Groups Urge Obama To Strengthening U.S. Human Rights Commitments

 Posted by Antoine Morris,  Civilrights.org

Human and civil rights groups are calling on President Obama to issue an executive order that holds the United States accountable for its human rights commitments.

The order calls for revitalizing an Inter-agency Working Group on Human Rights to serve as a coordinating body for federal agencies and departments as they implement human rights obligations in U.S. domestic policy. It also calls for impact assessments to ensure that regulations and pending legislation are in accordance with U.S. human rights commitments.

The effort is being spearheaded by the Human Rights at Home Campaign, a 50-member coalition of organizations, which includes The Leadership Conference, that is also promoting other goals to make domestic application of human rights principles a priority.

As the American Civil Liberties Union's Jamil Dakwar and Amnesty International's Cristina Finch recently explained in The Huffington Post:

"In addition to being a major symbolic achievement, issuance of an executive order sets forth a definitive plan, displays assertive action and lays the groundwork for the demand that other nations follow our lead."

Revitalizing the Inter-agency Working Group on Human Rights is one of the Human Rights at Home Campaign's four goals.  The other three are:

• transforming the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights into a U.S. Commission on Civil and Human Rights, to expand its mandate to include not only civil and human rights issues, but also monitoring human rights implementation and enforcement efforts, and to make structural reforms to improve the commission's ability to function as an independent national human rights institution;
• ensuring meaningful government compliance with the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, which the U.S. ratified in 1994; and
• strengthening federal, state, and local government coordination in support of human rights.