FYI: ACLU Calls for United States to Respect Universal Human Rights at Home and Abroad

[Henk Elegeert]

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ACLU Calls for United States to Respect Universal Human
Rights at Home and Abroad
	
April 1, 2005

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: media at aclu.org

Delegation to Attend UN Commission on Human Rights to Press
for Accountability

GENEVA -- A delegation of attorneys from the American Civil
Liberties Union arrived in Geneva this morning to attend the
61st meeting of the U.N. Commission on Human Rights. The
delegation seeks to bring issues of torture and detention,
racial profiling and the exploitation of migrant domestic
workers in the U.S. to the Commission’s attention.

"If the U.S. government truly wants to be a beacon of
liberty and freedom around the world, it must abide by the
same universal human rights principles it requires of the
rest of the world," said Ann Beeson, ACLU Associate Legal
Director.

The U.N. Commission on Human Rights was established in 1946
to monitor and uphold universal human rights standards
around the world. The Commission’s 54 member states meet for
six weeks every year and act as a forum in which countries
large and small, non-governmental groups and human rights
defenders from around the world can voice their human rights
concerns. The Commission has created independent procedures
and mechanisms directed by renowned international human
rights experts mandated to examine, monitor and publicly
report on human rights situations in specific countries or
territories and on major phenomena of human rights
violations worldwide.

"While we support calls to reform the Commission, it remains
an important forum to review human rights abuses and hold
governments accountable through its highly independent and
credible human rights mechanisms," said Jamil Dakwar a
senior human rights attorney with the ACLU. "All nations,
without exception, should work to uphold universal human
rights in all places, at all times."

The ACLU is attending the meetings of the U.N. Commission on
Human Rights as a non-governmental organization in a special
consultative status to the United Nations. The ACLU
delegation includes: Ann Beeson, Associate Legal Director,
ACLU; Jamil Dakwar, senior attorney, ACLU Human Rights
Working Group; Lenora Lapidus, Director, ACLU Women’s Rights
Project; Jameel Jaffer, staff attorney, ACLU National
Security Working Group; Claudia Flores, staff attorney,
ACLU’s Women’s Rights Project; and LaShawn Warren, ACLU
Legislative Counsel.

The ACLU recently created a new Human Rights Working Group
specifically dedicated to holding the U.S. government
accountable to universally recognized human rights
principles. The Human Rights Working Group is charged with
incorporating international human rights strategies into
ACLU advocacy on issues relating to national security,
immigrants’ rights, women’s rights, and racial justice.

The ACLU is a national, non-partisan non-governmental
organization with more than 400,000 members dedicated to
protecting the individual liberties, rights and freedoms
guaranteed in the Constitution, laws, and treaties of the
United States. The ACLU was founded in 1920 and is now the
largest U.S.-based civil liberties organization. It has
offices in all 50 states and employs over 150 permanent
staff attorneys and 2,000 cooperating attorneys, litigating
over 6,000 cases annually.

Biographical sketches for members of the delegation are
available on line at
http://www.aclu.org/International/International.cfm?ID=17876&c=36
"

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