All Human Rights are Equal, Someone Tell the State Department

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The State Department has recently set up a “Commission on Unalienable Rights” that worries reproductive rights advocates, LGBTQ+ advocates, and human rights advocates. Amanda Klasing, acting Co-Director of the Women’s Rights Division with the Human Rights Watch, and Tarah Demant, Director of the Gender, Sexuality, and Identity program with Amnesty International USA sit down to talk with us about why we should be worried about the State Department’s new commission.

Human rights are part of an international, legal framework. Human rights are inalienable, meaning that they cannot be taken away from you. Human rights were agreed upon by UN member states that were followed up by binding treaties signed by multiple countries. It cannot be up to one presidential administration to decide what constitutes human rights. Once the human rights of already marginalized communities and groups (women, ethnic and religious minorities, LGBTQ+ communities, indigenous folks, and more) are nullified, they become even more vulnerable to violence, repression, and being silenced.

The “Commission on Unalienable Rights” is a State Department commission that is set to re-examine human rights standards in a “get-back-to-basics” lens. This commission will likely make changes to major human rights documents by chipping away at fundamental human rights definitions and framework. This is a parallel structure outside of pre-existing human rights-based structure within the State Department, and it will not have the same oversight. Those that have been appointed to the commission are those who have negative track records on issues like LGBTQ+ marriage, reproductive health, and torture. Already since the announcement of the commission, several Congresspeople and Senators have attempted to implement anti-human rights language into legislation, including terms like “natural rights,” rather than “human rights.”

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Amnesty International on USA Twitter

Transcript

Jennie: Welcome to RePROs Fight Back, a podcast on all things repro. I'm your host, Jennie Wetter, and each episode I'll be taking you to the front lines of the escalating fight over our sexual and reproductive health and rights at home and abroad. Each episode I'll be speaking with leaders who are fighting to protect our reproductive health and rights to ensure that no one's reproductive health depends on where they live. It's time for repros to fight back.

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Welcome to RePROs Fight Back. I'm your host, Jennie Wetter. Today we're going to talk about something that may have fallen under your radar with all the other things that are happening right now. The State Department has set up a “Commission on Unalienable Rights” that has human rights advocates worried, LGBTQ advocates, worried, and reproductive rights advocates worried. So today in the interview that you're going to hear, I am lucky enough to talk to two amazing human rights advocates who are going to talk to me about what is happening. First we have Amanda Klasing with the Human Rights Watch. And next we have Tarah Demant with Amnesty International to talk with us about why we should be worried about this new commission. Hi Tara and Amanda, thank you so much for being here.

Amanda and Tarah: Thanks for having us.

Jennie: Um, so why don't you to take a minute and introduce yourself so that people can get used to who’s talking when. Amanda, do you want to go first?

Amanda: Sure do. Thanks so much. This is Amanda Klasing. I am the acting co-director of the Women's Rights Division at Human Rights Watch.

Tarah: And this is Tarah Demant and I'm the director of the Gender, Sexuality, and Identity program at Amnesty International USA.

Jennie: Wonderful. Thank you ladies for being here. I'm, I'm excited to talk about a horrible thing. Um, kind of my brand talking about horrible things, so yay. Um, so I guess before we get into the commission, let's start at the beginning with what our human rights is…We could like do multiple episodes just on that.

Amanda: But the, the important thing for people to understand is that human rights are part of an international legal framework. And a lot of times people in the United States think of human rights as civil and political rights. So the right to not be tortured, the right of freedom of assembly, but human rights are a much more broad than that. I'm starting back with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. There is a broad acceptance that there are rights to health, the right to education, and then in addition to the civil and political rights where we're used to. And so all of these rights are interrelated. They're interdependent, and they're also equal under this legal framework.

Tarah: I mean, I think ironically, right? Human rights are also alien, inalienable, which is that they can't be taken away from you. You have human rights because you are human. Um, and legal documents and agreements that have recognized those things have recognized that you, you can't just pick and choose and you can't cherry pick human rights. And so kind of the great irony about what we're dealing with right now with this so-called Inalienable Rights Commission and are at a “return to unalienable rights”, is that human rights are inalienable. They can be taken away from you. And that includes rights that the Trump administration doesn't like and doesn't want to give to people and wants to actually take away. Um, and so that's a really critical thing. Like in this words, human rights defenders, human rights advocates like agree that human rights aren't inalienable. But of course, like the Orwellian work that's happening right now is taking terms and, and switching their meaning around, which is of course exactly what the State Department is saying that human rights defenders and human rights advocates are doing and lecturing human rights organizations around what rights are and aren't. Human rights are things you have because you were born with rights. No matter who you are. And they can't be taken away from you. And they can't be redefined by an administration or a political party because they're inconvenient or they conflict with a certain belief of, of who deserves rights. All people deserve rights and they all deserve all of their rights.

Jennie: We some of this happening with the State Department arguing that, you know, reproductive rights. There's no like agreed upon term as to what that is and people are saying that's what that is and that's not true. As you said, there's legal frameworks at the UN that have defined things like that. Um, but beyond reproductive rights, maybe we'll just go to re uh, uh, human rights and some of the UN frameworks that have been set up.

Amanda: Yeah, I mean I think one of the important things that you are alluding to is the United States is not the owner of human rights, human rights not only being inalienable is this framework that came together after all UN member states adopted a universal declaration of human rights saying this is what human rights are. And then that was followed up with binding treaties that different countries have signed and ratified within those binding treaties. Everything from the Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and the Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. There are additional treaties that include CEDAW, which a lot of of the audience might be familiar with. And that's the Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination against Women. There's also the convention on the rights of the child, the conventional rights of persons with disabilities among others. Now these conventions...

Jennie: Interesting. You pick three the U S has not signed.

Amanda : Signed but not ratified.

Jennie: Sorry.

Amanda: You're right, right. No, but that's an important distinction. That ratification requires Senate approval and it's something that we just haven't seen happen in the United States around rights of women, for example, and have children, which is shameful after decades of waiting. Yeah.

Tarah: And these conventions and rights that, you know, the, for example, the convention against torture, they're not expansions of rights. And the, the, the more that we talk about rights, it's not just expansions or redefinitions, it's explanation. So for example, the right to life, which is part of the UDHR, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, with the convention at torture says is like, oh, actually torture is a violation of your right to life. So part of this administration's claim has been, well, we're getting back to basics as opposed to these, what they're considering, um, expansions or, or you know, redefinitions and it's all the things that have been agreed upon again by countries over the last 65 years is not that we're redefining human rights, but that we're clarifying what they actually mean. Like what is the right to life mean? And the right to life means that you can't be tortured. It also means the right to the right to not be tortured means you can't be forced to carry a pregnancy. Right? What is the right to freedom of expression mean? And those things have been clarified through agreements. So this idea that somehow this administration, of all administrations, but certainly the United States as a country in and of itself can somehow get us “back to basics”, which is a phrase that's been used is, is frankly a lie. Like it is, it is not honest. And it's not really, it's not intending to do that at all. It's intending to really narrow down what certain rights, who get certain rights and then who doesn't. Right? Because these, all these treaties and conventions that have come out, are basic human rights, the right to choose the number and space in your children, the right to fair, or pardon me, to accurate sex and sex education, um, information. Those things are basic human rights and they've been clarified by agreement and by you know, years and years of working together based off basic human rights, the right to education, for example, the right to bodily autonomy. Well, what do we mean by those things? And that's where conventions and agreed upon documents come in, right? It's not some sort of hocus pocus. It's like this is years and decades of clarifying together as a global community and this administration, but any administration in this country doesn't get to just swoop in and decide what human rights are and aren't. Because what we're seeing is that idea used for very specific political ends, which is to cut rights for certain people.

Amanda: And maybe if we can take a step back and relate, like how is it that these rights have been clarified and defined over time? So I'm gonna use one example, but I think, and I'll come back to the right to life as well, but um, the right to live free of domestic violence, which is I think a right that we all inherently feel women and particularly inherently feel is a component of our fundamental human rights wasn't originally written into treaty and that was a significant oversight. And what it meant was that reporting over years grassroots organizations, defenders on the ground put forward evidence, to different human rights bodies, including the committee that actually oversees the implementation of the CEDAW but also in the International Criminal Court, um, or a criminal law component of, of the broader, uh, regime of, of human rights. Over time we started to understand why gender based violence is a human rights issue and the right to live free of violence as a human rights issue. And this happened, we can all agree that that's a fundamental human right. It just wasn't properly defined in the treaties that were negotiated mainly by men, let's be honest. And so, um, these are the rights are not living or changing, but these documents do. And that's really important. The right to life is another really great example because the committee that oversees the implementation of that covenant is called the Human Rights Committee. And they um, all of these committees get to issue what's called a general comments or general recommendations. There's essentially like advisory opinions, interpreting clauses that exist within their treaties and the right to life is a fundamental part of that. Um, and that was early on in the committee, they issued a general comment on what the to life meant and recently they've re issued a general comment that really demonstrates that states have an obligation to make sure that women don't die in childbirth. They also have issued recommendations that people don't die from, from gun violence when guns are unregulated. Really looking and digging into how people experience their rights and making recommendations to states to respond to it. All of that said, the U.S. does not get to pick from a menu and say, this is what we'll agree with and this is what we won’t.

Jennie: And I think one thing that we should also flush out is something you mentioned earlier and that's the distinction between economic, social, cultural rights and civil and political rights.

Amanda: Oh, so this, I mean, this is like the heart of the geopolitical kind of, um, history of human rights. The universal declaration saw these rights as unified and, uh, countries agreed. These are unified. Exactly. And I mean, think about Eleanor Roosevelt. I mean, there was talk in this country in the 30s and forties of having a second bill of rights that encompass economic, social, and cultural rights. And that sort of spirit that Eleanor Roosevelt brought to the Universal Declaration of human rights has really reflected on how these rights are presented as a holistic approach to human rights. And yet in the interim between this declaration, which is nonbinding and the treaties which are binding the, the Cold War took effect. And so when, when treaties were being negotiated, all of a sudden there was this riff to where the US.. was promoting the Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. Um, and the Soviet bloc was, was, uh, promoting the Economic, Social and Cultural Rights covenant. These are false dichotomies. All of these, and a lot of times people talk about some as rates and others positives. One is the government should stop doing something and the others, the government should do something that's not at all the case. We can see that discrimination actively prevents women and girls from accessing education, health care. And so that's very much so part of economic and social and cultural rights. Another false dichotomy is that civil political rights don't take money, but economic, social, and cultural rates take a lot of money. And so you're really talking about budgets when you're talking about fulfillment of these rights. Well, if anybody has looked at the amount of money that's invested in rule of law programs and reinvestment and justice systems, or what it takes to have a free and fair election in a country, we all know that these are huge investments of money equal or surpassing that of, of investments in health care. So the straw man that had been proposed over the United States for years, but why these right, economic, social and cultural rights aren't really rights just don't hold up in in practice.

Tarah: Well and the bottom line is like these strawmen had been put forward ultimately because the the United States has always wanted to pick and choose by which rights, by which account it holds itself and which rights it prioritizes and then also how it calls out which rights are more important so it can call out human rights abusers for political gain, right. As opposed to actually upholding human rights. I mean I think the other false dichotomy is this idea that you can have civil and political rights without economic, cultural and social rights, which you can't like the right to participate in your government meaningfully, which here in the United States is voting like you can't have that right If you don't have an economic cultural, social right to education fulfilled. That right is meaningless, right? If a woman or a pregnant person doesn't have the right to control the number and spacing of their children, the right to participate in government is meaningless if you can't actually control your own body. Right? So economic, cultural, social rights, they are necessary for political and civil rights. So even if the United States or whomever is in power and the government truly believes that a certain number of rights are more important than economic, cultural, and social rights. You need economic, cultural and social rights to make civil and political rights real. The reality is that you need them more from marginalized communities. And so, you know, all people need economic, social, cultural rights, men, boys, you know, dominant, dominant racial communities. Everyone needs economic, cultural, social rights. But when those rights are taken away or when those rights are marginalized, it is much more likely that women, people of color, poor communities, LGBTQI people, those are the people who are less likely to be able to access their civil and political rights. So it has served a very specific identity-based political agenda to really deemphasize economic, cultural, social rights the same way it fit a very, very specific geopolitical agenda to argue against a certain number of rights that other countries whom the United States was in conflict with, were upholding, right? So it's really convenient to be like, oh those aren't important rights cause we're really bad at them. And also because the people we are mad at are better some of them than we are. Right. So this again, this idea that somehow, even if you thought civil and political rights were more important, which, and as Amanda said, there's, there's so there's so intersectional, they're so intertwined. Even if you did think that it is absolutely wrongheaded and evidence based, clearly untrue, that you can have civil and political rights without full implementation and guarantee of economic, cultural and social rights.

Amanda: And taking a step back, we're thinking about this as a foreign policy issue, but ultimately what human rights are is an obligation that a government has to the people living inside its borders. There's also extraterritorial obligations. We all talk about that. But really it's, it's a, it's a, a commitment at global commitment to how a government will treat the people within its borders. And so even though this particular commission or the way the U.S. actually, um, plays in the human rights space is very much so about foreign policy. It's to keep the eye off of the ball and the ball is not just this administration, but certainly, um, um, being really reflected in this administration. The U.S. has consistently set at the international level, but it does not believe in the right to health. It does not believe to the right to water does not believe to, the in the right to education. And that is reflected in domestic policy over and again, when you actually look at, um, people's human rights within the United States, and this is only reinforcing that and really de, um, de-legitimizing those grassroots attempts to really start in the United States to claim human rights, that, that look different from civil and political rights.

Jennie: So that brings us to the Commission on Inalienable Rights. So what is it?

Tarah: Well let's start with a little context, which is what it's not, which is somehow abhorrent to this administration, right? I think it's really important that people see this commission and the announcement of this Commission on Inalienable Rights, which was an announcement by the Secretary of Sstate, Mike Pompeo, that a commission is going to be set forth that will re-examine human rights and sort of get back to basics approach based on a number of very specific documents, right? Including the UDHR. I think the rights of man was, um, Thomas Payne’s rights. A man was introduced in this list of documents they'd reassess global human rights with. Um, and so there's this commission at the State Department. But what it's not is this sort of like standalone threat to human rights out of this administration. Um, and, and frankly beyond this administration, which is, you know, we think a lot about Trump, the person we think then also about Trump the administration. But like none of this is possible without a total failure on Congress's part and particularly in the Republican party trying to continually redefine human rights for there for political gain. Right? And that's not, it's not wholly specific from one party, but what we're seeing now is more and more the Republican party fall in line with a very specific understanding of like what is convenient to describe as human rights because of a deeply held political or religious or personal belief as to who gets to qualify as fully human. So this, I want to put that context out there because it is a really scary individual thing, but it is part of a long line of attacks in which this administration, particularly in which Congress has allowed to happen, is chipping away at fundamental definitions, right? This isn't like friends can disagree or intelligent people can disagree about a specific what is the interpretation of this or that. But like a real dismantling of a human rights framework and the United States participation in human rights in general, even the human rights council or with the UN. Um, but as to like what it specifically is, it's a commission. Um, and so in some ways it doesn't seem that scary or important cause it's a number of people sort of sitting around in a room making pronouncements. Right? But we have already seen what that means, which again and um, Congress and congressional speakers, uh, Congress people trying to get into specific laws or appropriations bills, language like natural rights instead of human rights, human rights, which again are very well and clearly defined. And when the State Department says they're not there, it's a bold faced lie like human rights are very well and clearly defined. And I'm happy to resend the documents to the State Department if they'd like to see them again. They have them, the United States assigned them right? Human rights are very well defined. Natural rights are not particularly well-defined in him in international human rights law. And they tend to refer back to one religion’s very specific understanding of, of what types of things people need or deserve.

Amanda: And just to be very clear, within the State Department, there already is a structure of a bureau that is focused on rights. That is a mandate to report on human rights. And there are other structures that engage in international organizations that are focused on human rights. So what this also is, is not just a commission but a parallel structure outside of the normal structure that has been set up in order to look at human rights issues within the State Department. A parallel structure that is, you know, frankly doesn't have the same oversight and is quite worrying because the mandate is, um, all the things that Tarah has said, um, and is unnecessary. And so it's, uh, if you're a fiscal conservative, it's really wasteful on top of everything else. It's also really, really wasteful. The other thing to note is when we think about going back to these, these getting back to the basics for rights, it's often talking about those rights that have already been enjoyed by a certain part of the population, right? These are rights that have been enjoyed and may be threatened, um, by people that look like the people in power. These are, you know, is a dissident able to publish a book and totally important but still is a, a, a small percentage of the human rights violations we see is there an active opposition movement in government in that particular country, which is usually elite that are engaging. All of these things are important, but from a gender perspective is very often the rights that have not yet been enjoyed by the vast majority of the population, including women and girls and people of trans experience. And so I just, it's really important for us to understand when we say going back to basics, we're going back to a certain set of rights that already, um, we're, we're so far from being realized and enjoyed by the vast majority of the population around the world.

Tarah: Yeah. The secretary of state has announced this as a, a fresh new, what was that fresh new perspective, fresh new thinking. Um, and, and I think, you know, anybody listening to this podcast will find it ludicrous that this administration should be leading any discussion on human rights when it's so flagrantly boldly and explicitly is violating human rights. And like unapologetically, right, violating human rights as like a fundamental point of the administration's policy. Um, not whether it's out of the State Department and foreign policy, whether it's on our own borders, whether it's within our own borders, right? So just that alone is, is laughable. But ultimately also again, back to what Amanda said earlier, like the United States, it doesn't get to decide in a bubble what human rights are like. Human rights are global and globally we have sat down and discussed these things and this, you know, again, what inalienable means is that can't be taken away, which means that you can't actually sit down and redefine rights and say like, oh, we only like these other rights, which in the 50s really were only enjoyed by certain people and certain identities, right? What we don't like is the discussion of LGBTQI people enjoying rights that the United States doesn't want to give them. What we don't like is the idea that women and other people can control their reproduction because I don't personally believe that that should be a thing. Well that's great. But international human rights law is very clear on that. And so this is a tool like many others in the tool belt of this administration trying to dismantle just basic concepts of human rights because they don't like them because they don't agree with them. And because they don't like them because they benefit certain groups of people, right? All rights for all people. Isn't that something that this administration is interested in? So it wants to roll back human rights and and re carve out a very specific type of definition of the rights that really benefit a very specific group of people. And shockingly, that group doesn't involve women. You know, people who can reproduce it doesn't involve LGBTQI people. And like that's specifically what we're seeing is administration is also very clearly not interested in the rights of asylum seekers, migrants or refugees. It's also very clearly not interested in the rights of people of color. There's a number of groups that are being attacked on multiple fronts. And like, so this idea that one, this administration's in any place to, to lecture anybody, especially outside the U.S. borders on human rights is laughable. But also it's, it's not veiled at this point. This is just clearly an attempt to redefine the State Department's work and the U.S. is work in general within its own borders to not benefit certain groups of people. Redefining rights so it really only benefits the people you think need rights. Every person has the right to their own religious belief whether or not they think abortion is good or bad, whether or not they think that like LGBTQI people are like good or bad, whether or not they think that certain races have different quality. You get to believe whatever you want, you have that right. What you don't have is the right to impose this religious belief on other people. And that's what's happening. I mean in one sense you can see this as the idea that one can impose their fringe religion on other people. Right. And of course the irony is like, this is what this administration rails against this idea of somehow like fringe religion being imposed on the United States in terms of like the war, the so-called war on terror. But that's exactly what's happening here, which is a specific religious view of who gets rights and what rights are actually good and bad being imposed across governmental agencies and therefore like on the lives of everyday people, whether they're outside our borders or inside our borders are at our border.

Amanda: Yeah, I mean, I think, and I think what's really important too, to keep in mind in that context is the right to exercise your religion is a fundamental human right. And yet we have very clear indication within, um, human rights law that you can't pit rights against each other. So where my right to exercise my freedom of religion or my right to exercise my freedom of expression starts to impend and impose on your right to realize other human rights, then we have a tension that needs to be resolved by the state. And so that, that's just not a balancing act that is actually happening right now.

Jennie: Yeah, it really feels like third picking one predominant worldview and trying to impose it on everybody else and that's not how human rights work.

Amanda: And I, what I really worry about beyond the fact that we're thinking about a redefinition of human rights and that being imposed is what it means for human rights defenders on the ground. Because globally, this closing space of civil society is impacting human rights defenders and, and human rights defenders that are already marginalized in their own communities, including women's human rights defenders, LGBT defenders, indigenous peoples, people of ethnic minorities or religious minorities. These, these are people that are on the front lines of protecting rights of, of their communities or themselves. When you say that the rights that they are defending are in fact not human rights, then what are they, what are those people? They are more vulnerable. They are, it's difficult for their cases to be championed by human rights defenders. I mean, oftentimes, you know, for good or for bad, the U.S. government has played a complicated role in human rights. But oftentimes when you see, um, a rights defender at risk, there is an important role for a U.S. embassy to play or the State Department to play in making sure that that person's life is not taken or that they're indefinite detention is, is, um, curtailed. If all the sudden the rights that these people are fighting for are no longer recognized by the State Department, that is, uh, that is one less protection for people that are already really, really vulnerable to repression, to violence, and to ultimately being silenced.

Jennie: Well, and that just makes me think of how interconnected, again, everything is. And if you're defining a way, human rights, that means people don't, can't use that ground anymore. If the State Department is not, has decided that, um, reproductive rights or freedom from gender based violence or whatever are no longer human rights, then people don't have that ground anymore to come to the U.S. for asylum to escape, you know, violence or oppression. And again, everything is connected.

Amanda: Yeah, absolutely. And I mean, when we see the, the Department of Justice had a, um, a decision late last year that actually made domestic violence no longer grounds for seeking asylum. And so you see this interconnectedness, um, across the board and also when you're not, and this is separate from the commission, but what is being reported on within the human rights reports that the State Department issues annually, um, has been limited when it comes to women's rights, both on the grounds of violence but also on women's reproductive rights where um entire, the entire section of reproductive rights has been excised. And so these grounds in which, um, people seek asylum are becoming difficult. And the, how of these reports are being used are typically judges look at these reports. Are you saying that the grounds for persecution that you are facing are in fact true? And they look at Amnesty's reports, they look at human rights, watches, reports, but you know, honestly, the State Department reports becomes so much more important as a state of record of, of government document. And that's um, eh, whole parts of these reports that relate to women's rights are just silent now.

Tarah: Yeah. I mean this is again, like part of this broad train of, of regression and the, the impact that we're looking at is huge. It's not just a commission that spouts off a bunch of absolutely unintelligible malarkey that's like handpicked about what rights we get. Although it is really important to understand that the people that are pointing to this pointed to this commission are like the who’s who of anti women anti LGBTQ rights. Like it's a very specific group of people who have worked to redefine human rights to be exclusionary, right? So we're talking about real people's lives who are claiming asylum. We're talking about real people's lives who have depended on the U.S. government and a number of instances to protect or champion certain rights within their own country that they're at risk. But we're also talking about the United States broadly, just redefining what rights it will work for outside its borders and work with countries or what rights inside its borders. I mean this is, this is something that we see. We see this human Rights Watch, Amnesty, we see this all the time. We see it in the Philippines where the rights, you know, are being some the right to not be summarily executed is rolled back because the administration there is redefining who gets rights and who doesn't get rights. And in this case, if you're suspected of drug dealing or drug involvement, right? You don't have rights anymore. We see this with oppressive regimes where like you don't have the right to access internet or you don't have the rights to this, you don't have the right to that. Like these are the exact same things. So have our people want to call this administration whatever words we want to use. Like we see this Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch have documented this type of behavior for decades. Who gets to be defined as fully human, who gets to have rights and whose rights are actually inalienable, right? Whose rights can't be taken away. We've documented this Human Rights Watch has documented this for decades. And that's what's happening here is an administration in power using its power to roll back, access, uh, of human rights to very specific groups of people.

Jennie: So we've already started to touch on this. What, what could be the impact that we're going to see from this commission or the decisions that come out of it?

Tarah: Yeah, it's a little hard to tell what like decisions, but I mean, certainly the, the types of redefinitions that we're going to get, if you look at the people who've been appointed, these are people who've argued throughout their careers that the right to marriage does not extend to LGBTQI people. That, that, that the right to space your children doesn't include the right to abortion, that, that the rights to, um, you know, life doesn't include the right not to be tortured or doesn't include the right, um, not to, um, have security in pregnancy for example. You know, things, things like this. So, so you can see the type of direction it's going. And the question is like, well what, what does that actually mean? Like where is this going to go? Or is there something gonna be a couple of thought pieces? Right. Well, one thing we've already seen in Congress since the announcement of this is certain Senators and Representatives trying to get this language into law, which is instead of using human rights language again, which is very well defined and has very specific obligations using the language “natural law,” which is some sort of religious allusion, right? To a very specific group of laws that I don't know who gets to define whoever's churches in power at the time. Right? So we've seen this already even in what's it been to have been a week, two weeks? Time has no meaning. That like we've seen this already that in the last week and a half that we've seen try to slip in this like, Aha, this is the language we're gonna use now. Right? So we've already seen this impact even though it hasn't even, the commission hasn't even gotten started. They haven't, you know, they haven't actually met yet to our our knowledge or if they have, they haven't put out any announcements on it. Um, but what we're also likely see then is this commission redefining the obligations and understandings of the State Department. And of course that trickling down to other departments in the administration that become then U.S. focused Health and Human Services or Interior, you know, whatever that is, which is to say, how does the U.S. interact with the world? What does it we define as the things that drive our agenda and that are going to impact what we can and can't do. For example, if you've decided that the right to torture is not an inalienable, or the right, pardon me, the right to not be tortured is not in an inalienable right, then when you're involved with another country or when you're involved in an offsite, you know, an off an off U.S. black site, you're not actually violating human rights because you've redefined what human rights are. Now you are very much violating human rights because you don't get to decide what human rights are. Those are decided together. Right? But that's the type of thing that we're likely to see, which is the U.S. redefining how it engages in the world, what it's allowed to do. And also what it allows countries it works with to do. Who are the people we're holding accountable. And you know, as Amanda said so well for good or for ill, the U.S. has had a very complicated but very important role in human rights globally, often very uneven role in human rights globally. But what it has been able to do is with certain countries exert influence over certain countries that are violating human rights to say like, we're not gonna work with you in this and we're going to pressure you against this because of your record on human rights in this way. And again, that's been uneven. And there's, there's been a lot of ups and downs, but like where that has happened, where there has been impact because the U.S.has been committed to human rights, redefining human rights or taking out what certain rights are gonna fight for is not just a U.S. problem. It then becomes a global problem because of the influence of the United States globally. And that it's terrifying, not only for the way that we interact with the world and of course with our own people within our borders and at our borders, but also then the way that it motivates other rights violating governments to be much bolder about that. And not only to just be bolder about the rights violations that are already going on. And Philippines I think is a great example of that being bolstered by this administration, but also then stepping up other rights violations because there's no consequence from the United States and with the United States being such a forceful global player, again for good or for ill, where the United States goes with that, others will follow and indeed others have already followed. Right? Redefining human rights and then being totally, absolutely justified by the United States in doing that. So there is no than consequence for them because that relationship is kind of what they're looking to. Um, so the potential for this is vast and I think it's, there's so many things that are so, um, what's the word? There's just so many things that are so consequential happening that I think it's easy for folks to be like, oh, this is just hysterical. We are talking about a total redefinition of human rights led by the Trump administration.

Jennie: And that's scary just on its face.

Tarah: That's scary. And that's not hysterical to think about the way we've seen some of the things have tried to do in the shadows, right at, at UN gatherings, at UN meetings and multilateral spaces or even just within the United States itself, which doesn't involve, you know, maybe within internal agencies like Health and Human Services trying to erase trans people out of existence by just changing some words with USAID trying to erase LGBTQ people by erasing the word gender. Like we've seen this happen in multiple spaces, interior in the interior, in our own country, borders and the way that's then influenced at our U.S. border very visibly. And now we're looking at the way that this administration is trying to export that hate. And export that exclusion and that the, it should not be underestimated how much impact that can have. Also the idea that whomever comes into power next or whatever, every four to eight years and you know, comes into power that you can just rewrite the U.S.’ commitments to treat these to, you know, human rights as a word and concept. Right? That in and of itself is also terrifying.

Amanda: Yeah. No, I would say that the chilling effect that this has on how other governments engage with the U.S. government particularly in UN spaces is really important. And I think the UN Security Council, resolution of Women Peace and Security maybe a month ago is a great example where it should be uncontroversial to talk about the rights of women and what all people, um, what was great about that resolution has expanded the definition of victims of sexual violence and conflict, but how people who are victims of sexual violence and conflict need to access types of services. Um, and the U.S. government actually threatened a veto at the Security Council to remove mention of sexual and reproductive health and rights. And, and that's going to change the fight that came out of that is going to change the way that other governments approach resolutions, approach engagement in the UN space. Even those that are champions of a broad definition of human rights. I think that's also the case when you start to look at the, the different human rights mechanisms, including the regional and the UN mechanisms, the way they really dig and grapple with what these rights mean treaty bodies do this, but also the Inner American Commission on Human Rights. And, uh, you know, a few months ago, um, the State Department actually found that the Inner American Commission for Human Rights was in violation of a US law called the Siljander Amendment because it had issued a press release that actually, um, was stating where international law currently is on access to abortion, which is that abortion and that state should decriminalize abortion. And at a minimum on the cases of, um, the health or life of a woman, um, the, uh, case, a fetal malformation or unviable pregnancy and viable fetus. And in the case of sexual violence and, and the interpretation of the statement of law by the State Department was that that was actually advocacy for abortion. And so rather than seeing this as a human rights analysis, because these are human rights mechanisms that are actually, you know, interpreting what exists in international law. It was seen as advocacy for a certain position and you can see like the slight echoes of what then that would look like as these treaty mechanisms actually start to grapple with broader issues. I mean we were just talking about um, the rights to water and sanitation and, and that there was this pushback on the idea that sanitation as a human, right, well why are they going to intervene when there are mechanisms that are calling for the right to sanitation to be implemented? Are they going to start to engage with, um, the UN General Assembly if there is a resolution on the table that is recognizing what the right to adequate standard of living means and really try to influence the outcome. So we just have no idea what the impact will be, but it's going to certainly have a ripple effect across the globe.

Tarah: Yeah. And you know, when you say when the Secretary of State, he says that human rights have gone too far. Um, and that, and also that special interest groups by which he means human rights groups, right? Like the, to be really clear when human rights have gone too far, according to the secretary of state, it's because people that don't look like him get to access human rights, right? When, when special interest groups are trying to have an influence, it's special interest groups like Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch and people who are standing up for human rights that he doesn't like and the administration doesn't like because they don't fit with a very specific definition of who gets rights. Right. So that ripple effect, like everyone will be impacted by this, but much more people, marginalized peoples will be impacted this by this. So the sanitation example I think is so important because the right to sanitation United States government pushing back against that. It's because the right to sanitation specifically and explicitly disproportionately impacts people of color and low income people in the United States. And so if the United States said out loud, you're right, the right to sanitation, which is very clearly defined in international human rights laws and obligations to which we are a party applies, this is a real thing, we as a country would have to grapple with the fact that like Flint, Michigan, dominantly black, it does not have water. We would have to grapple with the the fact that like indigenous peoples live in, you know, food deserts as do many people in urban spaces and that those people are disproportionately from marginalized communities. Right? So again, this is, this is not rocket science as to why Mike Pompeo is suddenly interested in human rights discourse, right? The sort of theoretics of human rights is to very specifically stop the U.S. from participating in promoting or not attacking specific human rights for specific people. It's a lot, right?

Jennie: It's a lot.

Tarah: And it's, it's a, it's a part of, it's a part of this broad panoply of attacks that have happened under this administration and this one can seem so nerdy and so like technical and like why does it matter? You know? And, and that's, I think that fatigue is real. Like there are really important things and the that are happening to people on our border, the things that are happening by the U.S. government, the things that are happening abroad by the U.S. government, the things, the rights that are being rolled back in law in the state. It's like these are all really terrifying and can seem much more, much more tangible. But the implications of this are every right for every person, every right for every person is at stake. When the U.S. says it's going to redefine human rights, every right for every person is at stake. When the U.S. State Department gets up and has a commission, that's going to be the think tank of human rights. Like no rights will matter in the United States if the Trump administration redefines human rights. And because of our position in the world as a country that will have huge implications globally, not just the work that we do, but the work that other countries are willing to do or actively violate rights because now they just don't get to be called rights. Right? So it's really important that like-- there's a lot of fatigue. It is very technical. It is a commission, which what does that even mean? But like the implications are really huge and they cover every right for every person.

Amanda: And this is coming at a time when I feel like I've really seen, and I'm sure you have as well, Tarah, in your work, that there is a embracing in the United States among grassroots groups of human rights for years, that there really was kind of a disconnect where human rights are something that happened over there. And in the United States we have these rights. But I don't think it's a coincidence that this is happening at a time where you start to see people really claiming and rising up and saying, yes, I do have this human right to health and I do have this human right to water and I do have this human right to education. Often when things that happen in the State Department don't really register for people that are working very hard in their own communities in the United States to move the ball forward, but this is a local to global problem and we can't let it just happen on the side and let the technicality of it or the location and jurisdiction of it distract us from the fact that this is about dividing people and taking away the progress movement towards all rights for all people.

Jennie: Well and it's also the U.S. likes to test bad things in their foreign policy and then bring them home.

Tarah: Absolutely. We've seen that in things like the so-called global gag rule or Mexico City, which is an abortion ban, which are then brought back home through who can, how can we pay for abortion care in the United States? And of course like if you're poor and need abortion care and you're dependent on US federal money if you don't get to have that right. And that's an export it, we tried it out abroad, we brought it back here and it's, and it's that repression of rights there as an example.

Jennie: So I always like to end with a positive or at least an action step people can take after such a heavy episode. So what can listeners do to push back or fight back against everything that's happening in around human rights right now?

Tarah: Yeah, so the good news is that we have three branches of government and that actually whoever's happens to be empowered in the administration does not get to unilaterally make decisions like this. They do if they go unchecked. Right? And so what the most important thing is that actually this type of decision gets checked and that happens by Congress. So people should be reaching out to their elected representatives and asking for Congress to first defund this commission. Congress pays, they decide where our tax money goes, right? Your tax money goes to this abomination, right? And so this is something that Congress has direct control over. So calling your Representative and your Senator and asking for this to be defunded, right? That is a specific role that Congress has. The second is to hold a hearing. Congress has oversight, which is once they've paid for something, they then get to say, hey, we paid for this. What's happening? What's going on? So both the Senate and the House can hold hearings and demand explanations and definitions, right? What do you mean by natural law? How is this not redundant to the Democracy Rights and Labor Bureau? I mean plot spoiler, it is like, why is this happening? What are your intentions? What is the role of this answering the questions that frankly, that you've been asking that we don't have from answers to what do you expect the outcome to be of this? Why have this? What are you trying to change? Right? Congress has a very specific role. So people should be calling their elected officials and demanding that they take action on this. And there's so much happening there, you know, this is very easy to fall through the cracks. But Congress has a very specific and very powerful role that can play.

Amanda: And I want to think about this as an opportunity because the U.S. prior to this commission, prior to this administration has been agnostic at best, hostile at worst to the idea of economic, social and cultural rights. And it has in many ways pick and chosen in between the rights that it's going to uphold. And so if this is an opportunity for everyone to realize what is at stake when we talk about human rights, to realize that there are human rights that encompass everything that I think probably your listeners hold dear, including the right to health, then this is an opportunity to raise that with your lawmakers. Not only to stop this commission, but really to fight for a progressive idea of human rights that the rest of the world has caught onto. And we haven't. And so my pie in the sky is fight for the Senate to ratify the Covenant on Economic, social and Cultural Rights, fight for it to ratify CEDAW fight for it to ratify CRC. And that might not happen this year...

All: [Laughing]

Amanda: …and it might not happen in two years, but that, that is one way for it to prevent administrations to go back and forth and saying, what are human rights? They're there. They're in a treaty. It's teed up. There's a mechanism to actually ratify these. Let's do it. And you know, this is a generation that can make it happen at some point in time. So I just, let's, let's take the opportunity. Let's not all be, um, you know, uh, discouraged by what right now was very discouraging.

Jennie: Yeah. Well, Tarah, Amanda, thank you so much for being here. I had a great time, um, talking about such horrible things.

Amanda and Tarah: Thanks for having us.

Jennie: For more information, including show notes from this episode and previous episodes, please visit our website at reprosfightback.com you can also find us on Facebook and Twitter at repros fight back if you like our show. Please help others find it by sharing it with your friends and subscribing, rating and reviewing us on iTunes. Thanks for listening.

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