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.