[cure-news] NGOs Report on US Compliance to ICERD

[Ida Hakim]

AS U.N. HEARING ON U.S. RECORD ON RACE COMES TO AN END, DELEGATION OF 
U.S. NGOs SAY GOVERNMENT DELEGATION FAILED TO ADDRESS ISSUES OF 
STRUTURAL RACISM

February 21, 2008, Geneva, Switzerland ? As proceedings on the Bush 
Administration?s compliance of their obligations under International 
Convention on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (ICERD), an 
international treaty ratified by the U.S. in 1994, came to a close 
today, the US Human Rights Network (USHRN) says the U.S. delegation 
failed completely to address issues of structural racism that persist in 
the United States today.

In response to questions posed by the U.N. Committee that monitors 
compliance under the treaty posed after the first day of proceedings 
that took place yesterday, representatives from federal agencies, 
including the Department of Justice and the State Department, provided a 
narrow interpretation of the government?s obligations, and unpersuasive 
rationalizations for the failure of the government to combat both direct 
and indirect forms of racism, as the treaty mandates.

Lisa Crooms, a co-author of the USHRN shadow report and Professor of Law 
at Howard University, stated, ?The government is speaking its own unique 
language regarding race and rights, which is at odds with the universal 
language of human rights. The government assumes no legal obligations to 
address racial discrimination or provide remedy for the victims, and 
instead justifies the disparate impacts that affect minorities in the 
U.S. today as the personal failures of the victims.?

Over 120 activists and experts who traveled to Geneva to monitor the 
proceedings and hold the U.S. government accountable, including many 
associated with the 250-member USHRN, were disappointed, but not 
surprised, by the government?s outright denial that disparities that 
exist in the U.S. today are caused by racial inequalities, and assertion 
that the U.S. is meeting it?s duties under the treaty. The government?s 
view of discrimination is contrary to the experiences of the victims of 
racial discrimination, which were shared in testimonies to the Committee 
earlier this week.

In December 2007 the Network released an in-depth, independent ?shadow 
report? that details how the Bush Administration has failed to comply 
with the treaty. Members of the U.N. Committee referenced the USHRN 
shadow report in many of their questions to the U.S. delegation on 
issues ranging from the ongoing hardships that people displaced by 
Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, who are mostly African American, continue 
to face, to the disenfranchisement and stripping of voting rights for 
racial minorities in a presidential election year.

In March, the U.N. Committee will issue their concluding observations of 
U.S. compliance under the treaty.

Ajamu Baraka, Executive Director of the USHRN added, ?We expect that the 
Committee will find in it?s concluding observations that the U.S. 
continues to evade its obligations to root out all forms of racial 
discrimination, both direct and indirect, public and private, from U.S. 
society.?

To view a copy of the shadow report submitted by the US Human Rights 
Network, please visit: http://www.ushrnetwork.org/cerd_shadow_2008