Two non-governmental organisations (NGOs) today called on the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination to ask the United States Government for “immediate and tangible steps to dismantle structural racism” in the country.
The appeal appears in the joint report by Human Rights Watch (HRW) and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), as part of the committee’s examination of the United States’ implementation of the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, with sessions scheduled for 11 and 12 August in Geneva.
“Decades after the US pledged to end racial discrimination, systemic racism continues to infect our institutions,” the ACLU Human Rights Program Director maintained.
“The [President Joe Biden’s] administration has demonstrated that it can acknowledge the problem, but the time has come to take bolder steps to radically transform these abusive systems and fully implement US human rights obligations,” Jamil Dakwar added.
In the joint statement by the two NGOs, it is recalled that Biden declared that “systemic racism” is “corrosive, (…) destructive and costly” when he adopted an executive order aimed at achieving racial equity in the United States.
“He is also the first US President to officially commemorate the 1921 Tulsa racial massacre. However, his administration did not adopt an executive order to create a commission to study the need for compensation.”
Under the anti-racism convention, signed in 1994 by Americans, “the US is obliged to provide effective remedies, including compensation for racial discrimination, including ongoing structural discrimination arising from the legacies of slavery,” they stressed.
“Absent congressional action …, the President … should establish the commission to study and develop reparations for the legacies of slavery through executive order,” said expert and racial justice advocate at Human Rights Watch Dreisen Heath.
In the report, the ACLU and Human Rights Watch “detail entrenched policies in the United States that have disproportionately harmed non-white racial groups, especially African Americans, including those leading to mass incarceration, killings and abuses by law enforcement, and policies affecting education, health and reproductive rights.”
In the same document, the negative effects of these policies are named, which translate into financial and educational inequalities, social discrimination and the judicial system.
08/08/2022
