United States

In October 2004, CESR published The Right to Health in the United States of America: What Does it Mean?, a report on how the U.S. health care system falls short of international standards for the right to health.

CESR is working towards building a human rights culture in the United States. To this end we have instigated and supported the work of two emerging networks in the U.S. The Poor People’s Economic Human Rights Campaign (PPEHRC), is a national campaign to raise the issue of poverty as a human rights violation. It is led by grassroots organizations of poor and homeless women, men and children of all races from across the country, ranging from public housing residents in Chicago to welfare recipients in Philadelphia. CESR has supported a range of activities that include developing economic and social rights factsheets, organizing capacity building meetings, documenting violations, and formulating legal strategies.

Click here for the MS Word version

CESR works to develop standards and precedents that hold the US accountable to international economic and social rights norms and that support local advocacy. We do this through legal submissions, as well as broad analysis of the relevance and applicability of human rights law in the US.

CESR works with policy and community groups to integrate a human rights perspective into education advocacy in New York City public schools. The international human rights framework recognizes that every child has the human right to a quality education. This right is codified in international treaties and declarations such as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the Convention on the Rights of the Child. The human rights framework requires governments to fulfill the basic learning needs of every child, providing them with the skills necessary to participate fully in society and the knowledge to develop as a human being.

The Right to Education Project emphasizes the need to strengthen parent and community participation in the management and oversight of the school system in order to strengthen government accountability for providing a quality education.

Report - Civil Society and School Accountability: A Human Rights Approach to Parent and Community Participation

The report Civil Society and School Accountability was produced by the Center for Economic and Social Rights and the New York University Institute for Education and Social Policy. The report argues that parents and communities have a human right to participate in the management and oversight of the school system, and that the effective protection of the right to participation is essential for creating greater accountability at all levels. It identifies and critiques the obstacles to participation that currently exist in New York City schools and makes recommendations based on human rights standards for how to better ensure effective civil society participation.

• Full Text of Report [pdf]
• Executive Summary - English version [ms word]
• Executive Summary - Spanish version [ms word]

Our research and documentation is based on a series of interviews with parents, community organizers and education advocates from across the city. The report draws from international declarations, conventions and other documents to lay out the human rights framework for participation and uses international examples to demonstrate the use of human rights standards in school management and oversight around the world.

Because Mayor Bloomberg and Chancellor Klein have launched a new round of school reform, the Children First initiative, this is a particularly critical time to discuss the human rights implications of civil society participation in school management. While the reforms are, in part, geared towards addressing the question of "parental involvement," they fail to provide parents and communities with adequate information and power to impact educational decision-making. Civil Society and School Accountability offers a broad framework for how human rights standards for participation can be applied to the Children First reform processes. It does not address many specific aspects of the reforms, but rather provides the parameters by which any reform effort must be assessed in relation to human rights obligations.

News Articles about the Report:

Open School Doors to Parents

The most effective strategies for working towards social justice come through grassroots activism. We work with grassroots activists to support emerging movements for economic and social rights (the right to food, work, housing, health, social security and education) in the United States. Increasingly, grassroots groups are beginning to use this human rights approach to challenge the poverty and inequality that their members face.

For the original petition filed at the Inter-American Commission, click here

Five printable flyers prepared by CESR for the Independent Commission on Public Education, New York City Trainings

In the United States, it is hard to use direct legal action to enforce human rights obligations. The U.S. has not ratified the several major human rights treaties, including those protecting the right to education. As a result, international treaties have not become part of our domestic law and do not provide a cause of action in court. Even when the U.S. does ratify a treaty, Congress makes what are called “reservations,” “understandings” and “declarations” that prevent individuals from using the treaties in U.S. courts. So, what are other ways that can we use human rights in the U.S.?