As a result of the election that took place this May 3rd in the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC), United States lost its position in the Commission on Human Rights Of the United Nations. This country has held this position without interruption since 1947. This decision must be interpreted as a condemnation by the international community to the persistent United States policy of disrespect to human rights.
In March 2000, the American Association of Jurists denounced before the Commission on Human rights "the generalized and persistent violations of the civil, political, economic social and cultural rights in the United States of America, aggravated by the fact that the government of that country considered that the United States had to be placed over and above international law." The American Association of Jurists also urged the Commission to express its great concern by the current state of affairs and to indicate to that country's government that international law and human rights exist to be respected by all Member States of the international community, be they big or small and without exception.
In fact, the United States of America has not adhered to a large number of current international instruments of human rights. Among them, the International Pact on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights; to the Optional Protocols to the International Covenant on Social, Civil and Political Rights; the Convention against Apartheid; The Convention on the Non-Applicability of Statutory Limitations to War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity; the Convention against the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination against Women; the Convention for the Suppression of the Traffic in Persons and of the Exploitation of the Prostitution of Others; The Convention on the Status of Refugees; The Convention of the Rights of Migrant Workers and Members of their Families; the Convention of Ottawa of 1997 that prohibits anti-personal mines, and the United States refuses to respect the Protocol of Kyoto calling for the reduction of environmental contamination.
The United States did not vote for the creation of the Internal Court of Criminal Law, even though U.S. nationals would have had a guarantee of impunity since the activities of the Court will be subordinated to the Security Council.
The United States has adhered to only 12 of over 170 Covenants of the International Labor Organization and they are not among the main ones. Among those ignored are number 87 regarding freedom of association, number 98, on the right to collective bargaining number 138 on minimum age requirements of workers.
When ratifying the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the United States reserved its adherence to numerous articles among them article 6.5 that prohibits the application of the death penalty for crimes committed by children under the age of 18, and in the name of freedom of expression, it reserved its adherence to article 20 which prohibits the use of war propaganda and ethnic, racial or religious hatred. It is one of two countries in the world that has not ratified the Convention on the rights of the Child.
During a press conference in 1994, James Grant, who was then Executive Director of UNICEF, stated as he presented the publication " The Progress of the United Nations 1994", that the situation of children in the United States of America was the worst in the industrialized world. In effect, 20% of the children of the country live under poverty compared to other industrialized countries, where the percentage varies approximately from 5% for Western Europe to 10% in Canada, Australia and the United Kingdom. It is also estimated that an average of three million children are victims of abandonment, mistreatment, and sexual violence in the United States each year. This is three times more than in 1980.
In the report of the Special Reporter for the Commission Human Rights for 1996, on the sale of children, child prostitution and the use of children in pornography, she cited a report of the Department of Health and Human Services of the United States of America, which estimated up to 300,000 child prostitutes in that country. The same number, but from a different source is cited in " The Progress of Nations in 1995", a UNICEF publication. The Reporter reiterated these numbers in her report of 1997 on her mission to the United States, which took place in December of 1996. This time adding that in that country 22.7% of minors under the age of 18 live under the poverty rate.
Even though it does not have the magnitude existing in other countries, child labor, exist in a great scale in clandestine and semi-clandestine sweatshops in New York, Los Angeles and other cities, and it is common in the farm areas.
Since 1992, almost all the States of the United States have approved laws that permit the criminal indictment and trial of children as adults. Several states have set the age limit to 10, except Michigan, which has no age limit. Within the past ten years, 12 people who have been condemned as minors have been executed. About 70 people who committed crimes as minors wait in prison to be executed. Since the death penalty has been re-established in 1976 over 600 people have been executed with about 200 in executions taking place in the State of Texas.
The prison population of the United States up to two million, twice the number of ten years ago, constitutes the largest numbers of prisoners in the world in proportions to the total number of inhabitants. Private prisons (120 with a population of 120,000 inmates) are an excellent business in detriment of the health security and rights of the inmates. The treatment of prisoners is as brutal in urban prisons as well as in " work Farms" which are nothing less than forced labor camps, such as the Silverdale in Tennessee.
In the States of Texas, Arkansas and Louisiana, prisoners are forced to work in the fields for free. Sexual abuse is frequent against women prisoners. Private corporations generally use the work of prisoners and the salary paid is around $5.00 net per hour, which is then reduced to about one or two dollars since the deductions allowed can be to 80 % of the salary. This benefits the profits of well-known large corporations.
Undocumented immigrants whose orders of deportation cannot be implemented remain incarcerated in the detention centers or in prisons. They are held in deplorable conditions, and without any legal rights. This situation can be prolonged indefinitely.
It is estimated that 13.000 the number of people incarcerated under these conditions. The Supreme Court has confirmed a decision of the Appellate Court, sustaining that such inmates have no Constitutional Rights since in reality they are not in the United States but under the jurisdiction of the INS.
The methods employed by the U.S. government in order to suppress social movements go from assassinations, as it happened with the Black panthers, to dubious judicial process as in the cases of Leonard Peltier, condemned to a long prison term and Mumia Abu Jamal, condemned to death.
In the United States of America it has been recognized officially that the government conducted experiments with radioactive materials on mentally ill patients, pregnant women and common citizens. It has also been recognized that for years over 400 people of the black race were utilized as guinea pigs in medical experiments by depriving them of treatment for syphilis to study the evolution of the illness under those conditions without their consent.
The United States Government has assumed the representation of the interests of transnational corporations and pharmaceuticals before the World Trade Organizations in their claims against Brazil in a case actually under way, with the aim of stopping the latter country from producing essential medicines at a lower cost. Among them are medicines destined to combat AIDS.
In spite of the International Convention against the Recruitment, Use, Financing and Training of Mercenaries, another one that United States did not sign, the USA uses mercenaries without restraint internally as well as in Colombia and in the so called missions for maintenance of the peace in Bosnia-Herzegovina and Kosovo.
The United States systematically violates international law and human rights by maintaining the blockade against Cuba for over 40 years and forcing the Security Council to maintain an embargo against Iraq. The United States also violated the Geneva Conventions on humanitarian law in times of war during the invasions of Panama, the Gulf War and the War of Yugoslavia.
With the implementation of the Plan Colombia, and the maintenance of its military bases throughout various American countries (Manta, Ecuador, Vieques Puerto Rico, Guantanamo, Cuba etc.) and in other countries in other regions, USA creates zones of tension, aggravates internal conflicts and creates conditions for the internationalization of some of these conflicts.
Due to all these facts the AAJ expresses its satisfaction for the decision of the Economic and Social Council to exclude the United States from the Commission on Human Rights and hopes that the same serves as a warning to that country that it must restrain the arrogance with which it treats the international community, and to cease and desist from belittling the human rights of its own people and the peoples of the world.
May 8, 20001
Beinusz Szmukler Vanessa Ramos
Alejandro Teitelbaum
President Secretary General.
AAJ Representative to the UN in
Geneva.