NEW YORK/ATLANTA/MADRID???Agroup of U.S. and international human rights organizations today called on theU.S. government to put a greater focus on achieving freedom from want byimplementing its obligation to protect, respect, and fulfill economic andsocial rights. The Center for Economic and Social Rights, Center for Women???sGlobal Leadership, International Network for Economic, Social and CulturalRights, Political Economy Research Institute, US Human Rights Network, andUrban Justice Center are among the groups urging the government to takespecific action to prioritize social and economic rights as a primary goalbehind financial regulations and reforms and other areas of economic and socialpolicy. Their call comes as the United States prepares to defend its humanrights record before the United Nations Human Rights Council for the first timethis week.
The inclusion of economic and social rights in the1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights illustrates the indivisibility ofall human rights. The United States, however, is one of only six countries thathas not ratified the principal UN treaty on economic, social and culturalrights. The United States??? traditional resistance to economic and social rightsarises from the fact that health, education, housing and other social goods areregarded as market commodities rather than as rights.
???Solving the deep-seatedeconomic and social problems of this country would offer the United States anopportunity to once again champion ???freedom from want??? as a basic human rightand as a goal of economic and social policy,??? said Radhika Balakrishnan,executive director of the Center for Women's Leadership.
In the United States, the ability to meet basic needsis directly connected to access to employment. Consequently, an analysis of the human rightssituation in the United States must take into account the severity of thecurrent recession and its impact on the most vulnerable sectors of thepopulation. The U.S. Universal Periodic Review (UPR) Report notesdissatisfaction with current racial and ethnic disparities in unemploymentrates, yet the government has not taken specific steps to address thesedisparities in its economic recovery efforts.
???We hope that the ObamaAdministration will take advantage of the UPR to announce steps it intends totake to protect the basic economic rights of individuals who are alreadymarginalized including women and people of color,??? said Ejim Dike, director of the Human Rights Project at the Urban Justice Center.
The human rights groups also urged the United Statesto fulfill its obligation to protect individual rights by ensuring thatthird-party behavior, such as that of corporations and financial institutions,does not compromise basic rights including the freedom from want. U.S. civilsociety groups are encouraged by new financial regulatory reforms and thecreation of new oversight committees and other instruments for regulatingfinance. Unfortunately, the details have been left to the discretion ofregulatory bodies which are susceptible to corporate pressure through lobbyingefforts and other channels of political influence.
A recent analysis by the Center for Economic andSocial Rights revealed that despite being the world's wealthiest economy, theUnited States has one the poorest records of economic and social rightsachievement of all high-income countries. The analysis found that child povertyand infant mortality rates are far higher than in other comparable countries.Health and education disparities, particularly between racial and ethnicgroups, are extremely wide: African American women are almost four times morelikely to die in childbirth than white women. The United States ranks bottom of24 OECD countries in the Economicand Social Rights Fulfillment Index, developed by academics at theUniversity of Connecticut and the New School, N.Y., which compares states???achievements in light of their resources.
During the UPR at the United Nations in Geneva thisweek, the groups are hosting a side event, ???Human Rights in the United States:Building Foundations for Freedom from Want in the Land of Plenty,??? on Friday,November 5, at the Palais des Nations, Room XXII at 13:00.