U.S. Seeks to Defy Rights Review Amid Escalating Assault on Reproductive Autonomy – Women’s eNews
Will the United States become the first country in history that does not participate in its scheduled human rights review? That was the question on every diplomat’s mind last month in Geneva, Switzerland when our delegation of 12+ sexual and reproductive health, rights, and justice organizations traveled to the UN to discuss the dramatically deteriorating state of reproductive autonomy in the U.S. Our response was clear: it is essential that this review proceed.
The Universal Periodic Review (“UPR”) is a mandatory process through which countries review one another’s human rights records every 4.5 years, facilitated by the UN Human Rights Council. Countries publicly provide and receive recommendations, and when a country is scheduled to undergo review, it submits a report on implementation of recommendations from its prior review. This report, along with a compilation of “shadow reports” submitted by civil society organizations, serves as the basis for a country’s review. Ahead of the U.S.’s review, we joined many organizations in providing submissions detailing wide-ranging issues of concern. Our report highlighted the steep barriers people across the U.S. are facing to support and access needed reproductive healthcare.
The UPR offers a unique chance for civil society groups to sound the alarm about rights violations and increase pressure for reform, particularly for countries with more limited avenues for domestic accountability. This review process is also truly universal: Each country collaborates in providing and receiving recommendations. Where the U.S. might otherwise ignore international scrutiny in response to its role in undermining reproductive and bodily autonomy, the UPR provides a platform to make the scope of the crisis clear and to enable other countries to hold the U.S. to account for failing to implement previously accepted recommendations.
A review of the U.S. human rights record is more timely than ever. Abortion bans and related restrictions that are surging across the country violate many fundamental human rights, including the rights to life, to health, to privacy, to equality and non-discrimination, and the right to be free from torture and other cruel, inhumane, or degrading treatment. Individuals are facing grave risks to their physical health and lives. They are also experiencing surveillance, restrictions on their freedom to move within and across state lines, and impeded access to education and employment. In many states, physicians, family members, community support organizations — anyone who attempts to help individuals access care — risk loss of professional licenses, lawsuits, and criminalization. Attacks on the most marginalized reflect and signal broader trends in authoritarianism, state violence, and the degradation of the frameworks that guarantee human freedom and dignity.
Concerns that the U.S. would attempt to evade its upcoming UPR, scheduled for November, swirled in recent months, only increasing after the U.S. neglected to submit its required report by the August 4th deadline. Having already withdrawn from the Human Rights Council, the U.S. has adopted an increasingly isolationist and obstructive stance within international institutions — would its defiance of global processes extend to the UPR, too? On August 28, the U.S. position finally became clear. As formal pre-session briefings were already unfolding, a UN official disclosed that, the evening prior, the U.S. State Department had submitted a private letter to the UN human rights office officially declining to participate in its review.
To our knowledge, only two other countries, Israel and Nicaragua, have attempted to evade the review. Ultimately both reviews went forward, though adoption of Nicaragua’s report remains in question. Just as the Trump administration has attacked the rule of law domestically, it is waging an attack on international institutions. In both cases, fundamental human rights are in the crosshairs. Without a coordinated effort to hold the U.S. to account internationally, individuals’ access to their rights and human rights institutions themselves will suffer.
UN member states and the Human Rights Council should utilize all available tools to ensure that a review goes forward. And while the Trump administration attempts to dodge international scrutiny, U.S. state and local elected officials are speaking up and stepping up. Civil society groups are organizing a “People’s UPR” to provide a domestic platform for engagement with elected officials who recognize their rights obligations. These are urgently important actions. In a moment when the very concept of human rights is under assault, we must take every opportunity to assert them.
About the Author: Allison Love is a legal fellow at Global Justice Center, a feminist human rights organization that leverages international law to advance gender equality.
