Universal Human Rights

12/18/2012

Does U.S. Immigration Policy Respect Human Rights?

By Allison Frankel, ACLU Human Rights Program at 4:38pm

Today is International Migrants Day, a day to reflect on the human rights of immigrants and migrant communities. As the ACLU blogged last week, despite accomplishments on some key human rights issues, the U.S. still has a long way to go to fulfill its promises to vulnerable members of our society such as immigrants and racial and ethnic minorities.

Last Monday, the ACLU brought these concerns to the United Nations Human Rights Committee, a body of independent experts that next year will examine the United States’ report on its compliance with the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), a fundamental human rights treaty the U.S. ratified in 1992. Our submission suggests critical questions the committee should pose to the U.S. during its review next October.

07/06/2012

U.S. Death Penalty

Death Penalty Abolition Movement “To See Sunny Days”

By Allison Frankel, ACLU Human Rights Program at 11:29am

On July 3, U.N. delegates and NGO representatives from around the world gathered at the U.N. Headquarters in New York for an invigorating conference entitled “Moving Away From the Death Penalty - Lessons from National Experiences.” Panelists, ranging from high-level U.N. officials to state-level prosecutors to individuals directly impacted by the death penalty, shared their experiences with death penalty abolition and examined the human rights implications of the ultimate punishment.

03/21/2013

Racial Discrimination

A Roadmap for Fighting Racism

By Chandra Bhatnagar, Senior Staff Attorney, ACLU Human Rights Program at 10:34am

On this day in 1960, white police officers in Sharpeville, South Africa, opened fire on a peaceful anti-apartheid demonstration killing 69 black South African protestors...

12/11/2012

U.S. Torture

A Mother’s “Last Chance” at Justice: José Padilla Torture Case Brought Before Human Rights Tribunal

By Deborah Francois, Yale Law School, Lowenstein International Human Rights Clinic & Sheng Li, Yale Law School, Lowenstein International Human Rights Clinic & Alaina Varvaloucas, Yale Law School, Lowenstein International Human Rights Clinic at 5:04pm

After a fruitless five-year battle in U.S. federal courts to hold accountable those who unlawfully detained and tortured her son José Padilla, Estela Lebron today sought to have their claims heard by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR). You can read today’s filing here.

Padilla is the only American citizen to have been seized on U.S. soil, detained as an enemy combatant, kept in incommunicado military detention, and tortured. Until U.S. courts stop using national security arguments to bar Bush-era torture survivors from seeking remedies for abuses, victims, like Padilla and Lebronwill have to resort to international bodies for any chance at redress.

03/12/2013

U.S. Torture

American Torture and the 'Heroic Imagination'

By Jameel Jaffer, Deputy Legal Director, ACLU & Larry Siems, The Torture Report at 11:55am

This was originally posted on The Huffington Post.

Click here to read an original op-ed from the TED speaker who inspired this post and watch the TEDTalk below.

Trained in the Geneva Conventions and the Uniform Code of Military Justice, the military interrogators and guards who tortured and dehumanized prisoners in U.S. custody after 9/11 were hardly without ethical bearings. But as Alberto Mora, former chief counsel of the Navy, predicted when he discovered Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld had authorized previously banned interrogation techniques,

03/11/2013

Solitary Violates Human Rights

The Change in Maine: The Pine Tree State Leads the Way on Solitary Confinement Reform

By Rachel Healy, Director of Public Education and Communications, ACLU of Maine at 4:22pm

The world will get a glimpse this week into how the United States treats those we lock in solitary confinement, when the Inter-American Commission...

05/11/2012

Juvenile Life Without Parole

Out of Step With the World: Juvenile Life Without Parole in the United States

By Steven Watt, Senior Staff Attorney, ACLU Human Rights Program at 5:02pm

In the United States, there are over 3,000 people serving life sentences without the possibility of parole for offenses committed when they were children. Among them is Matthew Bentley from Michigan who committed his crime when he was 14 years-old, an age when the law deemed him too young to legally drive, smoke or join the military but old enough to be sentenced to die in prison,

04/30/2012

Human Trafficking

Trafficking in War Zones: Making Zero-Tolerance Meaningful

By Steven Watt, Senior Staff Attorney, ACLU Human Rights Program at 5:36pm

Last week in Little Rock, Ark., Attorney General Eric Holder spoke eloquently and forcefully on the problems of human trafficking in the U.S. Holder noted the problem — one of "crisis proportions" — takes place both outside and within our borders:

In communities nationwide, human trafficking victims often are hiding in plain sight: the young woman who traveled to America for the promise of a new life, but finds herself enslaved and sold for sex. The child who was born here, but ran away from home and, in desperation, accepted help from the wrong person. The migrant worker who is deprived of identification, transportation, health care, and access to money in order to ensure complete dependence on his employer. Or one of the many young girls regularly shuttled to truck stops along I-40 — who is filled with shame and empty of hope, living in fear of incarceration and in doubt of her ability to survive on her own.

Holder described the current administration's adoption of many far-reaching measures by numerous government agencies to eradicate trafficking wherever and however it occurs, and stated that the U.S. has a "'zero-tolerance, one-strike' approach" to the problem.

12/10/2012

Universal Human Rights

Making Human Rights Reality

By Katie Haas, ACLU Human Rights Program at 12:07pm

Today is Human Rights Day and the 64^th anniversary of the United Nations’ adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. As one of the first documents to present the world with a comprehensive vision of human rights, the declaration is fundamental to the work of social justice movements around the world, and to our work at the ACLU. It lays out universal standards for human dignity that all nations should uphold, and its almost unanimous adoption by the General Assembly in 1948 was a landmark moment for human rights defenders everywhere.

10/03/2012

Human Trafficking

One Step Closer: New York Times Praises Executive Order on Human Trafficking

By Amshula Jayaram, ACLU Washington Legislative Office at 5:54pm

The New York Times issued an editorial Tuesday praising President Obama’s Executive Order to end human trafficking in government contracts. The Times viewed the order as an important step towards eliminating this shameful practice. The Times also called for Congress to pass the End Trafficking in Government Contracting Act, which would provide the legislative muscle to enforce and make permanent the measures contained in the Executive Order to eliminate human trafficking from government contracting processes.

American Civil Liberties Union