U.S. Halts Cooperation with United Nations on OUR Potential Human Rights Violations

In a move straight out of a tin-pot dictatorship, the Trump Administration has stopped responding to United Nations inquiries into human rights conditions.

The Trump admin has stopped cooperating with U.N. investigators over potential human rights violations occurring inside America, in a move that delivers a major blow to vulnerable U.S. communities....

Quietly and unnoticed, the state department has ceased to respond to official complaints from UN special rapporteurs, the network of independent experts who act as global watchdogs on fundamental issues such as poverty, migration, freedom of expression and justice. There has been no response to any such formal query since 7 May 2018, with at least 13 requests going unanswered.

Nor has the Trump administration extended any invitation to a UN monitor to visit the US to investigate human rights inside the country since the start of Trump’s term two years ago in January 2017. Two UN experts have made official fact-finding visits under his watch – the special rapporteurs on extreme poverty and privacy – but both were invited initially by Barack Obama, who hosted 16 such visits during his presidency.

Yes, the Trump administration continues to break with international human rights standards as our own State Departments is not responding to official complaints from United Nations.

Preventing international human rights bodies from investigating the real-life impacts of your policies doesn’t just suggest a cover up. It tells other countries that they can act on their authoritarian impulses and get away with it.

Jamil Dakwar, director of the American Civil Liberties Union’s human rights program, said the shift gave the impression the US was no longer serious about honoring its own human rights obligations. The ripple effect around the world would be dire.

“They are sending a very dangerous message to other countries: that if you don’t cooperate with UN experts they will just go away. That’s a serious setback to the system created after World War II to ensure that domestic human rights violations could no longer be seen as an internal matter,” Dakwar said.

Why? Why? Why?  This is not us.

Source: https://www.theguardian.com/law/2019/jan/04/trump-administration-un-human-rights-violations