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News :: Civil & Human Rights |
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New Activist Network Slams Growing Abuses Under Bush |
Current rating: 0 |
by Jim Lobe
(No verified email address) |
11 Dec 2003
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They called for U.S. citizens to speak out against these abuses, as well as to fight "U.S. exceptionalism", the view pushed strongly by the administration of President George W. Bush, that the United States should not be constrained by international law or human rights standards, especially relating to economic and social rights. |
WASHINGTON - Key U.S. civil liberties and social justice groups marked International Human Rights Day Wednesday by launching a new ”U.S. Human Rights Network” dedicated to raising awareness about international human rights standards and focusing attention on the U.S. failure to enforce them.
More than 50 groups, ranging from the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) to the New York-based Center for Economic and Social Rights (CESR), said they had agreed to join forces to address what they said was ”the alarming rate of human rights violations in the U.S.”, particularly as it pursues its ”war on terrorism”.
They called for U.S. citizens to speak out against these abuses, as well as to fight ”U.S. exceptionalism”, the view pushed strongly by the administration of President George W. Bush, that the United States should not be constrained by international law or human rights standards, especially relating to economic and social rights.
”The demonstrations that we are currently seeing against the U.S. around the world are a reaction to the perception that the U.S. -- and particularly the Bush administration -- thinks that it is above international law -- laws the rest of the world are required to abide by,” said Ajamu Baraka, who works for Amnesty International USA's (AIUSA) Atlanta office and is part of the network's secretariat.
”The rights of ordinary Americans and others residing in the U.S. are being trampled on a daily basis -- in violation of a host of international laws and standards,” said Cathy Albisa, a secretariat member who is based at CESR.
”These include the right to economic security and a decent standard of living, the right of children convicted of crimes not to be executed, the right to a fair trial, the right to seek asylum, and the right to be free from torture and cruel and inhuman treatment, among any others,” she added, noting that the U.S. has the developed world's highest child poverty rate and that 20 percent of adults are functionally illiterate.
The network, which has been several years in the making, marks its birth from a meeting last year at Howard University in Washington, DC on the subject of ”Ending Exceptionalism: Strengthening Human Rights in the United States”.
Most of the network's founding organizations -- which include advocacy groups for immigrants, ethnic minorities, welfare recipients, the disabled, prison rights, among others -- took part in the conference, organizing themselves into specific caucuses regarding such issues as the death penalty, discrimination and sovereignty.
Among the best-known groups are the ACLU, the American Friends Service Committee, AIUSA, the Center for Constitutional Rights, Human Rights Watch, the Indian Law Resource Center, the Kensington Welfare Rights Union, the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty, and the National Association for the Advanced of Colored People Defense Education Fund.
The network is to be guided by six ”core principles”, including acceptance that that all rights enumerated in the U.N.'s Universal Declaration of Human Rights are interdependent and universal; that they include economic, social, and cultural (ESC) rights, as well civil and political rights that are generally given more recognition in the U.S.; and that rights are most effectively protected through building social movements whose leadership should be accountable to those who are most directly affected by their work.
These principles challenge the work of a number of major U.S.-based human rights groups, many of which have historically been dominated by professional elites and have generally ignored ESC rights, in part because of their failure to accept the Universal Declaration and international human rights law as a sufficient juridical basis for their work. They have tended instead to rely on the rights provided under the U.S. Constitution.
In recent years, however, U.S. courts -- even the Supreme Court -- have increasingly cited international human rights standards in their decisions regarding, for example, the death penalty for juveniles and the mentally retarded, women's rights, and the accountability of U.S. companies for wrongful conduct overseas.
Many of the network groups have been pushing courts in this direction. ”The ACLU decided several years ago to integrate more international principles in our work,” said Gregory Nojeim, a staff attorney who represents the ACLU in the network.
”A lot of groups that have traditionally focused on political and civil rights have expanded their mandates,” said Albisa, who cited both Amnesty and Human Rights Watch, which has produced a number of reports on cases where civil and political rights have intersected with ESR rights, such as the impact of practices by multi-national corporations on local communities.
”There's a growing recognition that you cannot separate economic rights from political and civil liberties,” she added, noting that groups that have tried to use international law to broaden the panoply of rights recognized in the U.S. have until now been fragmented.
”We are pulling together in a way that can build movements,” she said. The network's launch is the first step.
Both the inclusion of ESC rights into the broader human rights pantheon and the use of international human rights law by U.S. courts are anathema to the Bush administration and key policy-makers, about two dozen of whom are members of the Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy, a legal association whose recent national convention here featured half a dozen major presentations on the dangers allegedly posed to U.S. national sovereignty by international human rights standards that have not been ratified by the U.S. government.
Among others, the Society was addressed by White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card, Attorney General John Ashcroft, U.N. Ambassador John Negroponte, and the Undersecretary of State for Arms Control and International Security John Bolton, who argued that the International Criminal Court (ICC) represented a particularly grave threat to U.S. sovereignty and that Washington obtained all the legitimacy it needed in invading Iraq by following its own Constitutional processes rather than deferring to the U.N. Security Council.
This kind of ”exceptionalism” is precisely what the network is trying to organize against, however.
”As the U.S. indulges an increasingly unilateralist bent in both domestic and foreign policy, the cost to rights at home and abroad is growing,” said Baraka, who noted the rise in racial profiling, the summary detention and deportation of Muslim immigrants after Sep. 11, 2001, and the indefinite detention as ”illegal combatants” at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, of hundreds of foreigners seized in Afghanistan and elsewhere as examples.
The international human rights framework, including ESC rights, he said, remains underutilized in the U.S. ”due in large part to a deliberate, long-standing effort by the U.S. government to deny human rights laws and standards when it applies to situations internal to the U.S. and to U.S. actions around the world”.
Washington's exceptionalist policy has been most vividly on display in the administration's refusal to request ratification of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW); its renunciation of the ICC treaty; its withdrawal from the Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty; its walkout at the World Conference Against Racism; and its failure to adhere to the Geneva Conventions protecting prisoners of war, according to the network.
Copyright 2003 IPS
http://www.ips.org |
Comments
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Re: New Activist Network Slams Growing Abuses Under Bush |
by J Mohr
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: 3
11 Dec 2003
Modified: 04:04:09 PM |
For people to cry 'abuse' on the Bush administration for violating your rights to financial security and education is complete hipocracy. You are posting messages using a computer. How many nations in this world have ATLEAST 1 computer per HOUSEHOLD! Some households in America have 3 PC's.
This nation just finished with 8 years of Clinton. Blame him for the illiteracy. Why is it that people of different political beliefs rant and rave about the 'attrocities' the current President is commiting, when these same 'attrocities' were committed by the previous administration (which happened to be a Democrat).
As for the enemy combatants. Their well-being and rights are not in the scope of the ACLU. Since when does a 'not for profit' organization have any say in matters of National Defense during a time of war (which we are currently in)? Their concerns should be 'Americans' which is what I thought the 'A' stood for in ACLU.
I also would like to address racial profiling. What religion/nationalities were the men who hi-jacked the airliners and slammed them into the Pentegon, the World Trade Center and tried to attack the White House? What religion/nationalities were the men who drove a boat full of explosives into the side of the USS Cole? What religion/nationalities were the men who attacked the marine barracks in Beirut? What religion/nationalities are the men/women who daily attack our troops in Iraq (using methods which violate the Geneva Convention)? What religion/nationalities were the men/women who blew up the night club in Bali? Need I go on? The religion/nationalities of Middle Eastern people deserve to be profiled. Who is most likely to commit terrorism in the States? Answer honestly... If you are on a plane, there is an Arab, a Caucasian, an African American, and an Oriental person on it with you. Who would you be most concerned about? Considering the differences Caucasians/African Americans have had and considering how Orientals were treated after Pearl Harbor I think the answer is in itself racist. Protection has a cost. You are not racist by identifying the most likely person to be a terrorist, you are a realist. |
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Over 50 US Human Rights Groups Form Network To Address “Alarming State Of Human Rights In The US” |
by US Human Rights Network
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: 0
12 Dec 2003
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WASHINGTON - December 10 - US-based rights groups announced at a press conference today in Washington, DC that they will “join forces” in a US Human Rights Network to address what they see as the “alarming rate of human rights violations in the US” -- saying that “as the US indulges an increasingly unilateralist bent in both domestic and foreign policy, the cost to rights at home and abroad is growing.”
The groups, which cover such diverse issues as criminal justice, civil rights, immigration and asylum concerns, and economic rights, launched the US Human Rights Network amid growing concern domestically and internationally that the US sees itself as exempt from international human rights laws and standards. They also released a resource guide for organizations, containing strategies and tools for using the international human rights framework in their pursuit of justice.
“The demonstrations that we are currently seeing against the US around the world are a reaction to the perception that the US – and particularly the Bush administration – thinks that it is above international law – laws the rest of the world are required to abide by,” said Ajamu Baraka, of the US Human Rights Network. “We are here today to say that it is not only the rest of the world that is opposed to this ‘exceptionalism’ – Americans are also concerned and very much affected by such double-standards.”
“The rights of ordinary Americans and others residing in the US are being trampled on a daily basis -- in violation of a host of international laws and standards. These include the right to economic security and a decent standard of living, the right of children convicted of crimes not to be executed, the right to a fair trial, the right to seek asylum, and the right to be free from torture and cruel and inhumane treatment, among many others,” said Cathy Albisa, of the US Human Rights Network.
“How can we take seriously President Bush’s claim that the US should be a shining example to the rest of the world when we have so many serious problems here at home?” asked Baraka.
One of many cases currently being monitored in the context of increasing repression in the post-September 11 “war on terror” is that of Florida professor Dr Sami Al-Arian -- who has been imprisoned on “terror” charges since 20 February 2003 with no evidence having been produced against him. Laila Al-Arian, Dr Al-Arian’s daughter, spoke today about her father’s case and the conditions of his imprisonment.
The US Human Rights Network will monitor and react to a wide range of human rights violations in the US. For example, according to the Network, in the US today:
* We are currently facing the most sweeping rollback of civil liberties since the McCarthy era;
* Discrimination continues to infect social, political and economic institutions.
* Federal and State governments imprison minorities at rates that are grossly disproportionate to their presence in the overall population -- over 60% of incarcerated people are of Native Indian, Latino or African ancestry;
* Federal and State governments execute minorities at rates that are grossly disproportionate to their presence in the overall population;
* The US government takes the land and property of American Indians without due process of law and without compensation;
* 33 million people live in poverty, with more than 74 million people having had no health insurance for some part of 2001 and 2002;
According to the Network, the policy of U.S. “exceptionalism” has also resulted in a shameful record internationally. For example, the US:
* is the only industrialized nation that has refused to ratify the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW);
* has not ratified the Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (CESCR);
* has refused to endorse the International Criminal Court;
* has withdrawn from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty;
* has walked out on the World Conference Against Racism;
* has cast doubt on its adherence to the Geneva Conventions;
* is one of only two countries (with Iran) that continues to execute juvenile offenders;
* is one of only two countries to have not ratified the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC);
* has attached reservations to those human rights instruments that it has ratified to undermine their effective use in US courts.
Founding members of the Network include the: ACLU, American Friends Service Committee, Amnesty International, Center for Economic and Social Rights, Columbia Law School, Deaf and Deaf-Blind Committee on Human Rights, Kensington Welfare Rights Union, National Network for Immigrant and Refugee Rights, Texas Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty, Urban Justice Center, and the Women’s Economic Agenda Project.
“We urge all organizations concerned with the devastating impact of violations of social, economic, civil and political rights in the US to join the Network and come to us for information on how they can apply international human rights law to their advocacy work,” said Baraka. “Working collectively, we hope to ensure that the US rejoins the community of nations, abiding by the rule of law and respecting human rights.”
http://www.ushrnetwork.org |
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