Sometimes, quite a bit. Did you know that in Beijing alone, over 1.25 million people were forcibly displaced from their homes to make way for Olympics-related development in the lead-up to the 2008 Games?
Recently, we brought you a report on the first comprehensive review of the U.S. human rights record on an international stage and shared how video was incorporated, for the first time, as part of the Universal Periodic Review process.
This week marks the first comprehensive review of the U.S. human rights record on an international stage. On November 5, 2010 the UN Human Rights Council will question the U.S. about its past human rights record under a process known as the Universal Periodic Review (UPR).
Last week from September 29-October 1, I was able to attend the Joan B. Kroc Institute for Peace and Justice’s “Precarious Progress: UN Resolutions on Women, Peace and Security” working conference aimed at examining the progress made by recent UN Security Council Resolutions regarding women and armed conflict.
Eric Tars is a staff attorney at the National Law Center for Homelessness and Poverty (NLCHP), which works to prevent and end homelessness by serving as the legal arm of the US movement to end homelessness. Tars is
Here’s Tars’ Latest Dispatch
Today was a day of ups and downs. Up: we had a great information sharing session this morning with some of the more experienced international activists helping some of the newer folks get a handle on the UN system. We then proceeded to divide up into working groups to work collectively to prepare answers for our briefing tomorrow morning with the Committee. This is so whatever questions we get asked, we will answer the question, but then bridge back to all the essential issues we want to be sure the Committee is paying attention to. This process is important for the actions with the Committee, but the silent benefits of working together, hearing each other, learning that we all have contributions that we can and should make to the joint effort is priceless.
Down: We learned today that the St. Bernard public housing development is being torn down as we speak. People’s belongings that they have never been able to get because the development has been blocked off since Katrina are being tossed out of the apartments in giant heaps. Families lives – photos, childhood drawings and letters, are being trashed and people’s homes are being destroyed. It makes the work we’re doing here all the more urgent and essential.
Up: we met with the UN staff who are dealing with the new Universal Periodic Review (UPR) mechanism of the Human Rights Council. Under the UPR, every country in the world will be reviewed every 4 years for an entire span of human rights violations – civil, political, economic, social and cultural. The U.S. is first up for review in 2010, so we have plenty of time to prepare. We were told that the U.S. is supposed to engage in a “broad consultative process” to prepare their official report to the UN. I might not speak for everyone here, but I plan to make that happen – I’m envisioning regional and local testimonial panels, collection of stories of abuses, collection of success stories where rights are being protected, and the involvement of all levels and branches of government. Maybe I’m an idealist, but I think this is a great opportunity. One limitation – the entire U.S. report has to be only 20 pages, and the NGO commentary on that report is only 10. If we had trouble getting all our issues into under 700 pages for this report…well, let’s just say it will call for some new forms of creative activism…
