The Administration’s Campaign to Undermine Human Rights Continues

Politico reports that the Trump Administration has declined to renominate human rights leader Gay McDougall as a member of the CERD Committee, which monitors state party compliance with the UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination (CERD).  Rather than renominate McDougall, the Administration nominated no one to the Committee.  While Committee members serve as experts rather than  national representatives, the Administration’s move ensures that there will be no American voice on the Committee as it considers measures to address racial discrimination worldwide.

McDougall, an internationally renowned human rights advocate, was a particularly effective member of CERD.  She served as the Committee’s vice-chair.  She brought to the Committee her extensive experience investigating human rights abuses as a UN expert.  McDougall’s credentials include an academic affiliation with Fordham Law School, honorary degrees from Georgetown and CUNY Law Schools, and a MacArthur “genius” award recognizing her work against South African apartheid, among other campaigns.

It is well-known that the current Administration has a practice of reneging on its international commitments.  The U.S. resigned from the UN Human Rights Council, for example, and has failed to hold up its treaty obligations by filing monitoring reports with the UN.  The list goes on, with withdrawal from the Paris Climate Accord, and failure to support the Inter-American  Commission on Human Rights.

All of these actions remove the U.S. from human rights dialogues that might, over time, expand the human rights of U.S. residents.  But beyond that, removing U.S. voices from these formal dialogues also gives other nations cover for their human rights abuses.  McDougall, for example, was an outspoken advocate for addressing the human rights situation of the Uighurs in China.  While she will no doubt continue to speak out, the Trump Administration’s move sends a message that such human rights critiques take a back seat to economic considerations — including personal economic gain for the President and his family, whose business ties to China remain extensive. 

The U.S. has long taken an approach of human rights “exceptionalism,” based on the idea that our domestic standards were “exceptional,” essentially exempting us from international human rights scrutiny and dialogue.  As a human rights leader, this idea went, we could stand aside and critique others for their human rights records. 

This latest development at the CERD Committee, however, demonstrates that human rights exceptionalism has taken on a new meaning in the U.S.  Now, human rights itself is “excepted” from America’s governance equation, and our current government will do what it can to deny a platform to those who speak out effectively on human rights issues, wherever those abuses occur.