The UPR is Coming to The SF Bay Area on March 25 and 26 and MCLI Will Be There!
by Susan Scott, MCLI Board President
MCLI has been a leader in 
reporting about the problems with US> compliance with the three human rights treaties it has approved. (ICCPR, ICERD, ICAT, International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination and the International Convention Against Torture or Other Cruel Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment).
When the US government breached its obligation to report to the appropriate treaty committees, MCLI and other NGOs wrote their own “shadow reports” about the aftermath of Katrina, immigrant detention, and other local abuses. MCLI sent Board member Judge Claudia Morcom and Rev. Daniel Buford to Geneva to present its report to the UN committees. The Committees included the issues highlighted in the shadow reports in their commentary on US failure to comply with the treaties it has approved.
And now there is a new way to report on US compliance with its human rights obligations: The UPR – Universal Periodic Review -- is a new mechanism of the UN Human Rights Council, a crucial body of the UN, which the US joined after Obama’s inauguration. The UPR requires all 192 UN member states to report to the Human Rights Council (via the Office of the High Commissioner of Human Rights) about their compliance – and non-compliance – with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and all treaties signed and/or approved by the US. All UN member states are scheduled to have their human rights compliance reviewed every 4 years. The UN General Assembly initiated this process in 2008 and the Human Rights Council holds review sessions for 16 countries every three months.
The US comes up for its first review this December.
NGO’s can file reports to the Office of the High Commissioner of Human Rights and the issues they highlight will appear in the OHCHR civil society report to the Human Rights Council. MCLI will be submitting a report on the lack of local publication of HR treaties On March 1, the Berkeley Commission on Peace & Justice passed a resolution asking the Berkeley City Council to submit a brief report on its human rights ordinance and 3-treaty commitment for the UPR as a stakeholder.
But there’s something else we can do and MCLI will be doing -- Each government under review is obligated to write its own “country report” and to reach out to national civil society groups to get in-put on the most pressing issues. So the State Department, and federal agencies like Justice and Health and Human Services, are holding “consultations” in several US cities, including San Francisco/Bay Area , in the next few weeks to gather information for the report they are required to make to the UN Human Rights Council.
The UPR consultation for the Bay Area will occur on March 25 and 26 at the The Bancroft Hotel in Berkeley and USF. MCLI ex-director and Board member Ann Fagan Ginger and MCLI staffer Kot Hordinski will be there to report on the need for local education and reporting on treaty compliance. George Lippman and Diana Bohn from the Berkeley Peace and Justice Commission will also come to talk about Berkeley’s ground-breaking Three Treaties Reporting Project.
This is the best possible way for US local groups to get their information on human rights abuses before the UN Human Rights Council for the UPR.
Contact Kot if you want to get involved with MCLI: kot[at]mcli[dot]org. And check out the US State Department website to report human rights abuses for the US government’s UPR report: www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/ps/2009/dec/133606.htm To get UPR Consultation dates in your click here.