 Welcome to Cooper Union. This week we'll be looking at the world casting their ballot for a better America. Yesterday on November 9th, the U.S. actually appeared before the Universal Periodic Review in Geneva and was actually examined on how they're doing with their human rights record. I kind of think of it as a human rights checkup. And the countries of the world over 120 took the floor to be able to share what they considered about the United States that they were alarmed about. In some ways it was an international intervention, very concerned about the direction of this democracy and where we should go as we move forward. I'm very fortunate today to have Kerry, Keith, and Krista with me. They're representing different elements of civil society that have been engaged in this process for human rights way before the UPR and will continue to work beyond that to make sure that human rights are realized in the United States. I'd like to begin with Kerry and ask her a question about what did you think or what are some of your initial observations about the UPR yesterday? It just happened yesterday. It was sort of painful to see the Department of Justice arguments in some of those videos. But what are some of your initial observations that you'd like to share with the world? Okay, so first, my name is Kerry McLean. I am the UPR coordinator for the U.S. Human Rights Network. So to answer your question, Josh, the U.S. presentation was disappointing to put it very mildly. There were several misrepresentations made, for example, regarding protection of the First Amendment, regarding immigration, regarding access to justice. I don't want to spend too much time on that, but you can view a recording of the UPR on the UNTV website. We also provide a link to the UPR recording on our website, which is www.upr2020.org. Over the past year, members of our network have organized briefings where they shared information with embassies and diplomatic missions about the situation in the U.S. in respect to protection and fulfillment of human rights. We were heartened to see several of our recommendations voiced by representatives of governments from all around the world during the UPR session yesterday. The vast majority of the members of the Human Rights Council talked about police violence and racial discrimination and call for change. Many government reps encouraged the U.S. to be engaged with the Human Rights Council and the Paris Agreement. Some spoke out about migration and one country, Burkino Faso, recommended that the U.S. government address the high rate of paternal mortality amongst Black women. So the high rate of paternal mortality against Black women in the U.S. is an issue that I've worked on in the past, so I was really excited to see at least one country talk about it. Thank you. That's actually a really good point because women's rights were mentioned by a lot. I mean, Australia, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Iceland, Luxembourg, Malaysia, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, all talked about women, family planning and reproductive rights because the U.S. actually said that they were reversing course and added Geneva Declaration last week trying to outlaw abortion and women's rights. So that's a good point. And Romania talked about paid maternity leave and India equal pay for work. So we're very glad that the countries around the world will raise those points. And maybe, Krista, what were some of the priorities that you wanted to be addressed in the U.P.R. of the U.S., and did any states surprise you with their recommendations? I'm sure, I apologize, I didn't see it, but I'm sure nobody surprised me with anything they have to say. And it's my understanding that a few countries discussed police violence. And so that's what we wanted, basically. There's an understanding that there's pretty much nothing the U.N. can do except put pressure on the United States because the United States is so powerful. So we understand the name it and shaming game. I don't think it would work with this administration, but it may work because he wasn't shamed by anything that he said or did. But I think with the next administration, it's not about naming and shaming. I expected to be more like possibly the Obama administration knowing that this is Joe's administration now and he's not VP to Obama. I expect some of the same things to happen that there will be a move towards putting police departments back under consent decrees and there won't be that much of a fight about it. What I'm hoping is that he listens to the fact that we don't want more police and that there's the deep funding out there which is kind of musical chairs with money. Because I believe that they would defund for a little while and then give the money back. So I'm not quite sure whether or not that strategy would work forever, but we're looking at different programs to cover like 50% of the calls to police. You don't need to come armed too. So we're trying to do the Kahootz program. Have you heard of that program out of Oregon? Yeah. So that's what I was looking for, some kind of mentioning of police violence. And as far as women is concerned, because only 5% of women or only 5% of the shootings are women, but you have domestic violence in homes of police officers, which then spills out on the street. In Chicago there was a statistic that 50 police officers who had domestic violence going on in the home had 50% more complaints of excessive force. There's rape by police officers, which these guys can be predators and serial rapists. And under the conventions and under the UN, rape by a government official is torture. So it's my understanding under the Obama administration that they started to pick up with their sexual assault cases at the federal level. So we're hoping that they stay up there. So it was just good news all around to hear that they were addressing police violence, but we know that they were addressing it because of the protest of George Floyd. And funny that Oregon, which is in and of itself just a state would be so ahead of the game when it came to having programs where you didn't use as many police officers. So yeah, we were happy to hear about that. Okay. And building on that, Keith, I mean, what are some recommendations that we're hoping we can put forward to the new administration that then would say what we can focus on realizing of human rights in this next UPR cycle? Because it'll sort of go with the same time as Biden will be four and a half years. So what are some recommendations you might have that we can focus on? Well, let me echo what my colleagues have said that there are a lot of half truths and in a few cases, whole lives that were presented in a diplomatic manner at the UPR. But once you cut through the fog, there were some general recommendations to the U.S. that could in fact help us form our human rights agenda that we could present to the Biden administration. A couple of them are not new. The need for a national institution focus on human rights, the need for a national plan of action for racial justice. Many people were outraged that the U.S. would reengage in the expand rather the death penalty use of the death penalty at the federal level, many of the most of the European countries in fact called for an immediate moratorium. The ratification agenda of CEDAW and the rights of the child and the persons with disabilities, the economic, social, and cultural rights. And this was an echo throughout. I was able to watch at least 95 countries. And of course, George Floyd's name was invoked many times as well as the excessive use of deadly force by the police. Some of the remedies that were offered included human rights education for the police. There would be some consistency between any federal policies and state-level policies. Unfortunately, there was no mention my colleague, Ms. McClain says it was one country. I heard the elections mentioned, congratulatory notes, and perhaps it was just a timing. But I was still surprised because everyone on who was testifying must have known that the president had just tried to inject himself in the electoral process by calling for an end to the vote counting and to provide misinformation to millions of Americans and to show not thinking of an appalling disrespect for people who at risk their lives, their safety and security, braving long lines in order to cast their vote, to participate in the political process that would be consistent with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, with the International Convention for Civil and Political Rights, and with the Convention for the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination. I could say more about that, but I don't want to dominate the topic right now, because I think when you look at the thrust of what happened at the UPR, you can say that yes, the U.S. complied by participating, but what is the content of that participation? And if this is the best that we get out of this administration, on one level you can understand it, but on another level, at the subliminal level, they made sure they had people of color delivering some of the messages. And I think that our movement needs to think through those issues. We can't stop who an administration like Trump might put forth, but there is recognition of the work that groups like the network have done in the past by bringing more people of color and the issues that African Americans and Latinos, Latinx and indigenous peoples and Asian Americans are concerned about. Keith, you brought up so many good points. I mean, the 222 a.m. press conference where, of course, they were all spread in COVID in the White House, we see now saying, frankly, we did win. And then the November 5th moment, where even it was sort of a McCarthy moment, where even the networks just finally cut them off when he's still saying that he's spreading more information and they're fact-checking right then saying something they should have done a long time ago. And now with Pompeo's statement today, saying, we'll have a smooth transition to our second administration, it's not going. So we did need, in some ways, some stronger recommendations from our allies to say, this isn't normal. The democracy is being shaken and civil society has done everything they could by going out there and standing in the long lines and risking their lives to vote. And now the world needs to also cast that ballot for a better America. And so I think you did bring up a lot of good points. And, and Krista, I know you might want to feed on that as well. But yeah, I mean, we had it's national human rights institution. We don't have one. The countries that are telling us to create one is Somalia, Zambia, Qatar, Philippines, Nepal, Lithuania, India. All those countries have national human rights institutions. It's never been done. It also was, in a way, a repudiation of that commission on inalienable rights. Saying that body that was created is trying to create a hierarchy of rights that undermines universal norms. It's definitely putting women's rights underneath. And if there's any comments about the Unalienable Rights Commission we want to make, or to get back to maybe some of the priorities we have to realize human rights in U.S., we could look at either of those two. Well, the only comment I'll make about the commission is that I think there were a few countries, I heard a few countries actually praising it, which was disturbing. And I want to believe it's because they're not informed. They're not really informed about what it means. But there were a few countries that praised the U.S. for the commission. Yeah, I'm sorry. Go ahead. Go ahead. No, go ahead. No, it's interesting that, you know, unalienable rights is part of our Constitution, right? I mean, I think the first sentence in the Declaration is something about unalienable rights. And you know that we're tied to our Constitution. So we're not going to do anything further than quote the Constitution, right? But with that being said, unalienable rights, they're not giving Black people unalienable rights, right? If you have slavery written into your Constitution, you're not giving people unalienable rights. You're giving people rights that can be alienated, right? If you can put me in prison and make me a slave, then, you know, you're just talking out the side of your mouth. So, you know, this administration, that's what they've been doing. I look forward to Biden having CERD, having ICCPR, and having the CAP conferences so that we can discuss everything we need to discuss over the next year or two. Yeah. Going back to the UPR itself, a couple of things, takeaways, I think, is important. There was a unanimous call for the U.S. to reengage with the United Nations Human Rights Council. This is something that Nikki Haley did who is likely to be a presidential candidate in 2024 under the direction of State Department and Pompeo, who's also likely to be a candidate and current President Donald Trump. But there was also a call for the U.S. to just have the standard operating procedures to welcome the special measures for all of the special rapid tours. And the U.S. expressed its, as Chris said, its supremacy of the Constitution theory, and what really amounts to U.S. exceptionalism, that our rights in enshrining the Constitution are better than the treaties, and that's why we don't sign them. I mean, give me a break. And the other thing was to say that there's this process that has to go through, it's complicated through the U.S. Senate, if they wanted to pass these to ascend to these treaties, they could. And again, this is one of those half truths. While they have signed certain, they have also applied reservations, understandings, and declarations, which basically nullify them and to say they're non-SEF executing. But that's okay. Just because you say they're non-SEF executing doesn't mean that people can't use the content and the language to help us. In fact, here in Georgia, where we have two Senate races coming up, we have to think about our right to participate in political process. The use of the U.S. Postal Service to delay the delivery of ballots, to hold onto ballots in Miami-Dade County that people knew were there. And then we had to go to court in order to make sure that there were regular sweeps to make sure that they were not holding ballots in a sophisticated way to delay. The other thing is the voter suppression activities that were undertaken, not just in Georgia, but across the country. And in fact, everywhere that President Trump is talking about recounts or that they were illegally cast ballots, those are African American areas like Philadelphia, Milwaukee, or here in the Atlanta metropolitan area, or Latinx and indigenous areas such as out in Muscogee County, I think I pronounced it right, in Arizona or in Clark County where Las Vegas is. So I think that I wish there had been more discussion, but maybe what we can do, the human rights movement, brother, is to provide some of the people who express some genuine concern about what's happening with the U.S. human rights record an update since they didn't have it. I'm assuming that's the reason they didn't say anything. Yeah, no, I mean, you brought up so many good points because with the treaty bodies, right, it's the same argument that's dusted off every four years. It's nothing we haven't heard before that in the U.S., we only ratify when we really are achieving. I mean, it's like, you can't say that on cert. Like, what are you talking about? And then the other side, they try to promote we've ratified five out of nine. Well, no, we all know they've only ratified three, civil and political, racial discrimination and torture. And the others are optional protocols. If you want to add optional protocols, we never recognize the optional protocol allowing individuals to petition those treaty bodies. So they're just playing with things and trying to make things. And we know that they're not even, I think we could all speak to this, the consultation this time was so much weaker and just not even an attempt, a genuine attempt. And also, the report, the report, I think that's an area we could all look at, that they turn in a report in August that doesn't even mention COVID. So they turn it in late. And then they don't even mention the COVID crisis at all with so many deaths. They just didn't even come to the game of this UPR, the Super Bowl of Human Rights, ready to actually talk. And probably, I think, Kerry, I think there's other things we could look at. But when they said, at the beginning and the end, we've enjoyed partnering with civil society and working with, you know, I was looking at who'd we partner with? Did I miss the meeting? The only time they had a consultation, they'd let us know with less than a week, and it's like, try to get to DC, and then the phones never worked. So it's the same game that every time a UPR or a treaty by view comes up, like, I'm not gonna work again, or what are we gonna do now? So we can think about how we move forward with these next steps and what we want to really push. So what are some of the human rights priorities, then, that we think we could get in Chicago, in Georgia, and at the national level, where we could then say in four years at the next UPR, this has changed? What are some of maybe the low hanging fruit that we could pick? And like, what are some of the longer term things? But what's the next steps we need to do together as a movement? Well, as I mentioned, we need to push for Biden to hold the ICCPR, the CERD, and the CAT reviews. He needs to hold those. And as we were speaking about, Obama did them within months of each other. So we can catch up. And if we're talking about those things, we can address a lot of the stuff that we're trying to do here on the ground. Well, we're trying to get civilian police of accountability councils, which will allow for independent investigations of police crimes, instead of them investigating themselves as independent. And since at least this DOJ administration, and even the DOJ administration from before, because my ground was murder, and the fact that even under Obama, the DOJ couldn't figure that out, leaves me pause when it comes to Kamala and Joe Biden. Getting involved with women's rights, right? You could pass the CDAL, you know, we could assign and ratify CDAL so that we could cover women's rights not only in the police violence sector, but across our country. And I think the last thing is to really get some of these consent decrees back out into some of these areas. So if he wants to come in and come in hard to take some control. And then, I'm sorry, the last thing would be getting the Emmett Till anti lynching even and taking slavery. Now that's a hard one. Okay, because we're asking to amend the Constitution. So we would have to amend the 13th amendment to take out the clause that allows them to enslave incarcerated people. And mainly because if I'm incarcerated and you're paying me 35 cents or however much they pay incarcerated people to stamp out license plates to, you know, farm to breed dogs and all the rest of the stuff, they should be making, you know, $30 an hour to do some of this stuff. And if I'm incarcerated, but it isn't a burden on my family for me to be incarcerated because you have to pay me at least minimum wage for the work I do. And I can send that money back to my family. And I can start becoming that caretaker that I need. That would be a positive step, especially for, you know, our people as in black and brown people, right? So those are those are the big, I think, five that I think need to be done when it comes to next steps with Biden. Thank you. So we have five minutes to go still carry and keep. Sure. Okay, I'll try to be quick. So just one more thing about the condition of unalienable rights for viewers. It's very bad. And in fact, there's a federal lawsuit against it and over 100 human rights organizations have spoken out about it. And I'd encourage people to do some some research to find out more, but it's definitely not a good thing. So I want to just say a little bit about what's going to happen post UPR. The United States, they have a couple of months during which they can respond to all of the recommendations, and they can think about, you know, which ones they support or note or which are pending or they reject. And during that period, what civil society can do is we can lobby the government to accept recommendation. And since we have a new administration going in, anything's possible. So we should definitely do that. And one thing that we're talking about within the network is it's possibly working on developing a draft implementation plan. And another thing that civil society can do around March or April when the Human Rights Council holds a session, you have the opportunity to actually intervene with an oral statement regarding the UPR report and acceptance of report that comes out of the Human Rights Council. So everyone can think about that and please keep visiting our UPR 2020.org website for information and to see how you can possibly get involved. Thank you so much. And that brings us to Georgia. Georgia is definitely on our mind. We're talking about the New South, but the now South keeps what's going to happen between now and January 5th and how we need to mobilize. You can already see the national strategy of the Republican Party unfolding. The two Republican senators, Kelly Loeffler, who either owns or co-owns the Stock Exchange and David Perdue, whose cousin is the Secretary of Agriculture, sent out a note saying that the Secretary of State should step down. This is an attempt to put a blanket or a cloud over the entire electoral process in Georgia. And that's consistent with President Trump and quite frankly the 70 million people who voted for him. And that's what we have to look at. Trumpism will not be disappearing even if he does. And Trumpism fights against the things that we are fighting for. And I think we have to translate certain things like the right to the adequate standard of living to minimum wage, etc. And I think at the end of the day, we should come up with a list of things. Biden has already said that they will rejoin the Paris Accord. That's great. But what does that mean for us at the national or state or local levels? And I think the road ahead is complex and contradictory. We have to fight for ratification even though we know that maternal health is off the chain, problems of maternal health is off the chain. And then at the, you know, women are still being shackled in prisons to have babies as well. And so I think that the outrage that we feel when we understand what human rights violations are in this country, we have to find ways of translating that so that people can understand. And I for one can say very clearly, I'm really not interested in embracing my abuses. And that's what the Trumpism and the 70 million mean. We can't ignore that. And in my tradition, we say that every goodbye ain't gone. So I don't think that Donald Trump is just going to disappear. No, I agree. And it is great to say the former administration as we're doing events now, and we can all do the dancing that we saw around the country, but we definitely know this dance for democracy will take a lot more. And I want to thank all of you for taking time and being here today to discuss and look at the world casting its ballot on human rights in the United States. And we look forward to continuous conversation every two weeks to see how we can then change the situation we have on the ground. Mahalo. Thank you so much, everyone.