 Welcome to Cooper Union. What's happening with human rights around the world? I'm your host, Joshua Cooper. Today on Think Tech Live from downtown Honolulu, Hawaii and Moana, Nuiakea. Our episode is focusing on youth, forge racial justice future in the US. Law activists share the served Geneva advocacy strategy and specific recommendations. So it's such a joy to be joined by these three advocates who are always focusing on enforcing human rights in our country. And Laura, I just wanted to check with you as a human rights Miami law clinic fellow. Why is it so important to prepare for the CERC process and what were you doing leading up to the August 11th and 12th review? I thank you for having me, Joshua. So the CERC process was pretty exciting to prepare for and it was the culmination of work that we've been doing with the clinic for that I've been doing with the clinic for about a year that we started or I started with the clinic rather last August and I was involved with right to food work in the United States, primarily supporting the right to food for Maine campaign in the state of Maine. Maine in November became the first state to have the right to food on its ballot and the first state to include the right to food have the right to food in their constitution. So the beginning of this project was working on that project and then the second semester of school was preparing for the CERC and it involves all the preparation that goes into writing, the 20 page research papers. There's a lot of consulting with partners who have been doing the work for decades. I mean, the folks that I worked with in Maine have been doing right to food work for a decade and it's a lot of understanding or learning about food issues, not just domestic or nationally but internationally as well. And then putting it all together and getting it approved and emailing it to the CERC. That's the extent to my work with it. But it's important because the United States doesn't formally recognize the right to food in our constitution, but there is a lot of right to food advocacy happening around the States. So it's definitely a growing movement and it's an important movement. Food insecurity is a big issue. And also the racial dimensions that affects people's right to food are growing issues in the United States as well are persistent issues in the United States. So it was just exciting to be a part of presenting all of these issues that are persistent in an international scale with the hopes of domestic implementation. Thank you so much, Laura and Taylor. Building on that focus of economic, social and cultural rights and intersectionality of all of these rights at the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, what were you able to bring forward and why is it so important for people to engage in the CERC process? Yes, thank you, Joshua and Laura. So what I've been working on in the clinic since also August of last year is mostly right to housing issues, right to adequate housing. And a big part of this is looking at racial injustice and housing homelessness in the United States. A lot of this is also consulting with partners. It's really important to listen to and to amplify the voices of those with lived experiences in order to move forward. And make progress. And so submitting this shadow report to CERD, complete with a lot of personal stories and as well as the facts and statistics side of things, right? It's important because it helps with accountability when it comes to racial injustice and housing homelessness in the United States. And then the recommendations that CERD can provide are one way to kind of go about this in the US. Thank you so much and sharing that steps and process. Rob, this is in your first human rights rodeo at the UN looking at Geneva. Why is it still important to focus on CERD when these reviews come up with the treaty bodies or the universal periodic review? So I think it's important. And thank you for inviting me to the show and I wanna thank both Taylor and Laura for their work. I think it's important that somebody like me who's been doing this work for a number of years leave a set of tools that students and former students like Laura and Taylor can pick up and continue to work. I think it's important because US is always taking an exceptionalist attitude with respect to human rights, right? We admired in a constitution that was written 400 years ago and it's written with respect to property rights but it doesn't value the fact that people have rights, right? I mean to have dignified, affordable, clean places to live. And that should be enshrined in your constitution and it isn't. So we have to use these types of mechanisms such as CERD where those rights are enshrined in those treaties and those treaty bodies to sort of force the United States to do what it is supposed to do with respect to its people. We reach out to other member states of the UN to sort of force these questions and challenge the UN during this review. And it's imperative for us or important for us to get the output or the responses from the United States based on what their peers were asking them. So we always look forward to the output it chooses an organizing tool to move our agendas forward. Thank you, Rob. And when you look at the process, what was exciting is when we went from the consultations that have been virtual from DC and then arriving in Geneva, that process of really having almost eight dozen different civil society, human rights enforcers and defenders coming together for the first time in person and then engaging for that week. What did it feel like for you to be able to participate, Laura, from that first meeting on Sunday when we get to know each other and then split up how we're gonna share a story in two and a half hours at that briefing with the CERD members for the first time. And then even those breakfast briefings and even the US consultation, what was it like being on the ground in Geneva? And why do you think that was so transformative? Thank you. I, it was important just to kind of get a feel of what ground work advocacy looks like on an international scale. I understand it from a domestic level but I hadn't done that sort of work in an international forum. So it was good to connect with folks that are doing the work in the United States and not just on your issue, but on other issues as well and building those connections with folks. But it's important because there are not many opportunities where we all kind of meet. This is the, in this scale, there's the US doesn't get reviewed every year, countries don't get reviewed every year. So it was a unique opportunity to be a part of and also to see the shifts of how the meeting went from the first day to the last day where you had a very kind of communal informal meeting in the beginning. And then you have the official meeting with the CERD and everyone who gives their presentation. And then later in the week you have the meetings directly with the US delegation. And then finally, the last two meetings are with the US delegation and the CERD. And the CERD is incorporating all the things that they heard from you earlier in the week. And the US as well is also taking into account the things that they heard from you in your one-on-one meetings. So it was just, it was powerful and it was important because I think, especially during a meeting that we had with the civil society meeting with the US delegation, there was a big shifts in kind of the energy and the focus of how to address human rights work and everyone's kind of understanding of where everyone's coming from, where it's of society workers are coming from and where the government one's coming from. And it was a very kind of receptive space. Excellent. And Taylor, how about you? What would you say was some of the highlights of that week in Geneva from the briefing of the CERD members, the breakfast briefings, the informals with the desk officers that focus on the United States as well as even the actual six hour review? I think there were a lot of high points that week. And I want to echo Laura that it was just really cool to be able to build connections and meet people who are also working in this space because I think it's important to truly understand all of the different intersections between all of our issues. We might be working on different things, say it's health or housing or the right to food or indigenous rights, but to see how racial discrimination impacts all of these issues and how interconnected they all are is a really important part of human rights work. And so I think having the audience that we did during these breakfast briefings, during our meeting with the US delegation is just incredible to have everyone in one room and have all of these voices speaking on all of these issues and having people who have the power to really have a voice on the international stage that's much bigger than any of ours listening to what we have to say. And so I think specifically the meeting with the US delegation during the week on the ground was something that really stuck out to me. It kind of began as your typical boiler plate question, answer, question, answer, very rehearsed, but as the time went on, we had a really incredible breakthrough in that room where a lot of advocates stood up and began telling personal stories relating to these issues and you could feel the energy and you could see the responses changing from members of the US delegation and heads of state as they kind of realized the reality and how these issues impact people in their actual lives and their day-to-day lives. That was an excellent point. I agree from that three to five o'clock, it was just question, statement, different member, National Security Council, Department of Labor and it was draining. And then it reversed for those last 90 minutes, really it was directly impacted people saying the caskets are getting smaller, we can't go home with empty buckets, you've got to do what you're supposed to be doing, breaking through. And it was that power of directly impacted people sharing their stories and saying, I wanna be one of the solutionaries. This is what we have to do. And Rob, you know, you've been able to change your room. I've seen people coming in and giving their standard. This is how much our budget is and what we do and why we're so dedicated. And then you are able to melt through those statistics with your story, say what has to happen next. Could you share some of the importance of these sessions? Yeah, I really appreciate that analysis, Josh. And, you know, you can hear in Lauren Taylor's responses that they could feel a shift in the room. And I think that translated over the video, I've been there in the past for different treaty bodies, particularly UPR. And, you know, government sends the delegation and they're ready to dig in and hold their ground. And then all of a sudden they realize that these are advocates that understand the issue and have solutions. And the solutions that the government is presenting are not working, right? And you've educated the peer and member states that are really gonna challenge the U.S. government in a way that did not used to be challenged. And I think that energy translated well over the phone. You could feel the differences in the room and you can feel the people with lived experience explaining what they're going through. Excuse me. I've heard the intersections, right? So I started out working on housing and land, but, you know, quickly learned that food and health are connected to these. And so it was very interesting for me to ride out the entire session, not to just listen to the housing and homelessness more, but to listen to the entire sessions because there were many things that replicated themselves, especially along racial lines. It was very clear who was being affected by these issues and how they were being affected. So I just, again, I appreciate the voices that were in the room. And I do think it's important for us to change to God, right? I've been there enough. I've done it enough. So it's my job now to take a step back and support the Laura's tailors and some of the other students and professors from around the country who are working hard to put together these reports, connect them with folks in cities that have been struggling with these issues so that we have a powerful message to deliver to the peer states as we make these trips to Geneva. I appreciate that entirely, Robin. And when we think about it, and I know the experience maybe we all share, it's the greatest teaching. You could never learn so much in such a short time period. You have the people in Cancer Alley saying, I buried my brother last month. I buried my son last week. And everyone's an expert and everyone's living it. And the amazing part is also everybody doesn't just look out for themselves because you would think this is my two minutes. This is my chance to talk or let the world know, but there's really that sense of sharing, that sense of cooperation and that solidarity. You don't see it all the time in our cities and in our communities. And it's amazing to see everybody gel so quickly in Geneva to be able to make it all happen. And then that translates even now when we're home. You're transformed in that week. You might have read about the issue. You might have known something about one element on food, housing, indigenous, but then you meet everyone who does it day in and day out and you realize it's gonna change. And the people in that room are the change makers who are creating that at the community level, at the capital level in global civil society. Josh, I would just say there's nothing like being in the room, right? And so, you know, big props go out to everybody who was able to make the trip, fought off COVID, fought all the parameters of COVID, worked around that, but still got in that space to be able to give testimony and to talk about the struggles going on in different communities around the US, right? It was important that something that only happens every certain number of years. And it's important to be in that space and it's important to participate. So I was happy to hear that their large contingent was able to make it. And as you pointed out, it's not every year because as the students know, if you turned in papers the way the US government turns in its annual reports of when those are due, you wouldn't be in the lawyering field too much. The US is always years, if not a decade late. And what was so exciting then as we see that six hour review that was open with a spiritual ceremony by the Western Shoshone and then continued in the room, you could see the US government had to change its opening. You could see the different health and human services, HUD, Housing Urban Development. People had to think about what they heard and hopefully that's the beginning. And now as we see today is important. Today is the day the recommendations were released by the 18 experts. Then we can now see some of those. What do you think Laura was one of the results that you saw that was most promising? And what do you think we can do with it going forward? Thank you. There were a lot of good outcomes, I think, from the recommendations I just get from the concluding observations that were just published today in relation to the rights of food. One of our specific recommendations to the third was that the US government should adopt a rights-based kind of national plan to end hunger that tackles racial discrimination as a core cause of hunger as well. And not just looking at, there's a lack of access to food and that's the only definition of hunger. There are other dimensions to hunger as well. And obviously the lack of access to food is one of those but it's looking at other core causes of hunger. So that was a specific recommendation that the third listed out today as well as kind of taking this upcoming White House Conference on Hunger which is the first of its kind in 50 years. It's upcoming this September. Taking that as a platform to put forward the voices and the lived experiences of food and security of hunger. So there were a lot of good things that not just related to hunger, also related to housing and homelessness, also related to immigration, also related to reproductive rights and reproductive justice and child welfare system. There were a lot of good recommendations and it all speaks to your earlier point about how Geneva was such a communal space and such a welcoming space for all of us to connect. That speaks to human rights work in general and human rights to law in general. The human rights system is all the rights are interconnected, the human rights are interconnected. We can't have a proper conversation about food without having a proper conversation about race, without having a proper conversation about land, without talking about housing, without talking about women's rights. So we can't have all of these conversations independent from each other. So Geneva was a great space for all of us to put our ideas together and to build connections across the board, as Taylor was saying, and this list of recommendations of reading it today. I was like, wow, all of these things flow together. So it's exciting, it's exciting. And I know that some of the lived experiences that were shared in the room, especially in that U.S. delegation meeting, they are specifically in the third report now. So it's the beginning for future advocacy and hopefully domestic implementation of some of these recommendations. No, that's a great point. And that September 28th date has now been declared for the White House Summit. And they say we can have satellite meetings. Maybe one of the things we can do is have a third implementation where we talk about what was done in Geneva and then see how that relates to what's being discussed. It is exciting to see all the different people coming. Chef Jose Andres saying, we don't need higher walls, we need longer tables, getting more people there to discuss. And I agree with you. Now when you see those paragraphs, you remember the people who said all those words. And that might not make it in the final report, but we can definitely see their words of wisdom that shape the discussion and led to those recommendations we see. Taylor, what are your perspectives on some of the recommendations that were issued today? Yeah, so I agree with Laura. I mean, across the board, we received a lot of great recommendations. In terms of housing rights and homelessness, we did get a recommendation to abolish laws that criminalize homelessness. And although this is extremely broad, it's incredibly vital right now. Cities across the West are doing their best to hide homelessness from public view rather than address it. And they're doing this by criminalizing life-sustaining activities, like sitting in public, sleeping, eating. Things people need to do to survive, right? So this is a really important recommendation. I mean, since 2006, laws that prohibit people from sleeping in public have increased by 50%. And this is enforced disproportionately on the basis of race. So this violates fundamental human rights and also further exacerbates racial disparities. So one of our more specific recommendations to serve as well was to redirect funding from criminal justice responses to adequate housing and shelter programs. So we were really happy to see this released today as well in the recommendations. Diverting resources to law enforcement costs a lot more than it would to just simply provide affordable housing. Even in my own city and Laurel's own city of Miami, we're watching this happen. We had a camping ban passed just last year and it's happening in cities all across the US. So we're really hoping to see the US implement these recommendations and to see this type of funding redirected. And more generally, again, like Laura said, all of this is a huge step in the right direction. The conversation has been started, the door has been opened, right? And I think that's one of the hardest parts sometimes is just getting started. And now the work is to just keep doing what we're doing and keep the momentum going. And that's really the power of CERD is governments of course in their constitution but also under their international obligations to their own citizens, ratify these treaties, but everybody just focuses on GDP and whatever the new headline is. But this is a chance as a country to take stock, to do a health checkup on how we do it on racial justice in our country and what we can do. Rob, what were some of the words that came out or some of the recommendations that you thought might be useful in our advocacy here at home? And so while I didn't read the entire report, recommendations 38 through 40, focused on just what Taylor just talked about, housing and homelessness and the decriminalization, the fact that it even had to be brought up again after we took a piece of case law from the United States all the way to Geneva, Martin versus Boise and got the United States to admit that the criminalization of housing was real and that we still had to go back through CERD and sort of force the US to stop the criminalization of the homeless in different cities, I think was important. So again, it's tools in the toolbox and it's somewhat disheartening and I have to say that, that this recommendation had to be made again. I mean, we went so far as to 2019 after going to Geneva where the Department of Justice issued a brief, saying this issue of criminalizing homelessness was real and it's still happening. People had to go to Geneva and say it's still happening. Put something in the continuum of care, no for notice of funding agreement to say that it's gonna cost you points against your scoring total if you continue to criminalize homeless. So it's an ongoing issue. It's good to have it written in stone, insert in the recommendations and again, it just gives us another tool in the toolbox and it just really shows that we have to keep pushing forward to make this a just society. And the fact that, I have to say, Taylor just mentioned the right, well, it's a combination of the right to food. So there's an issue right now in Miami where people are trying to feed people in public and they're pushing back on it. And I've had the opportunity through the UN high level meetings in April to meet Mayor Danielle Kaba from Miami. And I just got noticed today because I raised awareness around this issue that I'm gonna have a one-on-one meeting with her. So I wanna thank Taylor, Laura and all the students at the University of Miami for their hard work because it was me having the relationship with them and able to zero in on certain points that this may have said, okay, I wanna talk to you because obviously you have an understanding of what's going on in the ground there. So I just think it's important that we continue to push forward. We continue to do the advocacy work. And as the former UN Special Rapporteur, Rachael Rowling said, it's not gonna end right away. It's something that it's a constant fight. She said to us in 2010 on our official mission, human rights is something that's not gonna end right away. It's a constant fight, a constant struggle. So we have to dig our heels in and just continue to fight. But the recommendations are powerful tools for us in our organization. Thank you, Robin. I also wanna tell you, Eric is still there at HUD. You reminded me of the story and how our friend Eric on the TARS on the civil society side meets with HUD came up with using that incentivization with funds that if you criminalize you're not eligible for major ones but our friend there Eric is now higher up in HUD still throwing fellow officials under the bus but still caring as well and learning with each review. So I saw him and it made me smile because I thought of all of our time together. One thing as we go into our final minute the CERD has a process now with follow-up where it then looks at implementation of the recommendations and they've selected three and the three that they've selected then are paragraphs 36 on maternal mortality and sexual and reproductive health. 50 E indigenous peoples in 52 A on migrants, refugees, asylum seekers and stateless persons. The US will have one year to then reply. So that gives us a good way to organize but then there's also a basis for the next report and they pick number 17 gun violence, number 26 criminal justice system and juvenile justice 50 indigenous and 52 on migrants, refugees, asylum seekers and state persons. So as we go forward, we know now this is the roadmap to realize rights and we look forward to continue partnering and doing the work that we're doing. Of course the US report should be turned in on 20 November, 2025, but we have a lot of work to do then and I wanna thank all of you for appearing today and thank you so much for all of your work on human rights on a daily basis and we'll see you Rob at the UN General Assembly I'm sure as we look at what's going on with all of the special procedures coming into town and see what's possible but thank you everyone for their work on CERD and we know we have to do more to realize these recommendations and achieve the 2030 agenda and human rights for all. Thank you, Josh. Thank you so much for watching Think Tech Hawaii. If you like what we do, please like us and click the subscribe button on YouTube and the follow button on Vimeo. You can also follow us on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and LinkedIn and donate to us at thinktechhawaii.com Mahalo.