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The Boston Principles on the Economic, Social and Cultural Rights of Non-Citizens

By mdavis

As advocates across the country review the emerging immigration policies of the new Administration, it’s worth recalling the Boston Principles, which set out baseline human rights of non-citizens in the United States.  Development of the Principles was led by the late Hope Lewis, a law professor at Northeastern University and a longtime human rights scholar and activist.  Working with her at Northeastern was Professor Rachel Rosenbloom, an expert on immigration law.  Dozens of other experts, advocates and affected individuals had input into the Principles as they were developed.  More information about the Principles, including short and long versions of the Principles themselves, is available here.  Set out below is a summary of how the Principles were developed as well as ideas for how they might be used to further human rights of non-citizens.  If you have other ideas or examples of how the Principles have been used as an organizing or legal tool, please share them with our readers through the Blog’s comment function.

The Boston Principles are 30 standards drawn from international human rights, humanitarian, and migration-related treaties, guidelines, and other statements of best practice as well as recommendations by U.S.-based civil society. An early draft was launched at a gathering of lawyers, human rights and immigrants’ rights advocates, scholars, students, and community organizers held at Northeastern University School of Law, Boston, Massachusetts on October 14-15, 2010.  The meeting was co-sponsored by the Program on Human Rights and the Global Economy, the Human Rights Interest Group of the American Society of International Law, and the Ford Foundation. After incorporating comments from meeting participants, a second draft was launched for public comment on December 10, 2010, International Human Rights Day.

What’s in Them?

The Boston Principles reflect the combined views of the signers on how people under U.S. jurisdiction, including noncitizens, should be treated.  They begin with the basic understanding that all human beings have human rights. Further, national governments, and the state and local authorities under their jurisdiction, have obligations to respect, protect, promote, and fulfill those human rights in civil, political, economic, social, and cultural areas of life. The Principles use language from some international treaties and standards that are already legally-binding on the U.S.; other language is aspirational.  The rights articulated include rights to family unity, rights to due process in immigration proceedings, and rights to seek asylum and humanitarian assistance.

How Can We Use Them?

We hope that advocates at state, local, and community levels will draw on the Boston Principles to further human rights and social justice by:

  • Supporting human rights educational efforts in schools and communities;
  • Calling on local and state governments to adopt resolutions that pledge compliance with human rights standards;
  • Reforming or adopting legislation;
  • Holding federal, state and local authorities accountable for compliance with international and domestic human rights standards;
  • Building awareness about human rights among communities, social networks, policymakers, lawmakers judges and ombudspersons.

While human rights norms may sometimes seem far away and foreign, the Boston Principles are explicitly domestic — they were developed in Boston, with several rounds of input from US-based advocates, scholars and affected individuals.  They reflect the best of US thinking on the rights of non-citizens.  We should all be looking for ways to hold our governments to these standards . . . which are, at bottom, our standards.