Tag: International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights

March 12, 2016

Who Is the US Killing With Drones?

As the news broke on March 7, 2016, that US drone strikes had killed 150 people in Somalia, the White House announced it will reveal, for the first time, the number of people killed by drones and manned airstrikes “outside areas of active hostilities” since 2009. The tallies will include civilian deaths. This is a… Read more »

April 27, 2015

Challenging American Exceptionalism

President Barack Obama stood behind the podium and apologized for inadvertently killing two Western hostages – including one American – during a drone strike in Pakistan. Obama said, “one of the things that sets America apart from many other nations, one of the things that makes us exceptional, is our willingness to confront squarely our… Read more »

August 11, 2011

Lost in the Debt Ceiling Debate: The Legal Duty to Create Jobs

By Jeanne Mirer and Marjorie Cohn The debate about the debt ceiling should have been a conversation about how to create jobs. It is time for progressives to remind the government that it has a legal duty to create jobs, and must act immediately – if not through Congress, then through the Federal Reserve. With… Read more »

October 14, 2010

Israel Raid on Gaza Flotilla: US Failure to Condemn Despite UN Findings

On May 31, the Israeli military attacked a flotilla of ships in international waters. The vessels were carrying humanitarian supplies to the people in the Gaza Strip, who suffer under a punishing blockade by Israel. The stated aims of the flotilla were to draw international attention to the situation in Gaza and the effect of… Read more »

August 20, 2010

California Assembly Votes to Report on Human Rights to U.N. Committees

On August 9, the California Assembly took the historic step of becoming the first state to agree to publicize the text of three ratified U.N. human rights treaties, and to submit the required reports to the State Department for consideration by the U.N. treaty committees. The State Assembly voted to pass ACR 129, the Human… Read more »

February 11, 2009

A Call to End All Renditions

Binyam Mohamed, an Ethiopian residing in Britain, said he was tortured after being sent to Morocco and Afghanistan in 2002 by the U.S. government. Mohamed was transferred to Guantánamo in 2004 and all terrorism charges against him were dismissed last year. Mohamed was a victim of extraordinary rendition, in which a person is abducted without… Read more »

November 24, 2008

Guantánamo Justice Delayed Seven Years

Since the Bush administration began transporting men and boys to Guantánamo Bay in January 2002, it has tried to prevent them from presenting their cases before a neutral federal judge. Indeed, the naval base was turned into a prison camp precisely to keep the detainees away from impartial courts. The government argued that federal courts… Read more »

February 28, 2006

Human Rights Hypocrisy

Last week, the President of the United Nations General Assembly announced a new proposal to revamp the UN Human Rights Commission and rename it the UN Human Rights Council. The product of months of negotiations between the 53 member nations of the Commission, the proposal will be voted on by the General Assembly next month…. Read more »

March 3, 2005

U.S. Finally Outlaws Execution of Children

Today, the Court repudiated the misguided idea that the United States can pledge to leave no child behind while simultaneously exiling children to the death chamber.Dr. William F. Schulz, Executive Director, Amnesty International Until March 1, 2005, the United States was the only nation in the world that permitted the execution of children under age… Read more »