In an article published in the Chicago Journal of International Law (posted on Global Policy Forum), Kenneth Roth, Executive Director of Human Rights Watch, writes: “Washington pretends to join the international human rights system, but it refuses to permit this system to improve the rights of US citizens” He explains that when the US occasionally does ratify a treaty, it adds that the treaty is not-self-executing without special legislation, and then Justice Department lawyers state that US law already protects Americans and special legislation is therefore unnecessary.
Treaties are posted on the page of the Human Rights Council. First to note, there are only 15 “core” human rights treaties that are in force. In the case of 7, the US has neither ratified nor signed them. In the case of 3, the US has signed, without ratifying, them. These include the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW). In the case of 5, the US has ratified them, but declared them to be “not-self-executing.” These include the Convention against Torture (CAT) and the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (CERD).
This arrogance fuels distrust and apprehension around the world. Recently the Obama Administration further antagonized the international human rights community when it decided to sit out the World Conference against Racism, held in April 2009. Earlier, in April 2007, a US delegation presented a self-serving, self-congratulatory report to the CERD review committee .Many US human rights organizations challenged the US report, and the Human Rights Network facilitated the preparation of 28 Shadow Reports, which included critical reports on forms of structural racism in the US.
Famously, John Adams stated that the US is not a nation of human beings (“men”), but a nation of laws, and the Framers further insisted that the US Constitution is the established, superior law of the land, and therefore that the role of the Supreme Court is to interpret it, more or less shielded from popular opinion and changing circumstances. This presumes that Americans have all the rights they could possibly want or use, and these are spelled out as civil & political rights in the Constitution. This brings us full circle. An explanation for why the US Congress never ratifies human rights treaties is identical to the reason for why it never amends the Constitution to include human rights.
Although the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was proclaimed in 1948, human rights made their dramatic appearance on the world stage beginning in the 1980s. . Many countries wrote or revised their constitutions to include, for example, language rights (e.g., South Africa), women’s rights (most constitutions), cultural rights (e.g., Poland), health care (e.g., Finland), the right to work (e.g., Denmark); protection of domestic workers (e.g., Brazil); and rights of indigenous people (e.g., Paraguay). Critics say that since no country strictly adheres to its constitutionally-mandated human rights provisions there is no point in adopting them. That misses the point. Such provisions embody principles, are broad agreements that include government as well as citizens and businesses; set constrains on government and economic elites; and engender processes that enliven and engage civil society,
The same can be said for human rights treaties. Most countries have ratified a majority of them, except for very recent ones (such as the 2006 Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities). The one for which there is near consensus is the Convention on the Rights of the Child. Only two countries have not ratified it – the United States and Somalia. While Somalia might be given some slack for lack of a stable government, there is no excuse that the US has not joined the 191 countries that have ratified it.
In the last few years Americans have initiated many national discussions that center on human rights, such as a living wage, universal health care, food security, and the rights of gays and lesbians. Therefore, its time to link these discussions to human rights treaties and to the US Constitution. Thomas Paine would surely approve. So would Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who in 1944 proposed an economic bill of rights, and so would Martin Luther King, Jr. who in 1967 linked the civil rights campaign with a campaign for economic rights and human rights, generally. And, so would Eleanor Roosevelt, who played a leading role in drafting the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Judith Blau is president of the US chapter of Sociologists without Borders, and director of the Human Rights Center of Chapel Hill and Carrboro. She teaches at UNC, Chapel Hill. http://www.unc.edu/~jrblau/
This blog entry was published in Huffington Post. June
2009.
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