Engaging United Nations’ Systems to Implement U.S. Human Rights Obligations

03.05.09 - An important component of the Center's work is ensuring that the United States lives up to its human rights commitments related to reproductive rights and health. The U. S. has signed seven of the nine major human rights treaties in the United Nations system, obligating itself to abide by the spirit and purpose of each of those treaties. In addition, the U.S. has ratified three of the treaties: the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (ICERD) and the Convention Against Torture and Other Forms of Cruel, Inhuman and Degrading Treatment (CAT). Ratification makes the treaties part of U.S. law and imposes an international legal obligation that the U.S. implement the treaty's provisions through its laws and policies. It also requires the U.S. to periodically report to U.N. committees charged with monitoring the government's progress in meeting its human rights obligations.

When it comes time for the U.S. to report, the Center's U.S. Legal program works to ensure that the committees have full and complete information necessary to evaluate the U.S. record on ensuring reproductive rights.


Treaty Monitoring Bodies

In 2006, the U.S. was reviewed for its compliance with the ICCPR, and submitted a report for the committee's review. The Center, seeking to ensure that the committee was fully informed, submitted its own report, or "shadow letter" to the Human Rights Committee. The letter addresses the U.S. government’s failure to respect, protect and fulfill the rights to reproductive healthcare and nondiscrimination.

In 2007, the U.S. reported on its progress in eliminating racial discrimination to the CERD Committee. The Center both authored a shadow letter to the Committee and contributed to a joint shadow report on behalf of dozens of non-governmental and community based organizations. In these documents, the Center discussed how the U.S. government’s failure to address dramatic racial disparities in reproductive health outcomes constitutes racial discrimination in violation of the treaty. In February, 2008, the Center joined a delegation of over 120 individuals and representatives of organizations in Geneva at the CERD Committee’s review of the U.S.

 

Special Procedures

In addition to holding the U.S. accountable before U.N. treaty monitoring committees, the Center's U.S. Legal Program engages U.N. human rights experts charged with addressing specific types of human rights abuses. These experts include special rapporteurs, independent experts, special representatives, or working groups. They examine, monitor, and publicly report on human rights conditions in a country, then work directly with governments to improve their human rights records. The Center's International Legal Program has worked extensively with the Special Rapporteur on Health and the Special Rapporteur on Violence Against Women. In addition, in July 2008, the U.S. Legal Program filed a communication to the U.N. Special Rapporteur on Human Rights Defenders (people who act to promote or protect human rights) to urge her to investigate the persistent attacks on a class of women’s rights defenders in the United States--medical professionals who provide abortions.

Learn more about the Center's advocacy before the UN and the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights to gain recognition for U.S. abortion providers as women's rights defenders >

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