Today is a big day. The U.S. goes before the U.N. Human Rights Council—first time ever—for a Universal Periodic Review. You may recall last August, when the U.S. submitted their report confessing to their “human rights violations,” the report included such things as:
- Arizona’s immigration legislation SB 1070
- Failure to implement same-sex marriage nationwide
- Failure to repeal the military “Don’t ask, don’t tell” policy
Now the U.S. State Department has chosen to answer to an unelected UN body in Geneva, Switzerland, as to how they are going to remedy these and other supposed human rights infractions. The ACLU has wasted no time in calling for the Obama administration “to address existing human rights violations and urged policy reform in order to fully comply with international human rights obligations.”
So let us paint a picture for you: there will be representatives of the State, Justice, Education and Homeland Security Departments in Geneva to discuss U.S. policy and give answers to questions directed at them from an unelected, unaccountable UN committee who will, a few days later, issue recommendations on how the U.S. should act in order to comply with their rendition of international standards. The Obama administration has no business compromising U.S. sovereignty in this fashion.
The U.S. should have remained uncommitted and uninvolved with the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC). Playing the game of this UN kangaroo court does nothing to help the very real and serious human rights violations around the world.
UPDATE!
A colleague of United Families International was in attendance in Washington DC at the broadcast of the United States going before the UN Human Rights Council. Her statement was this: “The whole thing was terrible. The Arizona [immigration] law was a large part of the dialogue and making a priority of the Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) was referenced at least three times.”
To see more detailed information, please visit Ann Bayefsky’s article:
The Obama administration got a new “shellacking” this morning, this one entirely voluntary. In the name of improving America’s image abroad, it sent three top officials from the State Department to Geneva’s U.N. Human Rights Council to be questioned about America’s human rights record by the likes of Cuba, Iran, and North Korea. Read more here