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). The UN Human Rights Council will ask the U.S. government about actions it plans to take to improve the human rights situation in the country and make recommendations that the U.S. should follow to fulfill its obligations.
In preparation for this review, human rights groups from across the U.S. came together to spotlight the shortcomings of the country’s human rights protections and practices. The U.S. Human Rights Network (USHRN), which consists of over 300 prominent human rights organizations and community groups, produced a lengthy report detailing the glaring inadequacies in the United States’ human rights record, talked with international and U.S. government officials and collected video testimony from individuals across the U.S.
This week, we will be bringing you video straight from the UN in Geneva leading up to the review this Friday. We hope this short series will provide insight into the breadth of issues being discussed at the UN Human Rights Council and outline why your support in pressuring the U.S. government to implement UN recommendations over the next four years until the next review in 2014 will count.
This first video comes from Eric Tars, Human Rights Program Director from the National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty and highlights the human right to housing:
For more information on the UN’s review of the U.S. human rights record and to support the initial recommendations that will be announced next Tuesday, visit the USHRN’s UPR Project page.
Watch Eric's report about Day 2 of the UPR process from the UN in Geneva, here:
and continue to follow his updates throughout the week.
Doing these video blogs is such a good way to ensure that constituents and supporters are included in some of these institutional spaces like the UN. Eric was one of the power-users of the WITNESS Hub project, and has made frequent use in his work of daily video blogs from site visits and UN meetings to bring home and share with a broader activist community what goes on in places like the UN; it's a model other human rights advocates could usefully follow to ensure their constituents and supporters are included in some of these spaces.
There are more of Eric's 'daily update' style videos from earlier missions on the HR2H (Human Right to Housing) page on the Hub, and looking forward to seeing more updates as the week goes on!