Human Rights in the United States: 2023 Report

1 file(s) 9.29 MB

Download

Preface by Comité Cerezo México

Source: Comité Cerezo México

By the Comité Cerezo México

To all the compañeros and compañeras of the Alliance for Global Justice

Sending you a fraternal salute from every one of us that belong to the Comité Cerezo México, an organization that for more than 20 years has protected and promoted the defense of human rights.

Firstly, we would like to congratulate you on the release of your report on the human rights situation in the United States. We’d also like to share that it has been an honor to have been able to contribute in some manner to this publication.

For many years, the lives of millions of people across Latin America have been impacted by injustice and by the political repression and counterinsurgency politics promoted by the United States government. In the concept of human rights and specifically in the documentation of human rights violations, the people have found a tool to arrive at the truth about those responsible for policies that violate human rights, their objectives and beneficiaries; a tool to struggle for justice, for the integral reparation of damage, and to maintain alive the memory of the peoples’ struggles for their liberation from the yoke of Capital.

Wherever human rights violations exist, the documentation of those violations is a useful tool, even in the very bowels of the main exponent of imperialism in our times: the United States. A country as big and powerful as the blood, life, and labor of the working class and the peasant class upon whom it was erected still stands as a hegemonic force in the world.

It is of critical importance that the people of the United States of America come to know and utilize human rights as a tool for popular struggle. It was a pleasure for us to share our knowledge of this subject and we celebrate that AFGJ will launch its Human Rights School initiative in the U.S. this year. We think that knowing and mastering this tool is not an end unto itself, but fundamentally a means to achieving a dignified life for peoples all over the world.

In closing, we want to express that what we know and share about the subject of human rights is a result of the long struggle and theoretical development of Latin American peoples. Fundamentally, we are nurtured by all struggles, and if we have contributed anything, it’s all been due to the need and persistence of the struggle for the peoples’ dignity. Today, we must also learn from the heroic people of the United States with whom who we are united in our diverse histories of resistance and dreams of truth, justice, memory and the integral reparation of damage.

Comité Cerezo México

Introduction by Gerald Horne

Source: Monthly Review

By Gerald Horne, historian and scholar of African American Studies

On 17 December 1951, Black Communist attorney and activist, William L. Patterson, delivered the “We Charge Genocide” petition to the United Nations in Paris. Ten days later, the U.S. government moved to invalidate his passport.

This searing document, still worth reading and birthed in no small measure by Patterson’s comrade, Paul Robeson – the great artist and activist, the “tallest tree in our forest” – was the product of a mass worldwide organizing campaign by their organization, the Civil Rights Congress (CRC) – whose efforts were so intimidating to Washington that they were driven out of business by 1956.

Today the Alliance for Global Justice is not only walking in the gigantic footprints of the CRC but also extending the call by Malcolm X before his tragic assassination in 1965 to internationalize the human rights struggle in the U.S., and by the National Conference of Black Lawyers, which sought to do so in the 1970s.

Their campaign is similarly worthy. Their focus on voter suppression is reminiscent of the original CRC Petition. Likewise, their targeting the death penalty recalls a time when even more languished on death row than there are today.

Their focus on anti-Asian violence in the U.S. forces us to recall that in 1945 U.S. imperialism for the first – and it is to be hoped the only – time in world history committed the most profound episode of mass murder in world history: the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, massacring within minutes tens of thousands of people of Asian ancestry – the latter factor being not coincidental. Their focus on police terror also evokes the naked white supremacy emblematic of U.S. imperialism.

This malignant phenomenon infects – like a virus – every aspect of U.S. life, be it housing or employment or immigration or education or health care or foreign policy.

This Human Rights Report is thus more than welcome and, it is to be hoped, will have a similar impact as the 1951 effort, which led directly to the erosion of a hateful Jim Crow.

Methodology

Report structureTheoretical frameworkClassificationsLegal framework

This report contains a compilation of articles written by AFGJ staff and other associates that identify and contextualize human rights violations in the United States. Each chapter analyzes widely impacting human rights issues in the United States in 2023 and analyzes key findings about their nature and prominence.

Our articles draw from a foundation of available sources to illustrate frequent, systemically occurring and politically-motivated human rights violations and assess their pervasive impacts on individuals and communities. They comprehensively examine existing information, data, statistics, demographics, studies and testimonies.

Each chapter identifies different types of human rights violations, the forms they take and violations of international human rights law attributable to the United States government. It contains a bibliography of references that can be accessed for further study of the topics introduced in this report.

This report surveys the full depth and breadth of human rights violations in the United States, reviewing violations of universally recognized civil and political rights – such as the right to vote and the right to non-discrimination – and violations of universally recognized social, economic and cultural rights – such as the right to health, housing, education and social security.

Using this framework, our report identifies some of the most prevalent human rights issues that violations universal human rights standards and norms. It recognizes human rights violations as fundamental to political and economic systems of oppression that concentrate wealth, power and, ultimately, the full realization of human rights into the hands of a few by depriving communities of access to resources and undermining their political agency.

Individual human rights violations target specific individuals. These violations are often commissioned directly by other individuals, the state or state agents often as blatant acts of oppression or repression or as violations perpetrated with the state’s acquiescence.

Collective human rights violations impact entire communities or populations as a result of widely impacting institutionalized oppression or repression. Sometimes directly commissioned by the state, these violations occur on a structural level that impacts many, often countless, individuals.

There are three ways of attributing responsibility to the state for human rights violations: by commission, by omission and by acquiescence.

Human rights violations by commission are directly commissioned by the state or state agents and directly target individuals, communities or populations.
Human rights violations by omission are attributed to the state for not addressing or granting impunity to perpetrators of human rights violations (i.e. state or state agents, or civilians).
Human rights violations by acquiescence are similar to human rights violations by omission in that the state doesn’t play a direct role in the human rights violation, but it remains a driving force through its consent and sometimes endorsement of the violation commissioned by state agents (i.e. law enforcement or paramilitary forces), civilians or private security forces.

Each chapter identifies attributable violations of international legal frameworks established by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and core international human rights treaties that set standards for the state’s promotion and protection of human rights. These standards are binding to Member States of the United Nations that adopt them.

Part 1: A nation deeply divided: racial inequality & white supremacy

Source: Alliance for Global Justice

Overview

Slavery in the U.S. was once called “the peculiar institution” but few things are more peculiar than the racism and white supremacy that prompted and fueled the trans-Atlantic slave trade, Jim Crow, and today’s spectacularly peculiar climate of racial animus that characterizes life in modern-day USA. Racial inequality and white supremacy play foundational roles in shaping many aspects of reality in the United States.

Racial inequality is a common underpinning almost all human rights violations and race is a common determinant of falling victim to a human rights violation. It permeates every economic, political and social system at the basis of U.S. life. Racial oppression is a driving force in widespread human rights violations, even when race is not specifically mentioned in the laws and policies that created and maintain these conditions.

This section analyzes several different iterations of racial bias and white supremacy in the United States today:

Black America & white supremacy: race as fundamental to human rights violations examines racism and how it is expressed through institutions, policies and practices.
From “Black Lives Matter” to “housing is a human right”: a spotlight structural genocide analyzes the life-threatening structural violence impacting Black and Brown communities amid a growing housing crisis.
Nobody’s child: victims of the child welfare system examines an institution that is generally considered benign but is, in fact, an integral part of the unholy alliance between the institutional racism at the base of the U.S. healthcare systems, the War on Drugs, educational apartheid and neglect, mass incarceration and the school-to-prison pipeline.
Cruel but not unusual: the economics and inherent racism of mass incarceration takes a deep dive into the carceral system as it applies to Black, Brown and Indigenous peoples in the U.S.
Crueler but still not unusual: the U.S. death penalty explores one of the most fundamental violations of human rights, namely, the American penchant for killing offenders – especially those who take white lives.

Violations of international human rights law

Violations of the Universal Declaration of Human RightsViolations of international human rights treaties

Identified articles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights violated by the United States Federal Government:

Article 1: that all human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights
Article 2: that everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration, without distinction of any kind, such as race
Article 3: that everyone has the right to life, liberty and security
Article 4: that no one should be held in slavery or servitude
Article 5: that no one should be subjected to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment
Article 6: that everyone has the right to recognition everywhere as a person before the law
Article 7: that all are equal before the law and entitled without discrimination to equal protection of the law
Article 9: that no one should be subjected to arbitrary arrest, detention or exile
Article 10: that everyone is entitled in full equality to a fair and public hearing in the determination of their civil rights and obligations
Article 11: that everyone charged with a penal offense has the right to be presumed innocent until proven guilty
Article 12: that no one should be subject to arbitrary interference with their privacy, family, home or correspondence
Article 13: that everyone has the right to freedom of movement and residence within a state
Article 16: that everyone has the right to found a family, and that the family is the most fundamental unit of society that is entitled to protection by the state
Article 17: that everyone has the right to own property alone and in association with others, and no one should be deprived of their property
Article 21: that everyone has the right to the government of their country, directly or through freely chosen representatives; that everyone has the right to equal access to public services in their country; and that the will of the people should be the basis of the authority of government as expressed through periodic elections and universal suffrage
Article 22: that everyone has the right to social security and the economic, social and cultural rights indispensable to their dignity and the full realization of their human development
Article 23: that everyone has the right to choose their employment, earn equal pay and live in economic conditions sufficient for a dignified existence
Article 25: that everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and wellbeing of themselves and their families, including food, clothing, housing, medical care, social services and security in case of loss of livelihood caused by circumstances out of their control
Article 26: that everyone has the right to an education and the full realization of their human development

Identified core international human rights treaties violated by the United States Federal Government:

International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination requires that states revise governmental and other public policies and rescind laws and regulations that perpetuate racial discrimination and pass legislation for prohibiting such discrimination, including discrimination in access to political participation and all forms of civil rights as well as discrimination in access to education, employment, occupation and housing.
International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights elaborates further on the civil and political rights and freedoms listed in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The treaty requires states to commit to the promotion and respect of the self-determination of its citizens and ban all forms of discrimination in access to civil and political rights, such as racial.
International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights establishes a universal framework for the protection and preservation of the most basic economic, social and cultural rights inherent to all human beings, including the right to work in just and favorable conditions, to social protection, to an adequate standard of living, to the highest attainable standards of physical and mental health, to education and to the enjoyment and benefits of cultural freedom. The United States has not ratified this treaty.
Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment prohibits torture and other acts of cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. The treaty requires states to take legislative, administrative and judicial measures to prevent such acts from taking place during activities that disproportionately target racial minorities, such arbitrary arrests, detentions, and incarcerations, as well as in the training of police (civil or military) and other officials involved in an arrest, detention or interrogation.
Convention on the Rights of Child, the most widely ratified human rights treaty in history not ratified by the United States, establishes a universal framework for the protection and advancement of the rights of children to grow, learn, play, develop and flourish with dignity. It affirms the responsibility of the state to protect children by ensuring that the institutions, services and facilities responsible for their care conform with acceptable standards of safety, health and protection before the law without distinction of any kind, such as race.

Part 2: Beyond the pandemic: a public health crisis

Source: Alliance for Global Justice

Overview

If nothing else has, the Coronavirus pandemic has laid bare the inefficient, inaccessible, discriminatory and overall failed healthcare system of the United States. Regardless of being the most costly in the world, our privatized and for-profit healthcare system continues to fall starkly short of global standards. In addition to its failed outcomes, healthcare in the U.S. remains inaccessible to a significant portion of our population that can’t obtain employment-based insurance, don’t meet the qualifications for Medicaid or Medicare or simply can’t afford the out-of-pocket costs of care under their insurance plans.

Not only is quality healthcare in the U.S. a luxury few can afford and largely ineffective by public health standards, but it’s also utterly discriminatory: today’s treatments and services are founded on the dehumanization and abuse of women, people with disabilities and people of color as test subjects in scientific studies leading to the advancement of modern medicine. While once mass subjects of forced sterilizations and gynecological experiments that shackled them to hospital stretchers without anesthesia, Black and Brown women remain the least likely to have access to abortion and other forms of reproductive healthcare.

In the midst of the Coronavirus pandemic and the recession, Black, Brown and Indigenous communities remain disproportionately impacted by public health crises, pressure on the healthcare system: it’s no coincidence that they’re significantly more likely to die of COVID-19 while also more likely to develop underlying health conditions that compromise their immunity and less likely to have access to the care they need to treat illness.

Our uniquely disdainful healthcare system that generates record profits for insurance companies, specialized care services and the pharmaceutical industry while making life-saving care inaccessible to millions isn’t failed per se – it’s by design. One can look to the many examples of successful healthcare systems in non-wealthy countries such as Cuba that, in spite of the life-threatening economic blockade imposed by the U.S., continues to protect the right to health as a universal and inalienable human right by ensuring access to quality care that’s not contingent on the commodification and devaluation of human life.

This section dives into the public health crisis in the United States beyond the Coronavirus pandemic:

Healthcare for human rights, not profits: what the U.S. can learn from Cuba’s Coronavirus response explains why the U.S. healthcare system is designed to fail millions of poor and working class people – the criminally high price paid for maintaining a for-profit industry in the hands of private corporations.
Color of Covid: racial inequities in the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic examines how the Coronavirus pandemic’s disproportionate impacts on Black, Brown and Indigenous communities stems from the systemic racism that underlies every aspect of the U.S.
The criminalization of pregnancy: a miscarriage of justice reviews the ongoing political campaign to limit women’s power, autonomy and reproductive rights.

Violations of international human rights law

Violations of the Universal Declaration of Human RightsViolations of international human rights treaties

Identified articles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights violated by the United States Federal Government:

Article 1: that all human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights
Article 2: that everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration, without distinction of any kind, such as race, class or gender
Article 3: that everyone has the right to life, liberty and security
Article 5: that no one should be subjected to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment
Article 16: that everyone has the right to found a family, and that the family is the most fundamental unit of society that is entitled to protection by the state
Article 25: that everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and wellbeing of themselves and their families, including the right to medical care

Identified core international human rights treaties violated by the United States Federal Government:

Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination requires that countries revise governmental and other public policies and rescind laws and regulations that perpetuate racial discrimination and pass legislation for prohibiting such discrimination; particularly that which pertains to rights necessary for the advancement of social, economic and cultural rights; such healthcare.
International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights establishes a universal framework for the protection and preservation of the most basic economic, social and cultural rights all human beings are entitled to, including the right to an adequate standard of living and the right to the highest attainable standards of physical and mental health. The United States is among a few states that have not ratified this treaty.
Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women provides a basis for realizing equality between women and men. It defends women’s equal access to healthcare and affirms their right to reproductive autonomy.
Convention on the Rights of Child, the most widely ratified human rights treaty in history not ratified by the United States, establishes a universal framework for the protection and advancement of the rights of children to grow, learn, play, develop and flourish with dignity. It affirms the responsibility of the state to protect children by ensuring that the institutions, services and facilities responsible for their care conform with acceptable standards of safety and health.

Part 3: Climate crisis & the struggle for environmental justice

Source: Alliance for Global Justice

Overview

Ecological justice is social justice…and economic justice…and racial justice…and gender justice…and class justice…and all other forms of justice that we struggle to bring into being. Ecological justice underlies all human rights issues, because without clean air to breathe, clean water to drink, healthy land, waterways, and thriving and healthy networks of living things that uphold sustainable and just means of living, no other forms of justice are possible.

Decades after what can be deemed the start of the environmental justice movement, the struggle continues on hundreds of fronts throughout the United States. People in Louisiana’s Cancer Alley battle petrochemical corporations to stop cancer-causing pollution. People in Jackson, Mississippi – a largely Black city – suffered a catastrophic breakdown of their water systems that resulted in stranding 160,000 people along with hospitals, fire stations and schools, without safe drinking water. In February 2021 an extreme winter storm event caused a massive electricity generation failure in the state of Texas that resulted in a loss of power for more than 4.5 million homes, the first of which to lose electricity were often working class communities of color, resulting in at least 57 deaths and prompting Texans to demand a change to the systems and policies that prioritize maximizing profit margins over the protection of human life.

The Heat, Health & Equity Coalition in Manhattan simultaneously works to give relief to people suffering in heat emergencies, and to mitigate harm by addressing climate change, housing issues and governmental programs. WE ACT for Environmental Justice is working to reduce the amount of waste from NYC that goes into landfills and pollutes the soil, air and water. Water protectors in the Dakotas struggle to stop pipelines from encroaching on sacred lands, waterways and communities. As climate catastrophes come, the people continue to fight back for a just and sustainable future.

This section reviews the root causes and intersections of environmental struggles in the United States and their implications for human rights:

Our enviroment: enough for everyone’s need…but not everyone’s greed explains who pollutes the most, who suffers the most and what’s at stake in our climate crisis: the fundamental human right to live.
It’s all connected: racism, poverty and environmental assault explores the economic and political issues of environmental justice, especially as they relate to race and class. It explains why Black, Brown and Indigenous communities are exposed to more air pollution, landfills, lead poisoning, water pollution and industrial pollutants than white communities.
Over 530 years of struggle and solidarity: Indigenous resistance in the U.S. tells the stories of Indigenous people fighting to preserve their land, air and water, their ways of life, and their fundamental human rights, including historical and contemporary actions and campaigns led by Indigenous communities aimed at countering centuries of settler colonialism’s oppression and exploitation of the Earth and its people.

Violations of international human rights law

Violations of the Universal Declaration of Human RightsViolations of international human rights treaties

Identified articles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights violated by the United States Federal Government:

Article 1: that all human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights
Article 2: that everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration, without distinction of any kind, such as race or class
Article 3: that everyone has the right to life, liberty and security
Article 25: that everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and wellbeing of themselves and their families, including food, clothing, housing, medical care and social services
Article 28: that everyone is entitled to a social and international order in which the rights and freedoms set forth in this declaration can be fully realized

Identified core international human rights treaties violated by the United States Federal Government:

Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination requires that countries revise governmental and other public policies and rescind laws and regulations that perpetuate racial discrimination and pass legislation for prohibiting such discrimination; particularly that which pertains to rights necessary for the advancement of social, economic and cultural rights; such as the right to improvement in all aspects of environmental hygiene.
International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights establishes a universal framework for the protection and preservation of the most basic economic, social and cultural rights inherent to all human beings, including the right to work in just and favorable conditions, to social protection, to an adequate standard of living, to the highest attainable standards of physical and mental health, to education and to the enjoyment and benefits of cultural freedom. The United States has not ratified this treaty.
Convention on the Rights of Child, the most widely ratified human rights treaty in history not ratified by the United States, establishes a universal framework for the protection and advancement of the rights of children to grow, learn, play, develop and flourish with dignity. The treaty recognizes climate change as one of the greatest global challenges of future generations and a direct threat to a child’s human right to life. It affirms the responsibility of the state to take action against environmental policies and practices that inhibit the full realization of children’s human rights.

Part 4: Labor exploitation & the repression of workers’ rights

Source: Alliance for Global Justice

Overview

As the force that keeps society moving, the organized labor movement in the United States has been targeted in every way since its inception. Today, the movement is small (comprising just 10% of the total workforce), it’s frayed, and has faced insurmountable pushback from corporations. There are many reasons why unions have struggled to stay afloat. Organizing workers doesn’t come naturally or easily within the confines of our repressive political apparatus. However, things are changing. As extreme economic inequality continues to multiply, so has the recognition among working people that unions, and union organizing, provide a safety net and protection from human rights violations in and outside of the workplace.

Throughout 2021, strikes and campaigns for unions spread fervently across the U.S. If 2021 taught workers anything, it’s that the owners and regulators of production will continue to betray them as long as profit-making and the exploitation it necessitates remains foundational to economic production. The confluence of late capitalism and COVID-19 has magnified issues already well on their way, chiefly the hyper-exploitation of blue collar “essential workers”, the gig economy labor force and undocumented workers without legal protection by mega corporations that cashed in on the pandemic.

Corporate profiteers and their allies in government know they’re in violation of the rights inherent to all humans and workers. The rights owed to workers are unrecognizable in today’s workforce. The ongoing, systemic and far-reaching violations of workers’ rights attests to the foundational role of class oppression in most human rights violations. It brings to the forefront the struggle for collective liberation of all poor and working people and the importance of building a stronger and more unified labor force capable of transforming class relations in the U.S.

This section analyzes case studies of present-day labor struggles and the movement to advance workers’ human rights in the United States:

Labor organizing in the U.S. in 2022: confronting the anti-union, anti-worker corporate agenda illustrates the state of labor exploitation and efforts to quell union organizing in the United States in 2022, drawing from the victories and struggles of the organized Amazon labor movement, the United Mine Workers of America (UMW) and California gig workers.

Violations of international human rights law

Violations of the Universal Declaration of Human RightsViolations of international human rights treaties

Identified articles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights violated by the United States Federal Government:

Article 1: that all human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights
Article 2: that everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration, without distinction of any kind, such as race, class or gender
Article 3: that everyone has the right to life, liberty and security
Article 5: that no one should be subjected to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment
Article 6: that everyone has the right to recognition everywhere as a person before the law
Article 7: that all are equal before the law and entitled without discrimination to equal protection of the law
Article 10: that everyone is entitled in full equality to a fair and public hearing in the determination of their civil rights and obligations
Article 12: that no one should be subject to arbitrary interference with their privacy, family, home or correspondence
Article 16: that everyone has the right to found a family, and that the family is the most fundamental unit of society that is entitled to protection by the state
Article 22: that everyone has the right to social security and the economic, social and cultural rights indispensable to their dignity and the full realization of their human development
Article 23: that everyone has the right to employment, equal pay and economic conditions sufficient for a dignified existence
Article 24: that everyone has the right to rest and leisure, including the reasonable limitation of working hours and periodic holidays with pay
Article 25: that everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and wellbeing of themselves and their families, including food, clothing, housing, medical care, social services and security in case of loss of livelihood caused by circumstances out of their control
Article 29: that everyone is subject to limitations determined by law only for the purposes of securing due recognition and respect for the equal rights and freedoms of others and of meeting the right requirements of morality, public order and general welfare

Identified core international human rights treaties violated by the United States Federal Government:

International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights elaborates further on the civil and political rights and freedoms listed in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The treaty requires states to the promotion of equal access to civil and political rights without distinction of any kind, such as class.
International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights establishes a universal framework for the protection and preservation of the most basic economic, social and cultural rights inherent to all human beings, including the right to work in just and favorable conditions, to social protection, to an adequate standard of living and to the highest attainable standards of physical and mental health. The United States has not ratified this treaty.
International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families establishes a universal framework of minimal standards for protecting the rights of migrant workers and their families, with a focus on eliminating the exploitation of workers in the migration process that comprise a large portion of the United States’ informal and “gig economy.” The treaty has been signed and ratified by a number states, most in the Global South, the United States not being one of them.

Part 5: The struggle for disability rights

Source: Alliance for Global Justice

Overview

Approximately 40.7 million people in the United States and more than one billion people, or 15% of the world’s population, lead self-affirming lives and define themselves above and beyond what others may term their disability. In fact, the term “disability” is laden with factual, prejudicial, and emotional baggage that serves to further marginalize the people to whom it is applied. Regardless of the stigma and alienation they face, people who are differently abled share the same human rights as everyone else.

Since the mid-1900s, people with disabilities have pushed for their basic human rights. These include the recognition of disability or divergence as an aspect of identity that influences the experiences of an individual, not as the sole-defining feature of a person. They also include their rights to education, housing, employment, medical care, and accommodations in both the public and private spheres.

The ongoing struggle for social, cultural, economic and political rights in the disabled community reflects the blatant and systemic disregard for human life that permeates U.S. policies and institutions and violates the most foundational tenet of human rights: that all are born free and equal. The systemic exclusion and oppression of people with disabilities in capitalist societies such as the U.S. is compounded by its foundations in white supremacist, patriarchal and classist constructions of inherent superiority weaponized to dehumanize entire groups of people and legitimize their oppression. That supremacist ideology made its way back into mainstream discourse around the late 19th century with the birth of the eugenics movement in the U.S. and its special targeting of people with disabilities.

It should come as no surprise that many differently abled people remain more likely to experience adverse economic outcomes, prejudice and discrimination; and for people who are already marginalized by their race, gender, ethnicity, or poverty, being differently abled than others diminishes their opportunities to live life to its fullest. The law allows them to be paid less than minimum wage, while their employers reap the benefits of what amounts to slave labor.

This section examines the struggle for inclusion and overwhelming marginalization that characterizes the struggle for disability rights in the United States:

Speaking of disability introduces readers to the lived experiences of people with disabilities under capitalism as “a daily confrontation with society and its prejudices.”
Disability rights are human rights – and they affect all of us explores the intersecting struggles of people with disabilities against profound human rights violations compounded by race, class, homelessness, police violence and mass incarceration.

Violations of international human rights law

Violations of the Universal Declaration of Human RightsViolations of international human rights treaties

Identified articles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights violated by the United States Federal Government:

Article 1: that all human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights
Article 2: that everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration, without distinction of any kind, such as disability
Article 3: that everyone has the right to life, liberty and security
Article 4: that no one should be held in slavery or servitude
Article 5: that no one should be subjected to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment
Article 6: that everyone has the right to recognition everywhere as a person before the law
Article 7: that all are equal before the law and entitled without discrimination to equal protection of the law
Article 9: that no one should be subjected to arbitrary arrest, detention or exile
Article 11: that everyone charged with a penal offense has the right to be presumed innocent until proven guilty
Article 13: that everyone has the right to freedom of movement and residence within a state
Article 16: that everyone has the right to found a family, and that the family is the most fundamental unit of society that is entitled to protection by the state
Article 21: that everyone has the right to political participation in their country, directly or through freely chosen representatives; that everyone has the right to equal access to public services in their country; and that the will of the people should be the basis of the authority of government as expressed through periodic elections and universal suffrage
Article 22: that everyone has the right to social security and the economic, social and cultural rights indispensable to their dignity and the full realization of their human development
Article 23: that everyone has the right to employment, equal pay and economic conditions sufficient for a dignified existence
Article 24: that everyone has the right to rest and leisure, including the reasonable limitation of working hours and periodic holidays with pay
Article 25: that everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and wellbeing of themselves and their families, including food, clothing, housing, medical care and social services
Article 26: that everyone has the right to an education and the full realization of their human development
Article 27: that everyone has the right to freely participate in the cultural life of the community, to enjoy the arts and to share in scientific advancement and its benefits

Identified core international human rights treaties violated by the United States Federal Government:

International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights elaborates further on the civil and political rights and freedoms listed in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The treaty requires states to the promotion of equal access to civil and political rights without distinction of any kind, such as disability.
International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights establishes a universal framework for the protection and preservation of the most basic economic, social and cultural rights inherent to all human beings, including the right to work in just and favorable conditions, to social protection, to an adequate standard of living, to the highest attainable standards of physical and mental health, to education and to the enjoyment and benefits of cultural freedom. The United States has not ratified this treaty.
Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment prohibits torture and other acts of cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. The treaty requires states to take legislative, administrative and judicial measures to prevent such acts from taking place during activities that often target people with disabilities, such as arbitrary arrests, detentions and incarcerations, as well as in the training of police (civil or military) and other officials involved in an arrest, detention or interrogation.
Convention on the Rights of Child, the most widely ratified human rights treaty in history not ratified by the United States, establishes a universal framework for the protection and advancement of the rights of children to grow, learn, play, develop and flourish with dignity. It affirms the responsibility of the state to protect children by ensuring that the institutions, services and facilities responsible for their care conform with acceptable standards of safety, health and equal protection before the law necessary for the full realization of their human development.
Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities is known as the “first comprehensive human rights treaty of the 21st century” to protect and ensure the full and equal access of all people with disabilities to their fundamental human rights, widely recognized by the international community. The United States has not ratified this treaty.

Part 6: Political targeting & the militant repression of social movements

Source: Alliance for Global Justice

Overview

Political repression is the act of a state entity controlling people by force for political reasons, particularly for the purpose of restricting or undermining their ability to take part in the political life of a society. This reduces their standing compared to others in their community and the world. Political repression is often manifested through policies such as surveillance abuse, police brutality, imprisonment, involuntary settlement, lustration and violent action; or through terror, such as the murder, summary executions, torture, forced disappearances and other extrajudicial punishment of political activists, dissidents or the general population; or the stripping of civil and/or human rights. Political repression can also be reinforced by means outside of written policy, such as by public and private media ownership and self-censorship within the public.

By now you’ll have noticed a common thread in our accounting of human rights violations; namely, that they are most often suffered by Black, Brown, Indigenous and other communities of color. Evidently, racism and political repression go hand-in-hand as weapons of the fundamentally racist and oppressive status quo. The United States currently incarcerates hundreds of political prisoners, the majority of whom are Black, Brown or Indigenous or in solidarity with the anti-racist struggle.

We make the claim that racism remains the driving force in political imprisonment and other forms of repression in the U.S. This has become strikingly evident since the summer of 2020, when the police murders of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor triggered a surge in mass resistance to racism and state violence met with militant political repression. Hyper-criminalization of protests, militarization of police forces, mass arrests and detentions, a spike in police violence and murders, impunity for right-wing terrorism and bolstered state surveillance has brought in a new wave of political targeting of the anti-racist movement. Despite having identified white supremacists as the deadliest terrorist threat in the U.S., federal law enforcement continues to focus its anti-terrorism training, infrastructure and operations on so-called “Black identity extremists.”

We also recognize that the violent repression we witness today involves the same acts of violence used by the Department of Homeland Security against refugees and asylum seekers fleeing imperialist violence in their home countries. The “marine corps of the U.S. law enforcement community,” the Border Patrol Tactical Unit (BORTAC), was among the federal law enforcement agencies mobilized to surveil and intimidate protesters during the Black Lives Matter uprisings of 2020. Like other agencies under the banner of “homeland security,” BORTAC has its foundations in the historical practices designed and exported by State Department. The notorious School of the Americas (now the Western Hemispheric Institute for Security Cooperation – WHINSEC), founded by the U.S. in the Panama Canal Zone in 1946, is a site of inter-continental training in sophisticated tactics of state terrorism and repression deployed to crush leftist movements for the installation and preservation of right-wing regimes at the service of U.S. hemispheric hegemony. We recognize that the U.S. Empire – a term Noam Chomsky has described to define an “integrated policy of U.S. military and economic supremacy” – remains the greatest systemic perpetrator of human rights violations within and beyond its own borders.

This section examines the prominence and many forms of political repression in the United States today and its international applications:

Voter suppression in the U.S.: if you can’t beat them, cheat them addresses the ways in which the U.S. electoral system is decidedly un-democratic. It describes the ways in which voting, the most fundamental act of citizenship, is manipulated in a way that disenfranchises large portions of the population. It addresses structural and procedural issues and makes recommendations for improvement of these issues.
While claiming to defend freedom around the world, the U.S. has hundreds of political prisoners – and the majority are people of color examines political imprisonment in the U.S., a massive new wave of political incarceration of anti-racist activists and the intersections of racism, classism and imperialism that lead to imprisonment of those who dare to demand freedom and justice.
Security, Empire and life in the USA introduces readers to the repressive U.S. security model and its export around the world that forms the infrastructure of Empire.

Violations of international human rights law

Violations of the Universal Declaration of Human RightsViolations of international human rights treaties

Identified articles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights violated by the United States Federal Government:

Article 1: that all human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights
Article 2: that everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration, without distinction of any kind, such as race
Article 3: that everyone has the right to life, liberty and security
Article 4: that no one should be held in slavery or servitude
Article 5: that no one should be subjected to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment
Article 6: that everyone has the right to recognition everywhere as a person before the law
Article 7: that all are equal before the law and entitled without discrimination to equal protection of the law
Article 8: that everyone has the right to an effective remedy by competent national tribunals for acts violating the fundamental human rights granted to them by the constitution or law
Article 9: that no one should be subjected to arbitrary arrest, detention or exile
Article 10: that everyone is entitled in full equality to a fair and public hearing in the determination of their civil rights and obligations
Article 11: that everyone charged with a penal offense has the right to be presumed innocent until proven guilty
Article 12: that no one should be subjected to arbitrary interference with their privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor attacks upon their honor or reputation, and that everyone has the right to protection of the law against such interference or attacks
Article 13: that everyone has the right to freedom of movement and residence within the border of their state
Article 19: that everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression, including freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers
Article 20: that everyone has the right to freedom of peaceful assembly and association, and that no one may be compelled to belong to an association
Article 21: that everyone has the right to political participation in their country, directly or through freely chosen representatives; that everyone has the right to equal access to public services in their country; and that the will of the people should be the basis of the authority of government as expressed through periodic elections and universal suffrage
Article 25: that everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and wellbeing of themselves and their families, including food, clothing, housing, medical care, social services and security in case of loss of livelihood caused by circumstances out of their control
Article 27: that everyone has the right to freely participate in the cultural life of the community, to enjoy the arts and to share in scientific advancement and its benefits
Article 30: that nothing in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights may be interpreted as implying for the State, group or person any right to engage in any activity or perform any act aimed at the destruction of the human rights it stipulates

Identified core international human rights treaties violated by the United States Federal Government:

International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination requires that countries revise governmental and other public policies and rescind laws and regulations that perpetuate racial discrimination and pass legislation for prohibiting such discrimination, including policies that function to undermine their civil and political rights.
International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights elaborates further on the civil and political rights and freedoms listed in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The treaty requires states to commit to the promotion and respect of the self-determination of its citizens and ban all forms of discrimination in access to civil and political rights, such as ideological.
Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment prohibits torture and other acts of cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. The treaty requires states to take legislative, administrative and judicial measures to prevent such acts from taking place during activities such as extradition; arbitrary arrests, detentions and incarcerations; interrogation; and training of police (civil or military) and other officials involved in the arrest, detention or interrogation. Despite its status as a signatory, the United States continues to promote and permit violations of these guidelines within its own carceral system as well as in its foreign sponsorship of prisons, policing and military regimes.
Convention of the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance establishes a universal framework for affirming and protecting the victims and families of victims of enforced disappearances, which are defined as any kind of arrest, detention abduction or form of deprivation of liberty by agents of the state or groups acting with the authorization, support or acquiescence of the state. The United States has not signed nor ratified this treaty.

Part 7: Border militarization & the criminalization of migration

Source: Alliance for Global Justice

Media narratives about the border tend to be reductive. It’s just a border wall, for example. Or it’s only people like Donald Trump or the Republicans who want to build it up. In most cases, narratives rarely capture the reality of what the border has become: a massive and expanding monolith that is much bigger, much more expansive, and much more brutal than portrayed. Given the human rights consequences of the border and the daily hardship it creates for people, it’s imperative to understand what it has become, where it’s headed and what it’s made of.

There are many times when you could pinpoint the hyper-militarization of the U.S. border began, but as you’ll see in the following articles, we often start in the year 1994 when the U.S. government announced its “prevention through deterrence” strategy. This strategy called for the fortification of the border with more agents, walls, and technologies in border urban zones such as El Paso, San Diego and Nogales. The idea was that if such cities became impassable then other areas where people would be forced to cross, such as the Arizona desert, would be formidable, even deadly. Since this 1994 strategy was implemented, border and immigration enforcement budgets have gone up dramatically and historically, from $1.5 billion to $26 billion. On the ground this has meant more than 700 miles of border walls, billions and billions of dollars of surveillance technology — including drones, invasive biometrics and detention centers. And it has meant the enrichment of many companies.

The border has long become a massive militarized zone that expands far away from the border itself into hundred mile zones that run along the U.S. international boundaries and coasts. This includes the Caribbean where the “third border” runs out of Puerto Rico and beyond. Alongside “prevention through deterrence,” since 9/11, a principal U.S. border strategy has been its extension through the Western Hemisphere and across the world.

The United States is polluting the world and locking refugees out examines the compounded crisis of climate change, increased border migration and expanding border enforcement spearheaded by the United States leaving victims with nowhere to go.
Over 7,000 bodies have been found at the U.S.-Mexican border since the ’90s spotlights the militarization of the U.S. border and “war” against immigrants long preceding the presidency of Donald Trump resulting in thousands of migrant deaths in the southwestern United States.
The U.S. is wrapping its border wall around the world explains the phenomenon of border imperialism promoted by the United States, a global strategy to contain the harmful byproducts of unfettered capitalism and military occupations driving displacement around the world.
Under Biden, the border wall is more powerful than ever deconstructs the increasingly profitable border wall apparatus and skyrocketing border enforcement budgets under the Biden Administration.

We hope these articles shatter some of the prevalent narratives about the border and offer a new way of thinking about them. Borders are more than just a wall, but an instrument of empire. They have been and are designed to brutalize people and separate families, no matter what political party is in power in the United States. There is a force of money behind them, and many companies making bank. But most importantly, they are an enforcement apparatus designed to uphold a status quo of a world where business as usual, the proverbial rich getting richer and poor getting poorer in an age of increasing climate chaos.

Violations of international human rights law

Violations of the Universal Declaration of Human RightsViolations of international human rights treaties

Identified articles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights violated by the United States Federal Government:

Article 1: that all human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights
Article 2: that everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration, without distinction of any kind, such as national origin
Article 3: that everyone has the right to life, liberty and security
Article 4: that no one should be held in slavery or servitude
Article 5: that no one should be subjected to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment
Article 6: that everyone has the right to recognition everywhere as a person before the law
Article 7: that all are equal before the law and entitled without discrimination to equal protection of the law
Article 9: that no one should be subjected to arbitrary arrest, detention or exile
Article 10: that everyone is entitled in full equality to a fair and public hearing in the determination of their civil rights and obligations
Article 11: that everyone charged with a penal offense has the right to be presumed innocent until proven guilty
Article 12: that no one should be subjected to arbitrary interference with their privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor attacks upon their honor or reputation, and that everyone has the right to protection of the law against such interference or attacks
Article 13: that everyone has the right to freedom of movement and residence within the borders of each state, and that everyone has the right to leave any country, including their own, and to return to their own country
Article 14: that everyone has the right to seek and enjoy in other countries asylum from persecution
Article 15: that everyone has the right to a nationality, and that no one should be arbitrarily deprived of their nationality nor denied the right to change their nationality
Article 22: that everyone has the right to social security and the economic, social and cultural rights indispensable to their dignity and the full realization of their human development, through national effort and international cooperation and in accordance with the organization and resources of each state
Article 25: that everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and wellbeing of themselves and their families, including food, clothing, housing, medical care, social services and security in case of loss of livelihood caused by circumstances out of their control
Article 28: that everyone is entitled to a social and international order in which the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration can be fully realized
Article 30: that nothing in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights may be interpreted as implying for the State, group or person any right to engage in any activity or perform any act aimed at the destruction of the human rights it stipulates

Identified core international human rights treaties violated by the United States Federal Government:

International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination requires that states revise governmental and other public policies and rescind laws and regulations that perpetuate racial discrimination and pass legislation for prohibiting such discrimination, including discrimination in protection before the law and all forms of civil rights as well as discrimination in access to education, employment, occupation and housing regardless of national origin.
International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights elaborates further on the civil and political rights and freedoms listed in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The treaty requires states to the promotion of equal access to civil and political rights without distinction of any kind, such as disability.
International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights establishes a universal framework for international cooperation in the protection and preservation of the most basic economic, social and cultural rights inherent to all human beings regardless of national origin, including the right to work in just and favorable conditions, to social protection, to an adequate standard of living, to the highest attainable standards of physical and mental health, to education and to the enjoyment and benefits of cultural freedom. The United States has not ratified this treaty.
International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights elaborates further on the civil and political rights and freedoms listed in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The treaty requires states to recognize universal equality before the law in the protection of equal access to civil and political rights without distinction of any kind, such as national origin. The treaty also distinguishes children’s rights to protection of equal access to civil and political rights, including the right to acquire a nationality, under the supervision of family, society and the state as required by their status as minors.
Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment prohibits all torture and other acts of cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. The treaty requires states to take legislative, administrative and judicial measures to prevent such acts from taking place during activities that disproportionately target racial minorities and other marginalized identities, such as arbitrary arrests and detentions, as well as in the training of police (civil or military) and other officials involved in arrest, detention or interrogation. Given their status as non-citizens and likelihood of experiencing repression in equal access to civil and political rights before the law, refugees and asylum-seekers are particularly vulnerable to experiencing such treatment or punishment.
Convention on the Rights of Child, the most widely ratified human rights treaty in history not ratified by the United States, establishes a universal framework for the protection and advancement of the rights of children to grow, learn, play, develop and flourish with dignity. It affirms the responsibility of the state to protect all children by ensuring that its institutions, services and facilities responsible for their care conform with acceptable standards of safety, health and protection before the law without distinction of any kind, such as national origin.
Convention of the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance establishes a universal framework for affirming and protecting the victims and families of victims of enforced disappearance, which is defined as any kind of arrest, detention abduction or form of deprivation of liberty by agents of the state or groups acting with the authorization, support or acquiescence of the state. The United States has not signed nor ratified this treaty.

Conclusion by Margaret Kimberley

Source: Kay Hickman Photography

By Margaret Kimberley, Executive Editor and Senior Columnist (Black Agenda Report)

“The words human rights are used quite frequently but conditions around the world prove that they are rarely taken seriously. The United States, which claims to be a protector of human rights, has more people imprisoned, some two million, than any other country on earth. Yet it routinely accuses other nations that won’t bend to its will of being human rights abusers. The term has become a weapon of coercion, a means of intimidation. So much so that it will lose all meaning unless those of us who are serious about protecting human rights take up the charge.

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) is a good starting point to determine when and how human rights should be respected and protected. The UDHR confirms that human beings have the right to life and liberty, fair trials, the presumption of innocence, freedom of thought and opinion, living wage work, housing, healthcare, and free education. It condemns arbitrary detention, torture, and any form of discrimination. The U.S. doesn’t do well by any of these metrics. It doesn’t support the rights of its own citizens and routinely deprives others of what it claims to lift up.” (Read more)