Patrick Stickney
Patrick Stickney is a Resident Forum Blogger covering recent developments in domestic and international human rights issues.
The UN Working Group of Experts on People of African Descent concluded its 11-day visit to the United States on January 29, issuing a preliminary report of its findings at the end of its visit. Like the UN Working Group that examined the human rights situation of women in December, the Working Group visited on the invitation of the federal government. This is the second time the Working Group has visited the United States, having conducted a similar visit in 2010. The Working Group, while beginning its preliminary findings with laudatory statements about states that have recently abolished the death penalty, about multiple federal regulations and initiatives to reduce racial discrimination, and about the implementation of the Affordable Care Act, detailed in the bulk of the report a litany of barriers to the fulfillment of the human rights of black individuals, families, and communities.
The guiding international human rights instrument working to end racial discrimination is the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (ICERD). ICERD is one of the five human rights treaties the United States has both signed and ratified, but like the other four, it is subject to extensive declarations of understanding and reservations by the United States to the terms of the treaty. In its ratification, the United States interprets the treaty to not be self-executing, meaning that Congress has to pass enabling legislation to make the terms of the treaty justiciable in domestic courts.
One of the biggest differences between the 2010 report and the Working Group’s 2016 preliminary findings was the Group’s recent support of reparations. The 2016 Working Group wrote:
The colonial history, the legacy of enslavement, racial subordination and segregation, racial terrorism, and racial inequality in the US remains a serious challenge as there has been no real commitment to reparations and to truth and reconciliation for people of African descent. Despite substantial changes since the end of the enforcement of Jim Crow and the fight for civil rights, ideology ensuring the domination of one group over another, continues to negatively impact the civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights of African Americans today. The dangerous ideology of white supremacy inhibits social cohesion amongst the US population. Lynching was a form of racial terrorism that has contributed to a legacy of racial inequality that the US must address. Thousands of people of African descent were killed in violent public acts of racial control and domination and the perpetrators were never held accountable.
In contrast, the Working Group only briefly mentioned reparations in its 2010 report. This recent emphasis on reparations coincides with the renewed conversations surrounding the topic in the general national discourse that have been brought about by the writings of Ta-Nehisi Coates, academic scholars, and community groups. The use of truth and reconciliation is a commonly used concept internationally to help provide justice for human rights abuses. These truth and reconciliation commissions are normally non-judicial bodies that allow victims and families of victims to share their experiences (which also helps to document the abuses), prevent historical revisionism, and push for reforms so that the abuses are not committed again in the future. Reparations are a part of this truth and reconciliation process, and have occurred many times in the past to remedy human rights abuses, both in the United States and across the globe.
It is clear from the Working Group’s preliminary findings that it understands that while legislation alone will not heal the trauma of racism and racial discrimination, the government still has a prominent role to play. Its recommendations for the establishment of “[m]onuments, memorials and markers” call upon the fact that the United States has only one museum dedicated to teaching about the institution of slavery, and brings attention to initiatives, such as the one to place markers where lynchings occurred, as a reminder of the prevalence of racial terror and state-sanctioned violence.
The Working Group also brought attention to the “persistent gap in almost all the human development indicators, such as life expectancy, income and wealth, level of education and even food security [between] African Americans and the rest of the US population.” Additionally, the Group found that in the United States there is racial bias in policing and incarceration, discrimination in schools, and a lack of accountability for acts of police brutality, each one creating barriers to the full recognition of human rights for people of African descent.
The Working Group also recommended that the United States consider inviting the Special Rapporteur on Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment for a country visit, ostensibly because of the United States’ use of practices such as solitary confinement, which is contrary to international human rights law, and potentially to assess the response to occurrences like the acts of torture committed by police in Chicago.
The Working Group will publish and present a full report of its findings and recommendations for the United States to the UN Human Rights Council at the Council’s session in September.