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<div class="header reader-header reader-show-element"> <font
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href="https://www.theguardian.com/law/2019/jan/04/trump-administration-un-human-rights-violations">https://www.theguardian.com/law/2019/jan/04/trump-administration-un-human-rights-violations</a></font>
<h1 class="reader-title">US halts cooperation with UN on
potential human rights violations</h1>
<div class="credits reader-credits">Ed Pilkington - January 4,
2019<br>
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<p>The <a
href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/trump-administration"
data-link-name="auto-linked-tag"
data-component="auto-linked-tag">Trump administration</a>
has stopped cooperating with UN investigators over
potential human rights violations occurring inside
America, in a move that delivers a major blow to
vulnerable US communities and sends a dangerous signal
to authoritarian regimes around the world.</p>
<p>Quietly and unnoticed, the state department has ceased
to respond to official complaints from UN special
rapporteurs, the network of independent experts who act
as global watchdogs on fundamental issues such as
poverty, migration, freedom of expression and justice.
There has been no response to any such formal query
since 7 May 2018, with at least 13 requests going <a
href="https://spcommreports.ohchr.org/TmSearch/Results?page=1"
data-link-name="in body link">unanswered</a>.</p>
<p>Nor has the Trump administration extended any
invitation to a UN monitor to visit the US to
investigate human rights inside the country since the
start of Donald Trump’s term two years ago in January
2017. Two UN experts have made official fact-finding
visits under his watch – the special rapporteurs on <a
href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/jun/22/united-nations-poverty-report-philip-alston"
data-link-name="in body link">extreme poverty</a> and
<a
href="https://www.ohchr.org/EN/Issues/Privacy/SR/Pages/SRPrivacyIndex.aspx"
data-link-name="in body link">privacy</a> – but both
were invited initially by Barack Obama, who hosted 16
such visits during his presidency.</p>
<figure data-alt="Sign up for the new US morning briefing">
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Sign up for the new US morning briefing
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<p>The silent treatment being meted out to key players in
the UN’s system for advancing human rights marks a stark
break with US practice going back decades. Though some
areas of American public life have consistently been
ruled out of bounds to UN investigators – US prisons and
the detention camp on Guantánamo Bay are deemed
off-limits – Washington has in general welcomed monitors
into the US as part of a wider commitment to upholding
international norms.</p>
<p>Jamil Dakwar, director of the American Civil Liberties
Union’s human rights program, said the shift gave the
impression the US was no longer serious about honoring
its own human rights obligations. The ripple effect
around the world would be dire.</p>
<p>“They are sending a very dangerous message to other
countries: that if you don’t cooperate with UN experts
they will just go away. That’s a serious setback to the
system created after World War II to ensure that
domestic human rights violations could no longer be seen
as an internal matter,” Dakwar said.</p>
<p>Among the formal approaches that have failed to receive
a response from the US over the past several months are
queries about <a
href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/jun/18/why-are-families-being-separated-at-the-us-border-explainer"
data-link-name="in body link">family separation of
Central Americans </a><a
href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/jun/18/why-are-families-being-separated-at-the-us-border-explainer"
data-link-name="in body link"> at the US border with
Mexico</a>, death threats against a transgender
activist in Seattle and allegations of anti-gay bias in
the sentencing to death of a prisoner in South Dakota.</p>
<p>The new breach with international experts comes at a
perilous moment for the US, both externally and within
its own borders. Externally, Trump has forged an
increasingly unilateral path on foreign policy: in June
he <a
href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/jun/19/us-quits-un-human-rights-council-cesspool-political-bias"
data-link-name="in body link">shocked the world</a> by
pulling the US out of the UN human rights council,
complaining it was a “cesspool of political bias”, and
he has caused further consternation by siding with the
Saudi crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, despite
evidence <a
href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/nov/20/trump-saudi-arabia-jamal-khashoggi-crown-prince"
data-link-name="in body link">linking Prince Mohammed</a>
to the murder of the Washington Post columnist Jamal
Khashoggi.</p>
<p>Domestically, Trump has run roughshod over the
constitutional rights of <a
href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/nov/08/trump-administration-blocks-asylum-claims-by-those-crossing-border-illegally"
data-link-name="in body link">asylum seekers</a> at
the US border, attempted to deny the legal existence of
<a
href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/oct/21/trump-administration-define-transgender-out-of-existence-new-york-times"
data-link-name="in body link">transgender people</a>
and introduced tax cuts that have greatly exacerbated
income inequality in a country in which <a
href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/dec/15/extreme-poverty-america-un-special-monitor-report"
data-link-name="in body link">40 million people</a>
live in poverty, among many other controversies.</p>
<p>The timing of the break in relations with UN
investigators coincides with the publication in June of
the official findings of Philip Alston’s visit to the US
to research poverty. As UN special rapporteur on extreme
poverty, Alston <a
href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/jun/22/united-nations-poverty-report-philip-alston"
data-link-name="in body link">castigated</a> the Trump
administration for aggravating levels of inequality that
were already the most glaring in the western world.</p>
<p>Alston’s robust criticism was <a
href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/jun/21/nikki-haley-un-poverty-report-misleading-politically-motivated"
data-link-name="in body link">received badly</a> by
Nikki Haley, then US ambassador, who accused him of
biased reporting. She hinted that the administration was
minded to turn its back on international accountability
by saying it was “patently ridiculous” that the UN
should focus on America’s internal human rights
standards when it could be looking into countries like
Burundi.</p>
<p>It is not known whether the decision to sever
cooperation with the UN monitors was directly related to
the spat over Alston’s report. But emails seen by the
Guardian involving top US state department officials in
Geneva show that by July they were rebuffing contact
with international agencies on grounds that they were
“considering how best to engage with special
procedures”, the blanket term for the network of UN
special rapporteurs.</p>
<p>In a statement to the Guardian, the state department
declined to explain why it was no longer responding to
UN experts or to say whether non-cooperation was now
permanent policy. A spokesman said the US remained
“deeply committed to the promotion and defense of human
rights around the globe”, but pointedly omitted any
reference to US compliance domestically.</p>
<p>Similarly, the spokesman expressed “strong support” for
UN special rapporteurs, but only in the context of their
investigations into other countries. The US backs those
mandates “that have proven effective in illuminating the
most grave human rights environments, including in Iran
and DPRK [North Korea]”, he said.</p>
<p>Paradoxically, the Trump administration’s decision to
shun the UN’s independent watchdogs places the US among
a tiny minority of uncooperative states. There are very
few countries that resist international oversight from
UN special rapporteurs – one of them is North Korea.</p>
<p>Individual UN experts expressed dismay at the US cold
shoulder they are now receiving. Alston said the move
would set “the most unfortunate precedent as the US has
always tried to press other countries to be accountable.
This sends a message that you can opt out of routine
scrutiny if you don’t like what is being said about your
record on human rights.”</p>
<p>Felipe González Morales, the UN special rapporteur on
the <a
href="https://www.ohchr.org/en/issues/migration/srmigrants/pages/srmigrantsindex.aspx"
data-link-name="in body link">human rights of migrants</a>,
has twice approached the US government requesting a
formal visit to inspect how the country is handling
immigration including the crisis at the Mexican border –
once in March and then in July. He has yet to receive a
reply.</p>
<p>“In the absence of an official visit, we cannot publish
a country report to be presented to the UN human rights
council,” he said.</p>
<figure
data-interactive="https://interactive.guim.co.uk/embed/iframe-wrapper/0.1/boot.js"
data-canonical-url="https://interactive.guim.co.uk/embed/2018/12/end-of-year/v1/generic.htm"
data-alt="...">
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<p>The UN expert on <a
href="https://www.ohchr.org/en/issues/housing/pages/leilanifarha.aspx"
data-link-name="in body link">adequate housing</a>,
Leilani Farha, told the Guardian that she was concerned
about the silence emanating from the US state
department. Having been appointed to the post in 2014,
she made five official complaints to the Obama
administration and in each case received “timely,
thoughtful and constructive responses, even if we
continued to disagree”.</p>
<p>Farha expressed unease at the new lack of engagement at
a time when so many human rights problems were cropping
up in the US, including a homelessness crisis in many
cities.</p>
<p>“This suggests the US has abandoned even the most
rudimentary forms of human rights accountability, and a
whittling away of access to justice for those in the US
whose human rights may have been violated,” Farha said.
“It also demonstrates a rather inappropriate arrogance,
at a time when human rights in the US are particularly
fragile.”</p>
<p>The US government will not be able to avoid
international scrutiny entirely. In 2020 it will face a
routine “universal periodic review” undertaken by the
human rights council – an obligation Trump cannot escape
despite having withdrawn US membership.</p>
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