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

07.12.11 -  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. The U.S. Legal Program advocates with a variety of UN mechanisms to provide information about the U.S. government's progress in implementing its obligations.

Treaty Monitoring Bodies

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.

Human Rights Committee (Monitors the ICCPR)

In 2006, the U.S. was reviewed for its compliance with the ICCPR. The U.S. government submitted a report to the Human Rights Committee in preparation for its review. The Center, seeking to ensure that the committee was fully informed, submitted its own report, or shadow letter. The letter addresses the U.S. government's failure to respect, protect and fulfill the rights to reproductive healthcare and nondiscrimination. The U.S. government has submitted its next periodic report to the HRC, triggering another review of its human rights record in 2013. 


Committee against Torture (Monitors the CAT)

The Center’s U.S. Legal Program has joined the International Legal Program in advocating for an end to torture, cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment in health care settings . In the United States, women in state and federal prisons, jails and immigration detention centers are often forcibly restrained with shackles while in childbirth, ostensibly to prevent a security or flight risk. The Center has drawn international attention to shackling as a form of cruel treatment and called on the U.S. government to strengthen legal protections, ensure accountability, and provide remedies to women harmed. The U.S. Legal Program will address this human rights issue and others deprivations of reproductive healthcare in state custody or control when the U.S. government next reports to the CAT in 2013.

Committee on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (Monitors the ICERD)

In 2007, the U.S. reported on its progress in eliminating racial discrimination to theCERD 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.

In March 2008, the Committee issued its Concluding Observations on the U.S. progress in implementing the ICERD, echoing the Center's concerns over racial disparities in sexual and reproductive health, and recommending that the U.S. improve access to maternal healthcare, family planning, pre- and post- natal care and emergency obstetric services, and provide adequate sexuality education to prevent unwanted pregnancies. The CERD Committee will next review the U.S. in 2013.

Learn more about the Center's successful advocacy addressing racial disparities in the United States >

Human Rights Council

The Human Rights Council is a relatively new inter-governmental body that promotes state compliance with human rights obligations. Under the Universal Periodic Review mechanism, the Council reviews the human rights record of every UN member state once every four years. The United States was reviewed for the first time in November 2010. In April 2010, The Center submitted a shadow report to the Human Rights Council on the topic of reproductive rights, focusing on pervasive racial disparities in reproductive and sexual health; obstacles to women's access to safe, legal abortion; and the practice of shackling incarcerated pregnant women.

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.

In January 2009, the U.S. Legal Program filed a communication to Ms. Margaret Sekaggya, 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. The Special Rapporteur acknowledged in her 2010 Report to the Human Rights Council that reproductive healthcare providers who are targeted with harassment, intimidation and physical violence as a result of their work are human rights defenders

Learn more about the Center's successful advocacy to recognize U.S. abortion providers as women's human rights defenders >

The Special Rapporteur on Violence against Women, Ms. Rashida Manjoo, conducted a country visit to the U.S. in early 2011. In preparation for her visit, a group of advocates working on a wide range of issues related to violence against women in the U.S. submitted a series of briefing papers to the Special Rapporteur and met with her to discuss priority issues and recommendations. The Center contributed to a briefing paper on domestic violence, explaining that one way abusers seek to control their intimate partners is by limiting their means of controlling their own reproduction. The Special Rapporteur addressed this important link in her official report to the United States government , issued in May 2011. Read the full collection of civil society briefing papers which includes chapters on due diligence obligations, domestic violence, the role of guns, women in the military, and women in detention here.

The U.S. Legal Program has submitted appeals to Special Procedures to condemn the U.S. practice of shackling incarcerated women during childbirth as a form of cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment. The Center submitted appeals in 2009 to the Special Rapporteur on Torture and in 2012 to the Special Rapporteur on the human rights of migrants. An analysis of this issue was also included in a briefing paper for human rights bodies on the topic of torture and cruel treatment in healthcare facilities.