New Paths for Action to Stop Human Rights Violations in the United States
    By Ann Fagan Ginger
    t r u t h o u t | Perspective

    Thursday 23 February 2006

    Congress member Barbara Lee will give the House of Representatives in early March reports of 30 types of human rights violations by the US Government since 9/11. And she noted the failure of the Government to report these violations on time and accurately as required by a human rights treaty ratified in 1992 by the Senate at the request of President George Bush: the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR).

    Activists can use this treaty to strengthen their work against the war, the PATRIOT Act, capital punishment, surveillance by the NSA, FBI, and BICE, torture and illegal detentions at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo, violations of basic rights of Katrina survivors, and on many other issues. They can ask for action by their city councils and county and state governments against their violations of the human rights set forth in the ICCPR.

    We have been doing this in Berkeley, California since 1990, and it has helped on many issues.

    Now Representative Lee's statement opens a new path for activists all over the country working for electoral reform, saving Social Security and health care, job training for youths, and every other human rights issue at the local and national levels. Her statement was based on the comprehensive report detailing 180 recent actions/inactions by the US Government compiled by Meiklejohn Civil Liberties Institute and published in "Challenging US Human Rights Violations Since 9/11," in March 2005. The Berkeley City Council voted to submit copies of the reporting book to the US State Department and to each member of the UN Human Rights Committee, the UN Committee Against Torture and the UN Committee on Elimination of Racial Discrimination.

    Reporting Can Make a Difference

    Once there were enough reports of patients to amount to an epidemic, researchers found medications to stem the AIDS virus. It was graphic reports of the crimes of the apartheid government in South Africa and of the Indonesian government in East Timor that helped bring those regimes to an end. Federal Judge Thelton Henderson could order a receiver over Pelican Bay and other California prisons once it was reported how many prisoners died from medical and other mistreatment.

    Almost everyone in the US files a report every year on April 15 with the Internal Revenue Service, although it's not called reporting. Every department of government must file annual reports on their activities in order to receive their next government check. And Dow Jones files written reports daily on the price of every stock on the NY Stock Exchange. The IMF and the World Bank require reports of every nation every year before they will fund their programs. President Bush demands reports every year on the academic standing of every public school student receiving any federal funding.

    The Mobilization of Shame is the tactic to stop violations of human rights; the tool is reporting.

    So activists can now join the UN Human Rights Committee in demanding that the US live up to its reporting commitments.

    UN Human Rights Committee Meeting in New York March 13-23

    On March 13, the US Government will face a stream of US Nongovernmental Organizations commenting on its October 2005 report on US human rights violations to the UN Human Rights Committee. The eighteen Committee members do not represent their governments; they are knowledgeable educators, lawyers, and former civil servants. The current US representative is Professor Ruth Wedgwood of Johns Hopkins University, who has served on many CIA and other governmental advisory boards.

    Meiklejohn Civil Liberties Institute (MCLI), the Center for Constitutional Rights, National Lawyers Guild, Human Rights International, American Civil Liberties Union, American Friends Service Committee, Human Rights Watch, African American Rights Foundation and other NGOs each will make a short statement to the UN Human Rights Committee.

    "There is extensive awareness at the state and federal levels" of the existence of the ICCPR and its provisions according to the US Department of State in the report it filed with the Committee on October 20, 2005. Have you ever read or heard of the ICCPR?

    Have you ever heard the ICCPR mentioned by your Congress member, governor or mayor?

    You know the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) that Eleanor Roosevelt finally wrung out of the General Assembly on December 10, 1948. The United Nations Association and many other organizations have distributed millions of copies so that it is widely known in the United States and the date of its adoption is now celebrated as Human Rights Day all over the world.

    But the UDHR is only a declaration, not a treaty. It is not enforceable in a court of law (except for those principles also written into national constitutions or that have become part of customary international law). So in 1966 the UN took the Declaration, cut it in half, and wrote two enforceable treaties: the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights (ICESCR). Under the US Constitution, Article VI, clause 2, a ratified treaty is the "supreme law of the land." President Carter signed both treaties, and in 1992 the Senate ratified the first one, the ICCPR. The ICCPR reinforces all of the rights in the US Bill of Rights (Amdts. 1-10), the Reconstruction Amendments (Amdts. 13-15), women's suffrage (Amdt. 19), no poll tax (Amdt. 24), 18-year-old vote (Amdt. 26) and then some.

    As you read the Articles in the ICCPR, you will notice that they spell out more rights more clearly than they are spelled out in the US Constitution. That's why human rights activists are excited about the possibilities of the March 13-23 events at the UN in New York.

    The US made a commitment to uphold these rights AND

1. to report facts every five years on enforcement and violations of each right in the Covenant;
   
   
2. to include in the 2nd and all future reports facts on enforcement and violations at the city, county and state levels, as well as at the federal level;
   
   
3. to discuss its report with the Committee members from every region of the world, answering their questions and listening to their suggestions in a public meeting open to the media ; and then
   
   
4. to seek to make the necessary changes in policies and practices to overcome the obstacles to enforcing the human rights that the Committee noted.

    After reading the rights spelled out in the ICCPR, be apprised that the UN in general, and the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, the Human Rights Committee, and the Human Rights Commission in particular, are now finally insisting that the US, no less than the Sudan, must enforce the rights in the human rights treaties it has ratified.

    Right to Human Dignity PLUS

    It is not easy to decide in what order to discuss human rights violations, since different rights are more important to different individuals and groups. In 2006, in the US, it seems appropriate to discuss first the right to human dignity, the right to privacy, the right to no discrimination, and the rights of millions of people caught in the US criminal justice system and detained and tortured at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo.

    The ICCPR spells out in some detail the negative and positive rights of people who are not in the majority: the right not to have their rights denied (the double negative in the 14th Amendment) AND the affirmative right to participate fully in governing. At the same time, the ICCPR spells out the right to privacy.

    [ "All peoples have the right to self-determination. By virtue of that right they freely determine their political status and freely pursue their economic, social and cultural development." (Article 1.1)

    N.B.: This article includes the peoples of Puerto Rico and Guam, e.g., who have long lived in US colonies/protectorates.

    [ "No one shall be subjected to arbitrary or unlawful interference with his privacy, family, home, or correspondence, nor to unlawful attacks on his honor and reputation." (Article 17.1)

    N.B.: This clear language forbids many of the surveillance programs now used by the FBI, CIA, and National Security Agency under the PATRIOT Act and other programs most of us don't even know about yet.

    [ "Each State Party to the present Covenant undertakes to respect and to ensure to all individuals within its territory and subject to its jurisdiction the rights recognized in the present Covenant, without distinction of any kind, such as race, color, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status." (emphasis added of categories not specifically mentioned in the Constitution.)

    N.B.: This makes explicit that the US cannot claim that it has no responsibility to enforce human rights in Guantanamo, or Abu Ghraib or a county prison in Texas, although the Covenant can not spell out how the US, a federal government, should carry out this responsibility on Iraq or Cuban territory over which it has jurisdiction, or over a county in a state.

    After receiving comments on the list in Article 2.2, the Committee defined the last two categories to include no discrimination based on disabilities or sexual preference.

    "Every citizen shall have the right and the opportunity, without any of the distinctions mentioned in article 2 and without unreasonable restrictions: (a) To take part in the conduct of public affairs, directly or through freely chosen representatives;" "(c) To have access, on general terms of equality, to public service in his country." (Article 25)

    N.B.: And the ICCPR uses the word "culture" and spells out the "right" to exercise one's "culture":

    "In those States in which ethnic, religious or linguistic minorities exist, persons belonging to such minorities shall not be denied the right, in community with the other members of their group, to enjoy their own culture, to profess and practice their own religion, or to use their own language." (Article 27)

    The Rights of People in the Criminal Justice System

    The US Constitution, and the ICCPR, do not mention the US "criminal justice system." This is a phrase unknown thirty years ago in US law schools and courts. But it does allege that there is such a system in the US, and enforcement of our Eighth Amendment and the articles in the ICCPR can help make this new name more of a reality.

    [ Our Eight Amendment forbids infliction of cruel and unusual punishments. ICCPR Article 7 provides that "No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment."

    N.B.: Attorney General Gonzalez must report, under the ICCPR, whether any one "within the jurisdiction" of the US has been subjected to such punishment. And Article 7 specifically forbids "medical or scientific experimentation" without the consent of the subject.

    [ The US made commitments when it ratified the ICCPR as to the treatment of prisoners:

    "All persons deprived of their liberty shall be treated with humanity and with respect for the inherent dignity of the human person." (Article 10.1)

    "The penitentiary system shall comprise treatment of prisoners the essential aim of which shall be their reformation and social rehabilitation." (Article 10.3, emphasis supplied.)

    [ Article 6 provides for protection of life, as does our Fifth Amendment. It also opposes capital punishment, but does not forbid nations with capital punishment from ratifying the ICCPR. (Article 6.2 and 6.6) Article 6.5 does provide that a death sentence cannot be imposed for a crime committed by someone below age 18 or on pregnant women.

    N.B.: When it makes its reports to the Committee, the US must report what it is doing at the federal level to abolish capital punishment, and, in its 2nd/3rd combined report, what the states are doing.

    [ The ICCPR mentions youth explicitly, which the US Constitution does not. It provides that juveniles must be separated from adults when they are arrested, and when they become juvenile prisoners. (Article 10 (b))

    The Rights of Families and Labor Unions

    The ICCPR specifically affirms rights not specifically mentioned in the US Constitution, although understood to come under the broad language of our Ninth Amendment: "The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people."

    [ "The family is the natural and fundamental group unit of society and is entitled to protection by society and the state." (Article 23.1)

    "Every child shall have, without any discrimination ... the right to such measures of protection as are required by his status as a minor, on the part of his family, society and the State." (Art.24.1)

    N.B.: MCLI and other NGOs are raising the issue that cutting federal funding for education and for social services to adults with children violates the commitments the US made in this article. They notice that the US is now the only nation that has not ratified the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, although Clinton signed it in 1995 and sent it to the Senate Judiciary Committee for ratification.

    [ The right to form and to join a labor union is stated explicitly in Article 22, and "no restrictions may be placed on the exercise of this right" except those necessary "for national security or public safety."

    N.B.: This required the US to state accurately in its report to the UN Human Rights Committee the fact that the Bush Administration since 2002 has used executive orders and agency directives to eliminate the collective bargaining rights of 3,000 employees in US Attorneys' offices and the National Imagery and Mapping Agency, and has prohibited 56,000 federal baggage screeners from organizing a union, and tried to eliminate collective bargaining rights for 170,000 employees in the new Department of Homeland Security.

    Now We Can All Support the UN's New Determination to Enforce Human Rights in the US

    The reason that human rights activists are excited about the UN Human Rights Committee meeting in New York in March is that the UN method of dealing with the US is undergoing a change that can sharpen demands for enforcement of human rights in the United States and every territory it is governing.

    After ratifying the ICCPR in 1992, the US filed its first report, due in 1993, in 1995, with no fanfare of press releases. There was virtually no media coverage of the discussion of this first report by the Committee with representatives of the Immigration Service, Attorney General's office and other federal government agencies. A few NGOs, including MCLI, attended and submitted "shadow" (unofficial) reports that some Committee members clearly welcomed at the meeting in New York in 1995.

    As a result of the Committee discussion, President Clinton did establish a body in the White House to work on UN human rights issues and the recommendations to the US from the Committee. But nothing has been heard from this agency under President Bush.

    The second US report was due in 1998, including facts at the state and local levels. The US did not file the second report, and the UN Committee did nothing other than report the due date. The third US report was due in 2003. Nothing happened. Finally the Committee sent a special message to the US in December 2004, that it should file a joint 2nd and 3rd report immediately. Nothing happened.

    Meanwhile, in 1994, the Senate ratified the Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (CAT), signed by President Reagan in 1988. This treaty is administered by the UN Committee Against Torture (CAT). It specifically states that: "Each State Party shall keep under systematic review interrogation rules, instructions, methods and practices as well as arrangements for the custody and treatment of persons subjected to any form of arrest, detention or imprisonment in any territory under its jurisdiction, with a view to preventing any cases of torture." (Article 11, emphasis added)

    The US filed its first report to CAT five years late. It filed its second report, due in 1998, on May 6, 2005, stating flatly that the US Government need not report on alleged human rights violations at Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib and other US detention centers outside the fifty states.

    Then Something New Happened

    The UN Human Rights Commission, a body comprised of official representatives of governments (not like the UN Human Rights Committee of nongovernmental experts) met in 2005, four years after 9/11. The Commission discussed the failure/refusal of the US government to discuss alleged human rights violations at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo, and under the PATRIOT Act. The Commission had been moving toward making changes to make its work more effective in many crisis spots. Proposals are pending: to change its composition and its name, and to tighten up its method of dealing with clear violations by any nation. After seeing the US refusal to discuss Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo in its report to the CAT, the Commission decided it needed a Special Rapporteur on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms while Countering Terrorism. They appointed Professor Martin Scheinin, Director of the Institute for Human Rights at the Abo Akademi University, Finland. He will make annual reports to the Commission for the next three years.

    Then the UN Human Rights Committee made an unprecedented direct request for action on the US non-reports. In August 2005, Mylene Bidault, Associate Human Rights Officer of the Secretariat of the Human Rights Committee, sent emails to MCLI, the ACLU, World Organization for Human Rights and the Tandem Project.

    The UN official asked the NGOs to send the Committee information on human rights violations since 9/11, specifically under the PATRIOT Act, in treating prisoners at Abu Ghraib, and in detentions at Guantanamo.

    Meiklejohn Institute filed 78 reports of such violations from its larger book report, and Judge Claudia Morcom (Wayne County Circuit Court, ret.) went to the Committee meeting in Geneva for MCLI and the International Association of Democratic Lawyers. The members were impressed by her report on October 17, 2005, and listened carefully to her later report on violations of human rights of the victims of Katrina that had not been on their agenda. Monique Beadle made a report for the World Organization for Human Rights, Barbara Olshansky for the Center for Constitutional Rights, Priti Patel for Human Rights First and Edith Ballantyne for the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom. They were all well received by the Committee.

    Suddenly, the US Government filed its very tardy combined 2nd/3rd Report to the Committee on October 21. The Report was filed just late enough that it could not be discussed at the next Committee meeting in New York City in March 2006, but will have to wait until the July 2006 meeting of the Committee in Geneva. This means little or no US media coverage or attendance by US NGOs and activists.

    A March Briefing Session of NGOs with UN Committee Members

    On Thursday, March 23rd, at 7 p.m. at the Church Center for the UN (across the street from the UN building), UN Human Rights Committee members will attend a Briefing Session with representatives of the NGOs that made statements on March 13, and other NGOs. There will be time for a more complete description of the issues raised by the US 2nd/3rd Report, including many subjects not touched on, like the actual problems of millions of Arab Americans and Middle East US citizens, residents, students and other visitors.

    At some point the US will file its second report to the Committee on Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD). The first report, due in 1997, was filed in 2001. Reports are due every two years. The US says "the Department of State has more than doubled the resources it has dedicated to the purpose of completing such reports. The United States government is committed to submitting timely treaty reports."

    And concerned people can watch for the report of the Special Rapporteur on human rights issues raised in the so-called war on terror, and for the June 2006 report of the Independent Expert on Extreme Poverty, describing what he found in New Orleans and Alabama after 9/11.