By Rowan Lee
The United States was brutally criticized over
its human rights record by the United Nations Human Rights Council. The key
criticisms include police violence, racial discrimination, the (still
operational) Guantanamo Bay Facility, and continued use of the death penalty.
The
issues of police brutality and racism took the spotlight as 117 countries
demanded reform over the course of three and a half hours in Geneva Monday
morning – each participant permitted only 65 seconds to speak due to the
overwhelming demand to do so.
The
U.S. first faced review for human rights violations in 2010, receiving 171
recommendations for correction – since, the U.S. has failed to act on many of
them. These included revisions such as the Convention on the Elimination of All
Forms of Discrimination Against Women, the Convention on the
Rights of the Child, and to “find a solution for
all persons detained at Guantánamo Bay,” where 122 men remain in
captivity to this day.
“Chad considers the United States of America to be a country of freedom, but recent events targeting black sectors of society have tarnished its image.” – Awada Angui of the U.N. delegation to Chad.
“Serious concerns about the human rights situation in the U.S.” – Pakistan
“The human rights situation in the country has seriously deteriorated recently” – Russia
“…all victims of torture and ill treatment, whether still in U.S. custody or not, [should] obtain redress and have an enforceable right to fair and adequate compensation and as full rehabilitation as possible, including medical and psychological assistance.” – Carten Staur, delegate of Denmark.
Alba
Morales, an investigator of the U.S. criminal justice system at Human Rights
Watch points to the lack of information the international community has
received over violations within the U.S.
The “Use of excessive force by police
was a major part of this year’s UPR (universal periodic review), and the fact
that we still don’t have a reliable national figure to know how many people are
killed by police or what the racial breakdown is of those people is a
travesty…A nation as advanced as the U.S. should be able to gather that
number.”
Senior
counselor to the U.S. assistant attorney general, James Cadogan responded, “The
tragic deaths of Freddie Gray in Baltimore, Michael Brown in Missouri, Eric
Garner in New York, Tamir Rice in Ohio and Walter Scott in South Carolina have
renewed a long-standing and critical national debate about the even-handed
administration of justice. These events challenge us to do better and to work
harder for progress — through both dialogue and action.”
On
the issue of the death penalty, a majority of countries pushed the United
States for a moratorium – which the U.S. rejected, merely promising
to “take all necessary steps to comply with minimum standards under
international law relating to the death penalty.”
While
the council has been criticized for its inability to enact enough change,
Morales applauds the conversation. “Obviously, everybody has improvements they
can make to their human rights record. We do believe that everybody from the
most powerful country on down should be called to task on their rights records,
and we value the opportunity to do so.”