow, it may seem like this is the culmination of the process of review of the US by the UNHRC. At first glance, it might even look like the public dialogue between the UNHRC and the US government is “the review”.

But those of us who’ve been part of the process know that this week’s events in Geneva are neither its start nor its end.

The US submitted its required periodic report to the UNHRC on implementation  of the ICCPR on December 30, 2011, two days before the expiration of the five-year deadline since its previous report. At the end of 2012, after extensive preparation, training, and coordination by the US Human Rights Network, we were among several dozen organizations which made written submissions to the UNHRC to inform its choice of issues to raise with the US government. In March of 2013, we were among about a dozen of these NGOs from the US which sent representatives to Geneva to meet privately with members of the UNHRC to help them finalize the list of issues for their review of the US.

Once the UNHRC list of issues was adopted, the US made an initial written response, The UNHRC then entertained a second round of written submissions from NGOs in later 2013, providing updates about the issues under review, the US written response, and potential new issues to raise. (The UNHRC is not limited in its oral questioning to the list of questions adopted in advance, and already today some members of the UNHRC have asked questions that they noted were outside the scope of that list.)

There has also been some attempt by the US government to create at least the impression of “consultation” with civil society during this process. Most of the US government “engagement” with NGOs has been on a “don’t call us, we’ll call you, basis. Except for a few favored individuals and organizations selected by the government, most human rights activists and affected individuals and organizations in the US have had vastly greater access to the UNHRC than to our own government — despite the miniscule resources available to the UNHRC compared to those of the US government.

Yesterday the US invited US NGOs to a “town hall” meeting at the US Mission to the UN, a fortress a short walk from the UN’s “Palais des Nations”. Those who were lucky enough to make it through the extravagant security theater at the gates in time (some people who were already in line when the guards began “processing” us didn’t get into the meeting until it had been underway for half an hour) had more than two hours to question the US delegation. For us and, we suspect, others, it was the first time these officials had ever been willing to talk with us or even been identified as the officials responsible for dealing with issues we have been trying to raise with their departments for many years.

Although we had been told the meeting at the US Mission would be public and on the record, we were required without warning to check all our recorders, cameras, and phones at the gatehouse, and the government has not released a recording of the meeting. They effectively rendered it an “off the record” meeting which the government could spin as it liked. You can see only those photos the government choose to release, reflecting the image of “engagement” it wants to portray. You can’t see, hear, or judge for yourself how the US government delegation responded to our questions or failed to do so.

Some of the most powerful interventions came from individuals directly affected by US human rights violations, including among others; the sister of one of the student protesters shot dead by soldiers at Kent State University in 1970, for which no one has ever been held accountable; advocates for victims of COINTELPRO framed and held in solitary confinement for as much as 40 years; people disenfranchised for decades-old convictions for nonviolent breaches of drug laws; people tied down, drugged, and otherwise tortured as adults and as children as part of nonconsensual psychiatric “treatment”.

A few opponents of US implementation of the ICCPR also showed up at the US meeting with NGOs. In response to a question from the Heritage Foundation, the head of the US government delegation, Mary McLeod of the State Department, made clear that the US is not even considering establishing any sort of independent human rights body. Implementation (or not) of human rights treaties will, apparently, remain an internal matter within the same agencies that are now violating human rights.

That theme of unwillingness to submit to any independent or judicial accountability continued into the US opening statement today. Ms. McLeod began by telling the UNHRC that the US is not considering applying the ICCPR to actions outside US borders, even when they are carried out by the US government. The US has no plans to withdraw the “reservations” attached to its ratification of the ICCPR. These include, crucially, a declaration that the ICCPR is not “self-effectuating” and therefore cannot be invoked in any US court. Congress could enact a law to effectuate the ICCPR and allow it to be enforced by US courts, but no proposal for such a law has ever been introduced in Congress.

Members of the UNHRC divided up their list of issues, and took turns today asking their questions about the first half of the list. After a short break, the US government began its response to those questions before the session adjourned. Tomorrow the US will finish its answers to today’s questions before the UNHRC moves to the second half of its list of issues and then follow-up questions.

Some issues were bound to come up, such as Guantanamo, “targeted killings” by drones, the death penalty, use of force by police, the Border Patrol, and armed private individuals immunized by “stand your ground” laws; immigrants’ rights; the right to health care; workers’ right to organize; racial and gender disparities in criminal “justice”; rights of indigenous peoples and nations; and mass surveillance. (”We could be talking about my emails, my phone calls, and the metadata that is collected and retained about them, over which the US exercises control,” committee member Walter Kaelin noted.) The list of issues is much longer than this, however, and the questions asked of the US ranged widely. There was no suggestion by any member of the UNHRC that some rights are more important than others.

Some themes emerged, however, from the dirty laundry list and the way the items on it — all of them significant — were presented by members of the UNHRC.

Many of the questions asked by members of the UNHRC had been suggested by human rights activists (including one taken almost verbatim from one of our written submissions to the UNHRC). Other questions referred to cases, examples, and evidence supplied by NGOs in relation to issues on the UNHRC’s list. Neither the UNHRC nor members of the delegation we are part of from the US Human Rights Network had been quite sure how to manage their interaction without overwhelming the members of the UNHRC and their extremely limited staff. It was immediately clear, though, and explicitly acknowledged by each of the members of the committee who spoke today, that the contributions of US non-governmental organizations and activists made a substantial impact on what questions the US is being called on to answer.

What are those questions? As committee member Kaelin put it today in introducing his questions to the US, “Many of these concerns relate not to the framework but to the implementation.”

The US government professes support for most of the principles of the ICCPR except for its extraterritorial applicability to actions having effects abroad for which the US itself is responsible. This is a longstanding point of contention on which the US response to the UNHRC is essentially, “Can’t we agree to disagree?”

While this point wasn’t made today, the most unambiguous evidence that the US is, in this regard, misinterpreting the treaty, is the guarantee in Article 12 of the ICCPR (freedom of movement) of the right of citizens of any country to return to the country of their nationality. By definition, anyone seeking to exercise this right is outside the country of their nationality. This right of return would be meaningless, and there would have been no reason to include it in the ICCPR, if the treaty itself was, as the US claims, inapplicable to actions whose harmful effects are visited on people outside US borders. Eggregious recent examples of violations of this right by the US include US citizens Gulet Mohamed (placed on the “no-fly” list while visiting family abroad as a teenager, and detained and tortured when he was unable to return to the US before hsi visa expired) and Raihan Mustafa Kamal (US-citizen daughter of the plaintiff in the first trial of a case challenging the “no-fly” list, who the US government induced airlines to refuse to allow to travel to the US to observe and testify as a witness at the trial on her mother’s case, and who now says she is afraid to return to the US.

The US government wants the Human Rights Committee to accept the good intentions of the individuals on the US delegation, and their colleagues back in the US, as sufficient to “guarantee” human rights in the US.  The US delegation referred repeatedly to executive and administrative measures to promote goals such as nondiscrimination, and to internal “safeguards” within the government.

But governments are not monolithic, and can themselves can be the infringers of human rights in some areas even while working diligently to uphold them in others. Good people can do bad things, sometimes with the most sincere belief in their own righteousness and in accordance with local law.

Members of the UNHRC repeatedly pressed the US delegation on what happens when the good intentions of some people in the government aren’t sufficient to keep the government from violating the rights of the people.  What means of redress are available when rights are violated, Professor Kaelin asked, especially when violations of the ICCPR do not separately constitute violations of domestic US law? Are those remedies, if they exist, “effective”, as specifically required by the ICCPR?  The inability to invoke the ICCPR in US courts allows US authorities to violate the treaty with impunity, Kaelin said.

And can purely internal executive and administrative safeguards ever be effective when the violations of rights are being carried out by senior executive and administrative officials? UNHRC Chair Nigel Rodley noted that at the Nuremberg trials, government lawyers had been found guilty of war crimes for  defending the legality of criminal government policies. What mechanisms exist today, if any, to hold accountable those within the US government defending policies which violate human rights treaties?

Stay tuned. The public questioning of the US by the UNHRC continues on Friday. We’ll talk more tomorrow about what happens after that.

U.S. Government Delegation Consults with USHRN Members and other Advocates, Who Call for More Open and Meaningful Dialogue on Human Rights Under ICCPR

Molly Kenney and Hannah Fishman, University of Pennsylvania Law School Transnational Legal Clinic

On Wednesday, March 13, the U.S. government hosted its two-hour conversation with civil society at the Permanent Mission of the United States to the United Nations. The U.S. government sent a 32-person delegation – including representatives from the Departments of State, Homeland Security, Defense, Health and Human Services, and the Interior – to the UN Human Rights Committee for its review of the U.S.’s compliance International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) this week in Geneva. For the first time, the U.S. delegation included representatives from state government (Mississippi Attorney General Jim Hood) and local government (Mayor Ralph Becker of Salt Lake City, Utah). About 15 U.S. government delegates were in attendance at Wednesday’s consultation with civil society.

An essential part of ensuring human rights in the U.S. is the opportunity for regular, meaningful dialogue between the U.S. government and civil society on the U.S.’s progress toward fulfilling its human rights obligation under the ICCPR. The U.S. Human Rights Network (USHRN) has consistently urged the U.S. government to engage with human rights advocates on the status of its compliance with the ICCPR and has criticized its failure to doing so in a meaningful and transparent manner. According to the USHRN’s ICCPR Task Force, the government promised the USHRN over the past several months a meaningful dialogue during the ICCPR review, but in the weeks preceding the review, the government said it would limit the consultation’s format to more of a listening session.

The USHRN’s delegation – more than 70 human rights advocates working on a broad array of issues – attended in person, and additional advocates and government officials in the United States joined by teleconference. The USHRN delegation arrived to find a nearly hour-long security wait and a prohibition on electronics inside the U.S. mission. As a result of the delays at security, the government began its consultation before the full USHRN delegation had gotten through security, though – to be fair – the government did ultimately extend the consultation to make up for the security delay.

USHRN Executive Director Ejim Dike began by thanking the U.S. delegation while reminding them that civil society’s request for a more open dialogue was not met by a meeting closed to the public. She called upon U.S. delegation members to provide the names and contact information of specific individuals in their offices to allow advocates to follow up on any questions the delegation could not or would not fully answer.

Through the coordination of the USHRN, including organizing human rights advocates into working groups around the list of issues named by the UN Human Rights Committee, civil society asked questions of the U.S. government on a broad range of issues. Themes emerged, including federalism concerns as an excuse for states’ and localities’ noncompliance with the ICCPR, a focus on implementation of the UN Human Rights Committee’s recommendations following the review, and a call for more government transparency and communication with civil society. The U.S. delegation was peppered with questions from U.S. advocates on issues as wide ranging as investigations of excessive force by police officers to educational inequity and immigration policy.

Importantly, Mary McLeod, Principal Deputy Legal Advisor in Department of State’s Office of the Legal Advisor, explicitly acknowledged that the ICCPR is binding on federal, state, and local governments. Additionally, Mayor Becker expressed that local government officials like himself need education from the U.S. government and access to resources, like a point person in the federal government on ICCPR compliance and a one-stop website for ICCPR information, in order to fulfill their obligations to protect human rights as guaranteed by the ICCPR.

Advocates largely felt the U.S. government was more engaged than expected. They were impressed that the government came prepared to answer questions, though many were disappointed by the pro forma, non-substantive nature of the government’s answers. For this consultation between the U.S. government and civil society to be meaningful and for the Human Right’s Committee’s recommendations to be fully implemented, follow-up will be key. Advocates gathered the contact information of government delegates and strategized about how their organizations will reach out to hold these officials accountable to their promises to provide additional inform and schedule additional meetings and opportunity for dialogue. Many advocates will participate in the access to justice civil society consultation with the U.S. government on April 1 at American University in Washington, DC. The USHRN and advocates will be eagerly awaiting the Committee’s concluding observations, scheduled to be released on March 28.

The USHRN encouraged the Human Rights Committee to ask the U.S. government Thursday and Friday how it will implement – at the federal, state, and local levels – the concluding observations developed from the review.

Tina Minkowitz, CHRUSP

I would like to introduce myself since readers of the USHRN blog may not know me.  My name is Tina Minkowitz, and I represent the Center for the Human Rights of Users and Survivors of Psychiatry (CHRUSP), an organization that I founded which has the mission to provide strategic leadership in human rights advocacy, implementation and monitoring relevant to people experiencing (or labeled with) madness, mental health problems or trauma. CHRUSP works for full legal capacity for all, an end to forced drugging, forced electroshock and psychiatric incarceration, and for support that respects individual integrity and free will.  I also serve as International Representative of the World Network of Users and Survivors of Psychiatry (WNUSP), a global democratic organization of users and survivors of psychiatry and people with psychosocial disabilities.

I am here in Geneva with my colleagues Patricia Bauerle and Aubrey Shomo with our shadow report for the review of the U.S. under the ICCPR, advocating the abolition of forced medication and other coercive practices in the mental health system.  Hege Orefellen from Norway and Jolijn Santegoeds from the Netherlands join us for global advocacy related to the same issue. 

As I write on Tuesday evening we have had two long and productive days of advocacy.  The most productive event for us was a side event we held on Monday evening, on “Torture and ill treatment in mental health settings.”  By interacting with members of the Human Rights Committee over an hour and a half we were able to reach past the conceptual positions to present personal stories, investigative reports by Human Rights Watch, and an analysis of international human rights law, as well as information on alternatives to the current abusive systems.  The event was moderated by the Disability Adviser of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights. 

We were very happy with the attendance, counting seven Human Rights Committee members and one assistant to a Committee member, as well as OHCHR staff persons and a number of our fellow delegates from USHRN and other U.S. NGOs.  It was helpful that we provided food! 

View the original post here

I Traveled to Geneva to Deliver a 

Report on 'Stand Your Ground'

Ahmad Abuznaid, 29, serves as the legal and policy director of the Dream Defenders, a Florida-based group working to halt the spread of "Stand Your Ground" policies to others states, push for reform in Florida, and engage and train a new generation of social-justice activists.

This week, he joined a coalition of American civil-rights activists in Geneva to report to the U.N. Human Rights Committee about what they see as the dangerous and deadly effects of Stand Your Ground policies. Abuznaid, a Palestinan-American, is also a Muslim. Islam has become one of the fastest-growing faiths in the United States. In Geneva, Abuzinad has wondered why Muslims—the frequent victims of hate crimes and blanket suspicion—have not been more vocal about the dangers presented by Stand Your Ground. 

Abusnaid shared his views with National Journal's Next America project.

As a young, Palestinian-American man, I am extremely worried about the proliferation of Stand Your Ground laws and the ease with which they have been adapted, and even expanded. I'm so worried that I traveled to Geneva, Switzerland, with a coalition of like-minded partners to present our concerns about the effects of Stand Your Ground policies to the United Nations Human Rights Committee this week.

International bodies such as the U.N. Human Rights Committee were created to bring broad, global attention to injustice. Late last year, U.N. experts called on our federal government to complete its investigation into the death of Trayvon Martin, the 17-year-old black teen whose death brought Stand Your Ground policies to the world's attention. But with global injustice on the agenda, there must also be practical rules and limits. For instance, our entire group had just two minutes to discuss Stand Your Ground laws, police brutality, and the inherent racism which drive both.

Still, those two minutes contained truth, power, justice, and love.

The shadow report that our group developed and presented to the committee laid out the ongoing assault on people of color and women, complete with statistics and stories of real tragedies that have occurred because of Stand Your Ground policies. We highlighted the stories that have become a part of all of our lives—Trayvon,Jordan, Marissa, Ricardo, Jonathan, Renisha. Unfortunately, they aren't the only human beings who have been taken from us or lost their liberty due to Stand Your Ground policies and their grossly uneven and inconsistent interpretation by prosecutors, police, and juries.

To be clear, Stand Your Ground policies effectively give state sanction to those gun owners who are inclined to view certain human beings as targets, threats, and dare I say "enemy combatants". Many of the cases referred to above were animated by a very real "Us vs. Them" dynamic and ended in utter tragedy. People committed to peace or at least no plans to engage in violence were pitted against those committed to violence then armed with weapons, the legal protection provided by Stand Your Ground laws and the confusion they seem to create for juries.

As a young man born in East Jerusalem who has lived in the West Bank and South Florida, I know violence, I have been afraid of violence, and I certainly know what it's like for that violence to be tied to racial/ethnic differences, ignorance, and outright racism.

However, here in the U.S., most Muslim and Arab communities still have not joined the forefront of the fight against Stand Your Ground. No disrespect meant to those championing other causes within the Islamic community. There are those out there which I personally admire and support. With that said, I do think Muslims have to break the barriers. We have to get involved in more than just stopping the "anti-sharia" legislationpopping up around the country.

We must be aggressive and vigilant in making this country better for all, including us. Muslims have been revolutionaries everywhere, even here in the United States of America. Malcolm X, Muhammad Ali, and others were able to utilize Islam in the civil-rights movement to push forward the issues plaguing black America at the time. Most boxing historians would acknowledge that Ali was never known as the "Greatest" because of his boxing prowess. He earned that moniker because of the man he was, and still is today, the things he stood for and the things he continues to stand for. He lost everything refusing to serve in an unjust war against other people of color. For that, he is a hero to us all.

While Muslim communities often lag behind in overall civic engagement, we are certainly at risk of falling victim to the many injustices that plague the country. In a society with growing levels of Islamophobia, and decades of anti-Arab/Muslim rhetoric and images in the media/entertainment industry, Muslims have become a "suspect group." Even people perceived to be a part of the Islamic community have experienced discrimination, abuse, violent and deadly attacks, spying, entrapment, deportations, and arrests. After the horrible tragedy on Sept. 11, 2001, I was immediately the subject of jokes regarding Arabs and Muslims. Statements such as "Your cousins went crazy" and "Don't mess with those Arabs" were thrown around often. The real danger of the thinking behind those jokes have became more apparent in the years since 9/11.

Today, Stand Your Ground policies make me fear that the next time a bigot with a hot temper is at a gas station, or patrolling "his" neighborhood, the victims could be a group of young Arab kids wearing keffiyehs and blasting Mohammed Assaf's latest hit, or a group of Muslims heading to the mosque, who happen to use the phrase "Allahu-akbar" ("God is greater").

So, as I prepare to return from Geneva, I wonder: Where are the Muslim and Arab communities on these issues? How long will we remain silent and allow others to decide our fates?

The Dream Defenders and other groups are on the ground in the state of Florida, organizing and educating people about the injustices that Stand Your Ground laws facilitate. There is space in this movement for those who are fighting Islamophobia.

The dream so eloquently described by a man who drew the world's attention to 20th-century injustices, Martin Luther King Jr., belongs to Muslims, too. The dream belongs to Arabs, and any other people who have been marginalized but are not willing to give up.

We, too, must be the power behind social change.

Ahmad Abuznaid serves as the legal and policy director of The Dream Defenders. Follow him on Twitter @diplomatesq. 

View the original post here

Live from Geneva! It’s Crunch Time for the UN’s Examination of the U.S. Human Rights Record

The Advocates for Human Rights has a booth at the Minnesota State Fair every year. We have a wheel that fairgoers spin to take a shot at answering a question on a human rights topic. Last year, one question was a real stumper: “When will the United Nations next review the human rights record of the United States?” “Never” was the common response. The correct answer? Now. This week, a 32-person delegation of U.S. officialswill appear before the UN’s Human Rights Committee in Geneva, Switzerland, to discuss human rights here at home.

I’m in Geneva this week as part of a delegation coordinated by the U.S. Human Rights Network, a network of organizations and individuals working to build and strengthen a people-centered human rights movement in the United States. After more than a year of preparation over the phone, email, and even in webinars, we all got together Sunday to finally meet face to face. And wow what a crowd! More than 60 of us crammed into a hotel conference room (and the adjoining hallway) for a 3-hour meeting to finalize our preparations. The room was full of energy and excitement!

US civil society groups and tribal nation leaders preparing Sunday evening for the Human Rights Committee’s review of the United States (Photo credit: Jamil Dakwar, ACLU)

It’s crunch time for our network. We spent the evening polishing 2-minute working group statements, which we will deliver in a formal briefing to the Human Rights Committee Monday around noon. And we plotted out our additional informal briefings with the committee and side events targeting a broader audience here in Geneva. We have an action plan for blogging, live-tweeting, and doing other social media outreach, too. This post is just one of the first in a series that network members will be posting this week.

My UN badge

With the help of some teachers and their students, I’ll field some questions students have about how the international human rights system works. Here are the questions they’ve sent me, and my answers.

Switzerland? Isn’t the UN in New York?

The United Nations’ headquarters is in New York City. That’s where the Security Council and General Assembly meet. But the UN has three regional offices: Vienna, Austria; Geneva, Switzerland; and Nairobi, Kenya. The Geneva office is the largest of the three, and it hosts most of the UN’s human rights work.

Does the United States have to do what the UN says?

Kind of. The UN’s human rights bodies don’t have a police force to send to the United States to enforce human rights laws. Instead, these UN bodies ask our government questions and then publish “Concluding Observations.” It’s a politely worded report that describes “Positive aspects” and then presents “Principal subjects of concern and recommendations.” For example, one of these bodies in 2006 recommended that the United States “ensure the right of residents of the District of Columbia to take part in the conduct of public affairs, directly or through freely chosen representatives, in particular with regard to the House of Representatives.”

Why do these UN bodies get to tell the United States what to do?

Because the United States agreed to let them! Most international human rights law is based on treaties, which are kind of like contracts. If a government signs and ratifies a treaty, it agrees to follow the treaty. It’s just like if you sign a lease, you agree to pay your rent on time and follow the other terms of your lease. And human rights treaties typically say that any country that ratifies the treaty has to report to the UN from time to time to show that the country is following the treaty. The UN calls a country that has ratified a treaty a “State party” to the treaty.

What exactly are these “UN bodies”?

There is a committee for each human rights treaty . For example, the UN’s Committee Against Torture oversees the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment. The UN’s Human Rights Committee is responsible for the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. Each committee is made up of independent experts from around the world.

How does it all work?

Every 4-5 years, each State party has to file a written report with the relevant committee. The report is supposed to show how the State party is following the treaty. It’s kind of like a “self-evaluation.” As you might expect, these self-evaluations sometimes ignore or gloss over human rights problems. So the committee identifies some issues and questions it is concerned about, and the State party then files written responses to those issues and questions. Then, a delegation from the State party’s government travels to Geneva to go head-to-head with the committee. The committee experts ask questions for six hours, or even longer. And then a few weeks later, the committee issues “Concluding Observations.” The State party is then supposed to implement the committee’s recommendations, and report back again in 4-5 years on how things are going.

Do State parties actually do what the Committee says?

Sometimes. The committees really have to rely on the power of persuasion. In some cases, the State party just says it can’t do what the committee recommends. For example, even if the U.S. Federal Government wanted to follow that 2006 recommendation and give residents of the District of Columbia a voting member of the House of Representatives, it’s not clear that it could do so under Article I, Section 2 of the Constitution. In other cases, a State party may disagree with the Committee’s interpretation of the treaty’s obligations–just like you might disagree with your landlord about some language in your lease. But in many cases, the State party makes a genuine effort to implement the committee’s recommendations.

Can regular people participate, or is it just between the government and the UN?

Efia Nwangaza of the Malcolm X Center for Self Determination, at the Sunday planning meeting

There are many ways that ordinary people can get involved in human rights at the UN. In fact, “civil society” plays a critical role. If a State party files a sugar-coated report, civil society groups can flag important issues for the committee. Civil society groups can also write their own independent reports to share their own views and experiences about the human rights situation on the ground. And civil society groups meet with committee members before they meet with the government delegation in Geneva. The Advocates for Human Rights has “special consultative status” with the United Nations, which means that staff members like me can get UN grounds passes to attend sessions in person.

Speaking of Geneva, what’s going on there this week?

Palais Wilson

This is the time human rights nerds like me have been waiting for!

• First up, on Monday civil society organizations and leaders of tribal governments have a “formal briefing” at the Palais Wilson with all of the members of the Human Rights Committee. We’ll talk with them about our concerns, they’ll share what they’re most interested in and any questions they have. The purpose of this meeting is to make sure the Committee experts are ready to grill the U.S. Government delegation with six hours of tough questions later this week.
• Next, on Tuesday morning we’ll have a longer informal briefing with the committee where tribal leaders can have more opportunity to dialogue with the Committee. We’ll also give the Committee answers to any questions they raised on Monday, and some people who have been personally affected by human rights violations will be there to testify.
• On Wednesday afternoon, we’re all invited to the U.S. Embassy to the United Nations in Geneva for a “civil society consultation.”
  

  Palais des Nations
• On Thursday, the action moves up the road to the Palais des Nations. The Committee has a quick “informal briefing” with civil society groups, and then from 3-6 pm, it starts asking the U.S. Government Delegation questions. You can watch a live webcastof the questioning, or check out the video archiveslater.
• On Friday, from 10-1, the questioning continues. If the Committee doesn’t have time to cover everything it wants to discuss, it may take a break and then ask the United States to come back for a few more hours after lunch.
• Then we all go home and wait for about two weeks for the Committee to publish its Concluding Observations.

Why are you there?

The Advocates is part of civil society, and we submitted three independent reports to the Human Rights Committee. The first is about the detention of non-citizens, the second is about the death penalty, and the third is about domestic violence and “Stand Your Ground” laws. So I’m in Geneva to meet with the Committee and raise awareness about the issues we covered in our reports. I’ll answer any questions Committee members have, and I’ll encourage the U.S. Government delegation to accept and implement any recommendations the Committee makes that relate to our reports.

Could you recommend reading materials, videos, or other learning tools that will expose my students to human rights issues all over the world?

Sure! First, be sure to take a look at all of The Advocates’ great human rights education resources for teachers and students. There are some good videos on the UN Human Rights Youtube channel, including, relevant to my time in Geneva, What is a Human Rights Treaty Body? and What is a Human Right? The UN also maintains information on a long list of human rights issues. The UN also offers live and archived webcasts of its proceedings, including sessions of treaty bodies like the Human Rights Committee. The UN also publishes training and education materials.

How can we learn more?

I’ll be in Geneva all week, and members of the U.S. Human Rights network will belivetweeting and updating with new blog posts as soon as we can. If you have questions or want us to talk about certain things, please send me an email at abergquist@advrights.org. We hope to hear from you!

This post is one of the first in a series of posts by U.S. civil society groups in Geneva this week for the UN Human Rights Committee’s review of the United States.