U.N. Human Rights Committee releases list of issues it will raise with the U.S.
Last month, as we’ve reported, we met with the U.N. Human Rights Committee in Geneva to discuss our recommendations to the Human Rights Committee of issues to raise with the U.S. government during the Committee’s review this year of U.S. implementation of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), an international treaty which guarantees, inter alia, the right to freedom of movement.
The Human Rights Committee has now posted a preliminary version of its List of issues to be taken up in connection with the consideration of the fourth periodic report of the United States of America. (This version is preliminary and unofficial only because the original English text has not yet been translated into all of the six official U.N. languages.)
The U.S. government is expected to respond to this short list of issues and questions before its appearance before the Committee in October 2013. But the Committee’s short list of issues is not limiting, and questions about other issues may be asked during the October session. That’s especially likely to be the case for issues of concern to members of the Committee who were not on the sub-committee that drafted the list of issues related ot the USA.
The specific U.S. violations of the right to freedom of movement raised in our submissions were not included on the Committee’s short list of issues. But the Committee did raise, and ask the Committee to respond to, the issue we raised (and which we uncovered through our FOIA requests) of US failure to implement Executive Order 13107 or authorize U.S. courts to review complaints of human rights violations.