U.S. Is Delinquent In Reporting On U.S. Human Rights Abuses

U.S. Is Delinquent In Reporting On U.S. Human Rights Abuses And Racism Since 9/11

PRESS RELEASE

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE August 6, 2003 by Meiklejohn
Civil Liberties Institute Contact person: Prof. Ann
Fagan Ginger, Executive Director, at (510) 848-0599

U.S. IS DELINQUENT IN REPORTING ON U.S. HUMAN RIGHTS
ABUSES AND RACISM SINCE 9/11

August 5, 2003. — "The U.S. Government is six years
late in filing reports on human rights, law
enforcement, and racism in the U.S. since 9/ll," claims
Ann Fagan Ginger, Executive Director of Meiklejohn
Civil Liberties Institute. "So we just sent a letter to
the State Department asking whether the reports will
cover all the problems under the Patriot Act and at
Guantanamo Bay and across the country, and when the
reports will be filed. Since our Government demands
timely reports from poor countries to the IMF and WTO,
we must live up to the same standards."

The Berkeley-based center for human rights and peace
law sent a registered letter on July 23rd to Kathrine
Grove, Office of Legal Advisor to the Human Rights and
Refugees section of the State Department, asking when
to expect the reports the U.S. is committed to make
under three ratified treaties to the UN Committee
Against Torture, the UN Committee on the Elimination of
Racial Discrimination, and the UN Human Rights
Committee.

These reports must cover the Patriot Act and other new
statutes, Executive Orders, Attorney General’s
directives, FISA and INS/BCIS regulations and FBI
directives since 9/11 and how they have been used on
detainees at Guantannamo, in requiring registration of
non-citizens from some nations, in issuing warrants,
making arrests, using new "crowd control" weapons,
strike-breaking, detaining, deporting, denying visas,
defunding "blocked" organizations, and limiting media
coverage and access to government documents, violating
the right to privacy, and election fraud. "Periodic
reports must cover all actions of the federal, state
and local governments to enforce human rights and to
prevent racism and torture and other cruel, inhuman or
degrading treatment," Ginger said.

"Our inquiry was triggered by two recent Supreme Court
opinions. In the University of Michigan Law School
admission case, Justice Ginsburg cited the
International Convention on the Elimination of Racial
Discrimination and in the Texas sodomy law case,
Justice Kennedy concluded that the U.S. should follow
the European Court of Human Rights decisions based on
the European Convention on Human Rights."

The Mobilization of Shame

Berkeley was the first U.S. city to carry out the
treaty reporting requirements, according to Ginger. In
1994, the City requested its commissions on women,
youth, labor and police review to submit reports to the
State Department for inclusion in its first reports to
the UN committees. "The requirement that city and
state agencies prepare reports for inclusion in the
national U.S. report leading to dialogue with global
human rights experts certainly heightens awareness of
the fact that the U.S. has problems within the U.S.
that it must address.

"As the late Justice Frank Newman often said, the most
effective method of enforcing human rights standards is
the mobilization of shame, which worked in South Africa
and later in East Timor."

When the Institute recently called Ms. Grove, she
indicated that there was no budget for making the
reports and that the State Department lacks power to
require state and local governments to comply with
treaty requirements and that few replied to her first
request for reports. "Our letter now asks how some
agencies of the federal government have obtained
reports from state and local governments on other
issues, such as number of cases of AIDS, hate crimes,
etc.," Ginger said.

The letter notes that Grove mentioned that so many
events have occurred since 9/11 that it will be
difficult to cover them all, and even the outline
prepared in 2001 had to be revised in 2002 but was
never approved.

From Nuclear Weapons to Cuts in Child Care

Since the UN Human Rights Committee has ruled that
Article 6.1 of ICCPR includes the right to be free of
nuclear weapons, held illegal by the International
Court of Justice, Ginger asked whether the U.S. report
to that Committee will include a section on U.S.
possession, storage, testing, modification, and
activation of all U.S. nuclear weapons." The letter
also asks what the U.S. will report on Administration
inaction on the Conyers Repartitions Bill, and on
projected federal, state and local budget cuts to
government bodies working to fight racism, to enforce
civil rights, to educate on human rights and English as
a second language and how to become a U.S. citizen, and
cuts in welfare programs for people of color, for
single mothers, and to assist prisoners to reenter
society, and to build a culture against capital
punishment.

Meiklejohn has sent copies of this letter to
Congressmembers Barbara Lee, John Conyers, Jr., Elijah
E. Cummings, and Dennis Kucinich; to Jimmy Carter and
Mary Robinson; to UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, to
the Acting UN High Commissioner for Human Rights and
the chairs of the three UN committees whom reports are
past due, and to ACLU, NAACP, National Lawyers Guild,
American Bar Association Individual Rights Department,
Amnesty International, Center for Constitutional
Rights, American Friends Service Committee, U.S. Labor
Against War, AFL-CIO International Affairs Department,
American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, and many
other organizations. They told Ms. Grove that they
would be happy to send her reply to the same list.

The full text of the letter to the State Department is
attached.

==========

July 23, 2003

Kathrine Grove, Attorney Advisor, Office of Legal
Advisor Human Rights and Refugees U.S. Department of
State 201 C Street NW Washington, D.C. 20520

Re: Overdue U.S. reports under ratified UN human
rights reporting treaties

Dear Ms. Grove:

Meiklejohn Civil Liberties Institute is concerned that
accurate and timely country reports on human rights and
peace law issues are filed under ratified UN treaties.
Just as other NGOs are concerned with accurate reports
by the U.S. and other nations to the IMF and World
Bank, and under WTO and now FTAA, and on health issues
to the World Health Organization, our Institute sees
reporting as part of the mobilization of shame that
strengthens enforcement of human rights, as the late
Justice Frank Newman insisted.

We are writing now: 1. To describe our work on
previous U.S. reports. 2. To ask for information
on when to expect the second U.S reports due under each
of the three UN human rights reporting treaties. The
second U.S. reports were due to the UN Human Rights
Committee 9/7/98; to the UN Committee on Elimination of
Racial Discrimination 11/20/97, and to the UN Committee
Against Torture 11/19/99. 3. To learn what efforts
are being made by what U.S. government bodies to obtain
complete and accurate reports from state and local
governmental bodies for the second and all later U.S.
reports under the three treaties. 4. To learn how
the reports cover new statutes, executive orders,
directives, and events since 9/11, including warrants,
arrests, use of new "crowd control" weapons, strike-
breaking, detentions, registration requirements,
deportations, visa denials, defunding and limitations
on media coverage and access to government documents,
violations of the right to privacy, and election fraud.

Our inquiry is particularly timely in light of two
recent U.S. Supreme Court opinions. In the University
of Michigan Law School admission affirmative action
case, Justice Ginsburg noted that the Court’s opinion
"accords with the international understanding" of the
law, citing the ratified International Convention on
the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination
and mentioning the Convnention on the Eoimination of
Discrimination Against Women, which the U.S. signed but
has not yet ratified. And Justice Kennedy, in his
opinion for the Court overturning Texas sodomy law,
concluded that the U.S. should follow recent decisions
of the European Court of Human Rights based on the
European Convention on Human Rights. [Grutter v.
Bollinger, concurring with Justice Breyer, decided June
23, 2003, and Lawrence v. Texas, decided June 26,
2003.]

I.

Since its founding in 1965, Meiklejohn Civil Liberties
Institute has emphasized the importance of human rights
and peace law provisions in the U.S. Constitution and
in the UN Charter. We proposed that the city of
Berkeley, California enact UN Charter articles 55 and
56 as a city Human Rights Ordinance, which was done in
1990. The Institute has also publicized widely the fact
that the U.S. government signed six basic human rights
reporting treaties and ratified three: International
Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR),
Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or
Degrading Treatment or Punishment (CAT), and
International Convention on the Elimination of all
forms of Racial Discrimination (CERD). Your records may
indicate that MCLI played a role in the pioneering
action of the City of Berkeley in preparing reports at
the city level of the Youth Commission, Women’s
Commission, Labor Commission, and the Police Review
Commission in compliance with the ICCPR, and sent them
to the State Department for inclusion in the first U.S.
report in 1994. MCLI prepared a shadow report of Issue
Sheets for that report, which it submitted to the State
Department and to the Committee.

Meiklejohn Institute sent representatives from
California and Michigan to the New York meeting of the
UN Human Rights Committee in 1995 when it conducted the
first dialogue with the U.S. government on the first
report. The Committee commended us for our work. MCLI
also prepared shadow reports and submitted them for use
in the reports to the CAT and CERD committees. We made
an oral presentation in Geneva during the dialogue on
the first U.S. report under CERD on August 1, 2001. And
we are making an oral presentation to the Sub-
commission on the Administration of Justice of the UN
Human Rights Commission (with Human Rights Advocates)
in Geneva in late July, 2003.

Many U.S. and UN libraries have purchased copies of the
three Issue Sheets for use by lawyers, students,
scholars, and activists.

In order to help make the second U.S. reports as
complete and accurate as possible, MCLI is now
preparing a shadow report for each of the three
committees to be submitted to the State Department for
inclusion in its second reports, focusing on new
statutes, executive orders, and FISA and INS/BCIS
regulations adopted and issued since September 11,
2001.

MCLI sent queries to U.S. non-governmental
organizations concerned with various specific aspects
of human rights and peace law, asking them for specific
examples of enforcement and violations of the law. We
have received many disturbing reports from NGOs,
attorneys, and activists concerning violations, and a
few encouraging reports of enforcement of the U.S.
Constitution, the UN Charter, the three ratified human
rights treaties, and the basic ILO Conventions

II.

Recently Kevin Cunningham called you from our MCLI
Human Rights Reporting Project to ask when the U.S.
Government would be filing the second reports to three
UN human rights committees as required by ICCPR, CAT,
and CERD. He reported that you said that there was a
cost problem in preparing the reports. You also said
that the U.S. had filed some other reports on human
rights with the UN, which could be found on the UN
website.

We did look on the UN human rights web site and found
only what we already knew, namely, that the U.S. had
filed the first report due under each treaty, but had
not filed the second or subsequent report, due every 5,
4, and 2 years under the three treaties.

Could you let us know: - When we can expect the overdue
second reports under each of the three treaties? - What
UN website were you referring to? - What additional
reports on Human Rights in the U.S. you were referring
to? - Is there a U.S. website on human rights reporting
to which we could refer?

III.

Mr. Cunningham also asked what the federal government
is doing to insure that state and local governments
make reports to the federal government concerning
enforcement and lack of enforcement of the three
treaties, since the second and all further reports
under each treaty must include information at state and
local levels.

Please let us know what has been done and what will be
done so that the federal government can carry out the
commitment it made in the three treaties on this point.

You indicated that the State Department lacks power to
require state and local governments to comply with
treaty requirements and that few local governments have
replied to your first request for reports.

Could you please let us know how some agencies of the
federal government have obtained reports from state and
local governments on other issues, such as number of
cases of AIDS, hate crimes, etc.

Has the State Department sought to use these methods?

And did you remind state and local governments of the
U.S. Constitution Article 6 clause 2, that treaties
shall become part of "the supreme law of the land"
after ratification?

IV.

You mentioned that so many events have occurred since
9/11 that it will be difficult to cover them all, and
that an outline for the second U.S. report to the Human
Rights Committee in 2001 had been revised in 2002.
Clearly the U.S. made a commitment to report all
significant relevant events when it ratified the three
human rights reporting treaties, as the U.S. expects
other nations to enforce and make reports under
treaties on international telecommunications, nuclear
non proliferation, etc.

The Opening Remarks by Bertrand G. Ramcharan, Acting
High Commissioner for Human Rights, to the 78th session
of the UN Human Rights Committee in Geneva on July 14,
2003, reflect the U.S. State Department concern about
the problem of multiple reports by nations to the
several UN committees administering the human rights
treaties. Clearly a basic U.S. report on events since
9/11 could be used in reporting to all three UN
committees. And he pointed out that "there might be a
stronger role of national institutions for the
protection of human rights in the treaty reportring
system and its follow-up."

IV.A.

One of our specific concerns about the forthcoming U.S.
reports to UN committees is that they report on all
persons being held by the U.S. government on Cuban
territory leased by the U.S. at Guantanamo Bay. We
expect that their incarceration and treatment will be
included and explained in the second U.S. reports on
Civil and Political Rights, on Torture, and on Racial
Discrimination.

IV.B.

Lawyers, scholars, and activists working with
Meiklejohn Institute expect that the second U.S.
reports will include and explain relevant portions of
the following recently-enacted statutes and executive
orders: FISA; PATRIOT Act; Executive Orders 13223,
13224, 13228, 13231, 13232, 13233, 13234, 13239, 13254,
13260, 13262, 13269, 13284, 13286, 13290, 13292, 13299,
13300, 13303, 13306; Public Laws 107-77, 107-108,
107-173, 107-206, 107-273, 107-274, 107-296; National
Security Presidential Directives 1, 8, 16, 17, 18, 19,
23; Homeland Security Presidential Directives 1, 2, 3,
5; Attorney General’s directives on information sharing
Sept. 21, 2001, Nov. 8, 2001, Nov. 13, 2001, April 11,
2002; Attorney General’s guidelines regarding
information sharing under USA PATRIOT act Sept. 23,
2002; Title 8 of Code of Federal Regulation; Operation
Tarmac; Operation Liberty Shield; and Military Order of
11/13/01.

IV.C.

Since the UN Human Rights Committee has ruled that
Article 6.1 of ICCPR includes the right to be free of
nuclear weapons, held illegal by the International
Court of Justice, we are interested in knowing that the
U.S. reports to that Committee will include a section
on U.S. possession, storage, testing, modification, and
activation of all U.S. nuclear weapons.

IV.D.

In light of U.S. votes against the paragraphs on
reparations for slavery in the Durban Declaration
coming out of the 2001 UN World Conference Against
Racism, we are also concerned about how the U.S.
government will report on Administration and
Congressional inaction on the Conyers Repartitions
Bill, HR 40.

IV.E.

MCLI expects that the U.S. report will include and
explain the massive cuts in federal budget and in state
and local budgets for government services to ensure a
culture of compliance with the fundamental rights and
duties in the U.S. Constitution, the UN Charter, and in
the three treaties.

Specifically we are concerned that the U.S. report will
include and explain the relevant budget cuts to
government bodies working to fight racism, to enforce
civil rights, to educate on human rights and English as
a second language and how to become a U.S. citizen, and
cuts in welfare programs for people of color, for
single mothers, and to assist prisoners to reenter
society, and to build a culture against capital
punishment.

We will be glad to share your answers with other
concerned NGOs, attorneys, scholars, individuals and UN
organizations.

Very truly yours,

Ann Fagan Ginger Executive Director

Sent registered, return-receipt requested

copies to: Congressman John Conyers, Jr.;
Congresswoman Barbara Lee; Congressman Elijah E.
Cummings, Chair of Congressional Black Caucus;
Congressman Dennis Kucinich, Chair of Congressional
Progressive Caucus; Hon. Jimmy Carter; Hon. Mary
Robinson; Kofi Annan, UN Secretary General; Bertrand G.
Ramcharan, Acting UN High Commissioner for Human
Rights; Ion Diaconu, Chair, CERD Committee;
Abdelfattah Amor, Chair, Human Rights Committee; Peter
Burns, Chair, CAT Committee

===================== Meiklejohn Civil Liberties
Institute PO Box 673, Berkeley, CA 94701 (510) 848-0599
(510) 848-6008 fax mcli@mcli.org; http://mcli.org