 Cooper Union. What's happening with human rights around our world on Think Tech Live, broadcasting from our downtown studio in Honolulu, Hawaii, and Moana, New York. Today we're looking at the protection of all people with the law, Article 7, Equality Before the Law. And we're joined by Connie de la Vega, and she is a professor emeritus at the University of San Francisco in Oakland, California based there. Connie, how are you I'm good. Thank you. I really appreciate you joining me. I know we've been very involved at the national level, coordinating civil society to bring information from the ground, from directly impacted people to the UN, but you're also so active as well in the community level, at the campus level, at the capital level, and then at the country level, as well as global civil society. Can you share with us why Article 7 is so important in international human rights law? Okay, well, one of the basic principles of the United Nations is equality before the law. And so this article is one of the base, it is, I mean, it's, there's other articles too, but that is clearly one of the basic articles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. And it should be tied, looked at together with articles one and two, which basically article one talks about that everybody's, everybody's equal in dignity and rights. So again, mentioning rights and everyone's equal with respect to those rights. That's article one, article two, everyone is entitled to the rights. And there they list the categories that help define equality, which include race, color, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national, social origin, property, birth, or other status. So even though it lists the specific prohibited discrimination areas, it also says any other status is also covered. So if anybody comes up with another status to discriminate on the basis of that is also covered by this treaty by the Universal Declaration. That is so important because we see that also with the treaty bodies, how they come up with general comments and then elaborate and explain as human rights is constantly evolving. Could you share with me though what first inspired you to care about this issue and some of those initial campaigns you've been involved in? Well, I went to law school in Berkeley and I was lucky to have Professor Frank Newman be the professor who taught me international human rights law. And not only was he interested in international human rights law, he actually went to the UN or to Geneva to sort of participate there, even though he didn't have any direct accreditation to do so. But he inspired me to go there. And then I worked at the International Commission of Juris for a semester while I was in law school. So I actually got to participate directly while I was in law school through the ICJ, the International Commission of Juris. And then because of that, I was able to or decided that in order for our group to participate regularly, we had to establish an NGO that could participate at the UN. So I'm getting a little bit further along the side of your question, but I did establish human rights advocates. And first we had to go through the US process of becoming a nonprofit organization. And then we apply for accreditation at the UN. And we're able to get that. And so we regularly participate at the Human Rights Council, which used to be called the Commission on Human Rights, and the Commission on the Status of Women that focuses on women's rights. Excellent. And those are both so important. When we look at this issue, how it used to be people actualizing the article and what actions are you involved with today to promote and protect human rights? Well, I think one of the things that, okay, I work at it from various angles. One angle is to see what the UN is doing, both at the Commission on Status of Women and the Human Rights Council, on the issue of equality. And we prepare, they usually tell us ahead of time what the issues are going to be at the particular sessions we participate in. And we prepare reports and participate orally at the meetings. And then discuss the issues with government delegates in order to try to get language into resolutions that help promote the particular right that we're working on. So it's a really important part. It's an aspect that maybe people don't know or consider, but it's true. When we know the meetings coming up, such as the Commission on the Status of Women, there's a theme, lately it's been climate change. That allows you to then gather the information from community, from directly impacted peoples, prepare documents, and then what you're sharing is so vital. Then it's that advocacy piece of meeting with governments, sharing with them stronger language, finding the middle power states to then be able to introduce that and then come up with actions that make a difference for people on the ground. Maybe you can share a bit of some of the success at the Commission on Status of Women. And we can also talk about the Human Rights Council, which now has changed, right? We have no longer just the Commission on Human Rights meeting once a year, you know, when the UDHR was established for those first six decades, but now we have three meetings. We have a September, we have a February, March, we have a June, July, and there's 10 agenda items and over 10 weeks of meetings. So we have seen progress. Maybe you can share a bit with the Commission on Human Rights and the Human Rights Council, how then we're able to influence these institutions to actualize Article 7 of equality before the law. Okay. One thing I will say about the Commission of Status of Women is that so many women attend the meetings in New York, like literally 5,000 women, that it's become incredibly difficult to have much impact there. But we do, I do train my students to go to the meetings and identify which delegates are going to be the ones that are going to be most likely to help out with a particular issue they're working on. And then since we're not allowed in the basic meeting room at the Commission of Status of Women, they have to look at it from either virtually or above and figure out where the delegates are and then sort of wait till they come outside so they can talk to them. So it's quite a process to try to get language into the resolutions at the CSW. One of the things that they've been doing recently is they have an NGO meeting before the CSW meets and that that's supposed to be where the NGOs then have impact into the process. But that becomes much more difficult to participate in, which we do virtually, but the students also then try to figure out how to get a hold of government delegates so they can talk to them directly. They also can do it by getting the emails from the government delegates, which sometimes involves going through the the consulate's email system to try to get a hold of the delegates and sometimes that works. I know the couches. The couches right outside that room are an important space. The Vienna Cafe, those couches in the back, I think you've probably gotten a couple of paragraphs in in that space, if I'm correct. The couches in New York or Geneva. Yeah. So again, the big issue is being able to access the area where the delegates are, because they really do try to put as many limits as they can on accessing the delegates, which one can understand because when you have 5,000 NGOs attending the meetings, it's going to be totally overwhelming for the delegates. So it brings up really the point of how disciplined we have to be. And as we sort of shift to Geneva from New York UN headquarters, of course, Geneva, it's a serpentine. But in that space, I think it's been so impressive how ACLU, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, the really large NGOs really partner and respect each other's time and the way the U.S. civil society has gone to either a treaty body review, one of those three that we have ratified, or to the Human Rights Council, the discipline of people to prioritize directly impacted peoples to speak for themselves, but also all NGOs to make sure that we focus on the elements of this Article 7 and actualize them. Could you share a bit about maybe some of the exciting work you've done in various UN human rights charter and treaty bodies in Geneva around Article 7? Okay. So Article 7 is a pretty broad topic that covers a lot of different rights. So equality is going to come into play with a lot of the different issues that are addressed under the other articles of the Universal Declaration and then also later on the treaty body, the treaties that the U.S. is party to. But so basically the issue of equality comes up in just about every context. And so we usually try to raise it in the context of the various rights that we're talking about, which can be anything from we did a lot of work on trying to stop the juvenile death penalty in the United States. And there were some issues of equality because oftentimes the death penalty is used disproportionately with respect to minorities and particular African-Americans in the United States. So we worked to get rid of the juvenile death penalty and successfully both in resolutions at the Human Rights Commission and Council and then used all that information to cite it to the U.S. Supreme Court, which then issued a ruling saying that the juvenile death penalty violated the U.S. Constitution. And then they also cited all the international law that says that. That was a very important case. And I remember when we started on this work, people thought that would never happen. So I think that's what's important in international human rights laws to show that sometimes law is symbolized as a turtle or a honu here in Hawaii. But as you organize at the global level and on the ground, you can sort of make a state sandwich. And maybe you could share a little bit about that Supreme Court case and why that was so important and how that was influenced by the international. Okay. Well, I think several things happen that sort of align themselves properly at the right time. Justice Kennedy had just been to a meeting in Europe for judges. And so he got from other judges in the world to hear about international standards. So when we weren't handling the plaintiffs in that case, but we filed an amicus brief, which is a friend of the court brief, citing all the international law that basically prohibited the use of the juvenile death penalty. And I think because of the, like I said, the great timing with Justice Kennedy had just been to this conference in Europe, he said, wow, yeah, okay, we should align U.S. law with international law. And so he basically cited all the different laws, all the different international standards that were in the brief saying that there should not be a death penalty for juvenile offenders. I don't know if that answers your question or do you want... Absolutely. And when we look at it, that's what's so important is we look, article seven is really the core of the rule of law with justice for all. Article seven is also a foundational right upon which many of the remaining UDH articles depend on for equality. And I think article seven notes that all are equal before the law and are untitled without any discrimination to equal protection of the law. So this is why this is so important. Maybe you could share with us which NGOs do you see as champions to create a culture of human rights around article seven? I know you talked about working with the International Commission of Juris. I enjoy working with them a lot in Southeast Asia, in many of the states where it's very difficult, Cambodia, Vietnam, but maybe you could share besides International Commission of Juris, some of those other ones that have really been up the forefront on article seven. Okay, well, so clearly one of the biggest ones from the U.S. is Amnesty International. I mean, they do also global advocacy, but they're clearly one of the big groups in the United States that raise or address international human rights law. Human Rights Watch is another U.S. NGO that also addresses issues like equality and also the death penalty. So I'm trying to think of, there are a number of U.S. NGOs, but I would say those are the two biggest ones that work at the international level. And then all that, like I said, led to us establishing human rights advocates so that we could also go to the UN and advocate for various issues, including equality and other issues that are raised both by the Commission on Status of Women and the Human Rights Council. Excellent. As we look at that, could you share with me a bit about your vision for the future of this right, some aspects and where we see that headed as we go forward? Well, this is one of the basic principles. And like I said, it's not just Article 7. It's also Articles 1 and 2 that address the issue of equality. And Article 2 of the Universal Declaration talks about the various standards. One of the important things in Article 2 are it lists the prohibited distinctions such as race, color, sex, language, religion, political or their opinion, national or social origin and property birth, but the important language is or other status. So if there's any other arbitrary category being used to prohibit rights, that article can be the basis for prohibiting discrimination under the treaty, under the Declaration. And I'm pretty sure, and I can get the covenant here as well, but I think that language is in the universal, both the economic, social and cultural rights covenant and the civil and political rights covenant. That's excellent. As you're looking at us and we look each other in the eye on these important issues, it's important to look into the souls of humanity. It is definitely in the international covenant on civil and political rights. And that sort of brings up an excellent, exciting point. The United States, since it has ratified the international covenant on civil and political rights, one of the twin covenants of the ICCPR and the ICSCR, we know when they ratify, they agree then to provide information and then go through a review. So one exciting thing is we know now the dates. It'll be October 17th and 18th. So we see the process now how civil society can try to influence this. And if we look at it, the U.S. civil society is preparing shadow reports. Those shadow reports, also those list of issues are based on the experience that we identify on the ground that the global should be aware of. Then what's so vital is we also engage with the State Department and our domestic federal agencies to see how they're doing what they're doing and to have an impact with them in that process. And that's sort of the preparation phase. We know we're moving sort of from the preparation to the interaction phase, where now we're talking with the 18 experts who have been selected to serve on the Human Rights Committee under the ICCPR. And now we'll then focus on trying to influence them before October 17th and 18th. What's some of the things that you're doing to actualize Article 7 in that process leading up to the consideration phase when there'll be a six-hour review of the United States in Geneva on October 17th and 18th from 3 p.m. to 6 p.m. in the evening. And then they sort of have an all-nighter where the U.S. government has to stay up all night to try to get their answers, just like in college. And then the next morning from 10 to 1, can you share with us what you're doing leading up to that phase of the review? Yeah, unfortunately, because of the timing of everything that's happening right now, we have not prepared a report for the Human Rights Committee. I think it was due last year at some point. So one thing that's important if you're going to do advocacy is that you have to stay ahead of the schedules of not only when the particular country is going to be reviewed, but also when reports are due. So part of it for us has been, we basically are an organization without any staff. So we have to... One of the exciting things is I know the deadline is September 13th, so you can still very much submit a short report for that and then be able to participate. And then will you or are you planning to, in the past, when you've participated at the Human Rights Committee, can you share what that's like a little bit to advocate with those 18 members and to coordinate that? Well, one thing that's interesting about interacting with the members of the Human Rights Committee is that they're not government delegates. They're experts in their area from different countries. So it's a lot easier to discuss substantive issues and to detail because they're not worrying about what their country... For example, if you're talking to a government delegate before they can do anything, they'll tell you they have to contact headquarters first. The capital, all those things... Capital, sorry, that's the right word, capital. So the experts of the Human Rights Committee don't have to contact anybody. They can think for themselves and they can work with their colleagues to get language into the resolutions or the reports that the issue, which include resolutions, but in this case for the U.S., it also is going to include the review of the United States report to them. No, and that's such a vital part because when we know that the week the country is being reviewed, there's now that space where we, civil society, can briefly address those members and speak on the Monday or Tuesday of that week, give them the recommendations, a smart recommendation, and also the specific question that only we know from being inside the country that then allows them to really put the most salient points to the state. And then the other aspect that I remember participating in that's so crucial is usually that briefing, the lunch briefing right before the review. So at 145 or so before the review at three, that's where civil society gives like one last, this is the most important issue. Can you please raise these aspects? And then the review, maybe we can share a bit, but I know what is exciting is that these are videotaped and recorded on UN Web TV so people can actually watch the entire review and be able to see what's happening, depending of course, or where they are. We can sort of do it like the World Cup soccer, since that's still going on, where people can come together and see if their question or recommendation is brought forward and see that aspect. And then of course, that evening, like we shared, that's the exciting part where you see it, it's sort of a halftime. How is the US going with the review? Are all the questions, recommendations we worked on as civil society? Are they really steering and guiding? The review of the government? Are the members participating? And I believe, if I remember right, there's a repertoire and then a working group that then works together, sort of leads each review of each country in that process. So that's kind of the exciting part. Can you share one or two impacts or results you've seen from working with the treaty body around Article 7 in the past? Well, like I said, I actually have not worked on the treaty body that much because of the timing of when they meet. And because I was constrained by training my students to participate at the UN, we basically have missed the Human Rights Committee meetings the last, I don't know, a few years. So we have an occasion filed reports. But so, like I said, I think one of the things originally was making sure that that was clear that the juvenile death penalty was going to be addressed and prohibited. And I think that I'm pretty sure every year that that was still going on that the Human Rights Committee actually issued part of its report addressed the fact that they should not have the juvenile death penalty. Now the next issue on juvenile sentencing is juvenile life without parole, which is also another really bad practice for the U.S. And in fact, worse than the juvenile death penalty, because I think with a juvenile death penalty, they were like by seven countries that actually had the juvenile death penalty. We are now the only country in the world that gives juveniles life without parole sentences. So there is a big movement to try to put an end to that. And I think there were two countries in the last few years that have gotten rid of the juvenile death, juvenile life without parole. So now the big push is to try to get the U.S. to stop that particular practice. Well, the good news is we were able to organize to make that difference around the death penalty. And we know as civil society that provides a great illumination of where we can get involved and how we can do that. But I think what's so important is what you bring up is that we are the only country. And we love to talk about being this beacon of liberty on a hill that shows the world the way. But as you're pointing out, we are now the only country. So we're the only country also that has not ratified the Convention on the Rights of the Child, although we have participated on the optional protocols. And so we can see how civil society can, in a way, hold our government accountable. And since you're in San Francisco, it does remind me that, of course, that's where the world gathered after World War II to come up with the U.N. Charter. And the U.S. in this case was the only government to bring NGOs to meet there at that pineapple room at the Fairmont. But it wasn't just altruistic. It was because we want to make sure we did join since we didn't sign up for the League of Nations. But that was an important precedent to get civil society there, those 42 original NGOs, to then hold our governments accountable and keep really the world aware and keep our government to let them know we're watching. In fact, not only that, there is the Court of World Public Opinion, and they're also watching. And so San Francisco, that spirit of San Francisco is crucial to see we, the peoples, those first three words of the U.N. Charter become a reality. Can you share a bit about how you see civil society's role in the future around Article 7? Well, again, I think part of the big issue for the U.S. is for people here in this country to be aware of these standards, because I don't think too many people are. And so I think it's important to have advocates. We already know Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch know about these standards. But there's a lot of other NGOs and nonprofits working on issues that could benefit from using the treaties, in particular the ones that we're party to. Now, the one problem is that this is terrible. But the U.S. has, when they ratify the treaties, have attached what's called a non-self-executing declaration, which means that the declaration cannot be cited directly in court without legislation that implements it that's passed by Congress. So it's hard to cite to it as black-letter law. However, I think and I do still cite it because I think it's important, even though the justices know that they're not going to cite it, that they be aware of the issues to see how far we can vary our laws from the international law. Because if we start doing things that other countries don't do, it really makes us look bad. And like I said, at this point, we are the only country with juvenile life without parole census for juveniles in the entire world. And part of it is in the last two years, there were a couple of countries that still had it on their books, but they got rid of it. So we are the only country in the world violating that standard. And that really does point out what we need to do. And that really lays out a blueprint for a bold new plan for civil society to come together, to coordinate a campaign, to look at this, to make sure that Article 7 is not only a promise on paper, but a reality for people at the community level, at our local councils, at our state capitals, and as well in DC, in the capital, and making sure that we are in line with the rest of the world. The UDHR does call for a coalition of conscience centered around trust and transformation. And Article 7 does secure equality for the law, demanding an end to discrimination. Equal protection of the law is central to all rights in the UDHR. And I really do appreciate you, Connie, weaving in and showing how Article 1 and 2 and 7 interact, and how we must really make sure that we bundle these rights, that we shatter the silos around people working on only specific aspects of rights, but recognize how everything is interconnected in our advocacy. And I thank you so much for all the advocacy and work that you've done, as well as the impacts you've been able to make on the international human rights institutions. Mahalo. Mahalo.