MCLI Steps Up as Trump Rejects the Human Rights Council

The Trump administration’s refusal to cooperate with U.N. human rights bodies has led us into unchartered waters regarding the monitoring of human rights in the U.S. In the past, other administrations would participate in the human rights reporting processes providing reports that glossed over human rights abuses by the U.S. and allies. Despite this, the U.S. Government’s reports provided the opportunity for the Meiklejohn Civil Liberties Institute (MCLI) and other organizations to submit shadow reports challenging their discrepancies, omissions, and misrepresentations.
In November of 2017, the U.S. report was due to the U.N. Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD). However, the Trump administration never submitted a report. Despite this MCLI organized three Human Rights Forums on Racism and subsequently submitted a Shadow Report to CERD. Despite MCLI’s efforts, CERD never began their monitoring process. On January 11, 2018 CERD Programme Assistant Kalpana Singh told MCLI that the CERD session would not be scheduled until they received a report from the Trump administration. Without U.S. cooperation this presented an impossible conundrum.
In July of 2018 the Trump administration made its position official by pulling out of the U.N. Human Rights Council.
It appeared that without U.S. cooperation the U.N. mechanisms for monitoring human rights violations by the U.S. were broken. The U.S. report to the U.N. Committee Against Torture never arrived, and the Committee indicated that they will take no action.
Fortunately, the U.N. Human Rights Committee has decided that they will not stand by while the U.S. violates their human rights treaty obligations. The Committee has accepted lists of issues from non-profits, and MCLI has submitted a list of 7 human rights violations in addition to other violations listed by allies.
Go here to see MCLI’s list of human rights questions: https://tbinternet.ohchr.org/Treaties/CCPR/Shared%20Documents/USA/INT_CCPR_ICS_USA_33404_E.pdf
This new process presents an opportunity. Without the Trump administration’s participation, MCLI has the opportunity to forge a closer collaboration with the U.N. Human Rights Committee who are now more dependent on organizations such as MCLI. To seize upon this opportunity to hold the U.S. accountable for human rights violations MCLI needs your support.
MCLI and our allies are resolute to intensify our efforts mobilizing for human rights and seize upon this moment to hold local, state, and federal governments accountable for their abuses.