By April V. Taylor
Every four years, each United Nations member country must submit to a public hearing as part of a Universal Periodic Review, and the United States’ human rights record came under fierce criticism recently as part of their review. More than 100 international leaders voiced their concern regarding human rights violations related to police brutality, the death penalty, and the torture of Guantanamo Bay prisoners. This was the United States’ second review. The process was created by the Human Rights Council for countries to peer-review UN member states.
The main focus of the critique was the systemic racial discrimination that occurs within the U.S. criminal justice system, including police brutality. Aliba Morales, a Human Rights Watch investigator, told Al Jazeera, “I’m not surprised that the world’s eyes are focused on police issues in the U.S. There is an international spotlight that’s been shone [on the issues], in large part due to the events in Ferguson and the disproportionate police response to even peaceful protesters.”
More than a third of countries present at the hearing criticized the United States’ use of the death penalty and the disproportionate number of Black people sentenced to death. Morales notes, “These two issues – police brutality and the death penalty – represent, in some ways, very different ends of the criminal justice continuum in the U.S.. Very few in the U.S. will ever be charged with a capital crime, while millions each year come into contact with police. In both cases, sadly, the U.S. has a lot of work to comply with international human rights standards.”
Human Rights Watch points out that the U.S. has “largely failed” to implement the UN’s 2010 recommendations, which included addressing both the issue of police brutality and the racial inequalities associated with the death sentence. US advocacy director at Human Rights Watch Antonio Ginatta, states, “The U.S. has been strong on process and short on substance.”
http://kulturekritic.com/2015/05/news/police-brutality-so-bad-in-u-s-united-nations-issues-scathing-review/
