United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...
,
human rights
Human rights are moral principles or normsJames Nickel, with assistance from Thomas Pogge, M.B.E. Smith, and Leif Wenar, 13 December 2013, Stanford Encyclopedia of PhilosophyHuman Rights Retrieved 14 August 2014 for certain standards of hu ...
comprise a series of rights which are legally protected by the
Constitution of the United States
The Constitution of the United States is the supreme law of the United States of America. It superseded the Articles of Confederation, the nation's first constitution, in 1789. Originally comprising seven articles, it delineates the natio ...
(particularly the
Bill of Rights
A bill of rights, sometimes called a declaration of rights or a charter of rights, is a list of the most important rights to the citizens of a country. The purpose is to protect those rights against infringement from public officials and pr ...
Congress
A congress is a formal meeting of the representatives of different countries, constituent states, organizations, trade unions, political parties, or other groups. The term originated in Late Middle English to denote an encounter (meeting of ...
constitution
A constitution is the aggregate of fundamental principles or established precedents that constitute the legal basis of a polity, organisation or other type of entity and commonly determine how that entity is to be governed.
When these princ ...
, guaranteed unalienable rights to its citizens and (to some degree) non-citizens. These rights have evolved over time through constitutional amendments, legislation, and
judicial precedent
A precedent is a principle or rule established in a previous legal case that is either binding on or persuasive for a court or other tribunal when deciding subsequent cases with similar issues or facts. Common-law legal systems place great value ...
. Along with the rights themselves, the portion of the population granted these rights has expanded over time. Within the United States, federal courts have jurisdiction over
international human rights law
International human rights law (IHRL) is the body of international law designed to promote human rights on social, regional, and domestic levels. As a form of international law, international human rights law are primarily made up of treaties, a ...
s.
The United States has generally been given high to fair marks on human rights. For example, the
Freedom in the World
''Freedom in the World'' is a yearly survey and report by the U.S.-based non-governmental organization Freedom House that measures the degree of civil liberties and political rights in every nation and significant related and disputed territo ...
index (based in the U.S.) lists the United States in the highest category for human freedom in civil and political rights, with 83 out of 100 points as of 2021. The
Press Freedom Index
The Press Freedom Index is an annual ranking of countries compiled and published by Reporters Without Borders since 2002 based upon the organisation's own assessment of the countries' press freedom records in the previous year. It intends to ...
, published by Reporters Without Borders, ranks the U.S. 42nd out of 180 countries with a score of 72.74 out of 100 as of 2022, with lower scores indicating worse press freedom. The Democracy Index, published by the
Economist Intelligence Unit
The Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) is the research and analysis division of the Economist Group, providing forecasting and advisory services through research and analysis, such as monthly country reports, five-year country economic forecasts, ...
, described the United States as a "flawed democracy," with a score of 7.85 out of 10, making it the 26th most democratic country in the world as of 2021. The Human Rights Measurement Initiative finds that the United States performs worse than average for Quality of Life, Safety from the State, and Empowerment rights compared to other high-income countries.
Despite the fair to high rankings in reports on human rights, the United States also receives significant domestic and international criticism for its human rights record. Much of the criticism is directed at the existence of
systemic racism
Institutional racism, also known as systemic racism, is a form of racism that is embedded in the laws and regulations of a society or an organization. It manifests as discrimination in areas such as criminal justice, employment, housing, healt ...
, weaker
labor protection
Labour laws (also known as labor laws or employment laws) are those that mediate the relationship between workers, employing entities, trade unions, and the government. Collective labour law relates to the tripartite relationship between employee, ...
criminalization of homelessness
Anti-homelessness legislation can take two forms: legislation that aims to help and re-house homeless people; and legislation that is intended to send homeless people to homeless shelters compulsorily, or to criminalize homelessness and begging.
I ...
and
poverty
Poverty is the state of having few material possessions or little income. Poverty can have diverse social, economic, and political causes and effects. When evaluating poverty in ...
police brutality
Police brutality is the excessive and unwarranted use of force by law enforcement against an individual or a group. It is an extreme form of police misconduct and is a civil rights violation. Police brutality includes, but is not limited to, ...
death penalty
Capital punishment, also known as the death penalty, is the state-sanctioned practice of deliberately killing a person as a punishment for an actual or supposed crime, usually following an authorized, rule-governed process to conclude that t ...
despite its abolition in nearly all other western countries, abuse of both legal and illegal immigrants (including children), the facilitation of
state terrorism
State terrorism refers to acts of terrorism which a state conducts against another state or against its own citizens.Martin, 2006: p. 111.
Definition
There is neither an academic nor an international legal consensus regarding the proper def ...
, a
health care system
Health, according to the World Health Organization, is "a state of complete physical, Mental health, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease and infirmity".World Health Organization. (2006)''Constitution of the World H ...
favoring profit via
privatization
Privatization (also privatisation in British English) can mean several different things, most commonly referring to moving something from the public sector into the private sector. It is also sometimes used as a synonym for deregulation when ...
over the wellbeing of citizens, the lack of a
universal health care
Universal health care (also called universal health coverage, universal coverage, or universal care) is a health care system in which all residents of a particular country or region are assured access to health care. It is generally organized ar ...
program unlike most other developed countries, one of the most expensive and worst-performing health care systems of any developed country, continued support for foreign dictators (even when
genocide
Genocide is the intentional destruction of a people—usually defined as an ethnic, national, racial, or religious group—in whole or in part. Raphael Lemkin coined the term in 1944, combining the Greek word (, "race, people") with the Latin ...
has been committed),
forced disappearance
An enforced disappearance (or forced disappearance) is the secret abduction or imprisonment of a person by a State (polity), state or political organization, or by a third party with the authorization, support, or acquiescence of a state or po ...
s,
extraordinary rendition
Extraordinary rendition is a euphemism for state-sponsored Kidnapping, forcible abduction in another jurisdiction and transfer to a third state. The phrase usually refers to a United States-led program used during the War on Terror, which had t ...
s,
extrajudicial detention
Administrative detention is arrest and detention of individuals by the state without trial. A number of jurisdictions claim that it is done for security reasons. Many countries claim to use administrative detention as a means to combat terrorism ...
s, the
torture
Torture is the deliberate infliction of severe pain or suffering on a person for reasons such as punishment, extracting a confession, interrogation for information, or intimidating third parties. Some definitions are restricted to acts c ...
black site
In military terminology, a black site is a location at which an unacknowledged black operation or black project is conducted. According to the Associated Press, "Black sites are clandestine jails where prisoners generally are not charged with ...
s, and
extrajudicial
Extrajudicial punishment is a punishment for an alleged crime or offense which is carried out without legal process or supervision by a court or tribunal through a legal proceeding.
Politically motivated
Extrajudicial punishment is often a fe ...
targeted killing
Targeted killing is a form of murder or assassination carried out by governments outside a judicial procedure or a battlefield.
Since the late 20th century, the legal status of targeted killing has become a subject of contention within and bet ...
s (e.g. the
Disposition Matrix
The Disposition Matrix, informally known as a kill list, is a database of information for tracking, capturing, rendering, or killing suspected enemies of the United States. Developed by the Obama administration beginning in 2010, it goes beyo ...
).
History
The first human rights organization in the
Thirteen Colonies
The Thirteen Colonies, also known as the Thirteen British Colonies, the Thirteen American Colonies, or later as the United Colonies, were a group of Kingdom of Great Britain, British Colony, colonies on the Atlantic coast of North America. Fo ...
of
British America
British America comprised the colonial territories of the English Empire, which became the British Empire after the 1707 union of the Kingdom of England with the Kingdom of Scotland to form the Kingdom of Great Britain, in the Americas from 16 ...
, dedicated to the abolition of slavery, was formed by
Anthony Benezet
Anthony Benezet, born Antoine Bénézet (January 31, 1713May 3, 1784), was a French-American abolitionist and educator who was active in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. One of the early American abolitionists, Benezet founded one of the world's fir ...
in 1775. A year later, the
Declaration of Independence
A declaration of independence or declaration of statehood or proclamation of independence is an assertion by a polity in a defined territory that it is independent and constitutes a state. Such places are usually declared from part or all of th ...
announced that the Thirteen Colonies regarded themselves as independent states, and no longer a part of the
British Empire
The British Empire was composed of the dominions, colonies, protectorates, mandates, and other territories ruled or administered by the United Kingdom and its predecessor states. It began with the overseas possessions and trading posts esta ...
. The Declaration stated "that
all men are created equal
The quotation "all men are created equal" is part of the sentence in the U.S. Declaration of Independence – penned by Thomas Jefferson in 1776 during the beginning of the American Revolution – that reads "We hold these truths to be self-evide ...
, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are
Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness
"Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness" is a well-known phrase from the United States Declaration of Independence. Scanned image of the Jefferson's "original Rough draught" of the Declaration of Independence, written in June 1776, including ...
", echoing
John Locke
John Locke (; 29 August 1632 – 28 October 1704) was an English philosopher and physician, widely regarded as one of the most influential of Age of Enlightenment, Enlightenment thinkers and commonly known as the "father of liberalism ...
's phrase "life, liberty, and property". This view of human liberties, which originated from the European Enlightenment, postulates that fundamental rights are not granted by a divine or supernatural being to monarchs who then grant them to subjects, but are granted by a divine or supernatural being to each man (but not woman) and are inalienable and inherent.
After the Revolutionary War, the former thirteen colonies went through a pre-government phase of more than a decade, with much debate about the form of government they would have. The United States Constitution, adopted in 1787 through ratification at a national convention and conventions in the colonies, created a
republic
A republic () is a "state in which power rests with the people or their representatives; specifically a state without a monarchy" and also a "government, or system of government, of such a state." Previously, especially in the 17th and 18th c ...
that guaranteed several rights and civil liberties. However, it did not extend
voting rights in the United States
Voting rights in the United States, specifically the enfranchisement and disenfranchisement of different groups, has been a moral and political issue throughout United States history.
Eligibility to vote in the United States is governed by ...
beyond white male property owners (about 6% of the population). The Constitution referred to "Persons", not "Men" as was used in the Declaration of Independence. It also omitted any reference to terms such as a "Creator" or "God" and any authority derived or divined therefrom, and allowed "affirmation" in lieu of an "oath" if preferred. The Constitution guaranteed rights and provided that they belonged to all Persons (presumably meaning men and women, and perhaps children, although the developmental distinction between children and adults poses issues and has been the subject of subsequent amendments, as discussed below). Some of this conceptualization may have arisen from the significant
Quaker
Quakers are people who belong to a historically Protestant Christian set of Christian denomination, denominations known formally as the Religious Society of Friends. Members of these movements ("theFriends") are generally united by a belie ...
segment of the population in the colonies, especially in the Delaware Valley, and their religious views that all human beings, regardless of sex, age, race, or other characteristics, had the same
Inner light
The inward light, Light of God, Light of Christ, Christ within, That of God, Spirit of God within us, Light within, and inner light are related phrases commonly used within the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) as metaphors for Christ's li ...
. Quaker and Quaker-derived views would have informed the drafting and ratification of the Constitution, including the direct influence of some of the
Framers of the Constitution
The Constitutional Convention took place in Philadelphia from May 25 to September 17, 1787. Although the convention was intended to revise the league of states and first system of government under the Articles of Confederation, the intention fr ...
, such as
John Dickinson
John Dickinson (November 13 Julian_calendar">/nowiki>Julian_calendar_November_2.html" ;"title="Julian_calendar.html" ;"title="/nowiki>Julian calendar">/nowiki>Julian calendar November 2">Julian_calendar.html" ;"title="/nowiki>Julian calendar" ...
and
Thomas Mifflin
Thomas Mifflin (January 10, 1744January 20, 1800) was an American merchant, soldier, and politician from Pennsylvania, who is regarded as a Founding Father of the United States for his roles during and after the American Revolution. Mifflin wa ...
, who were either Quakers themselves or came from regions which were either founded or heavily populated by Quakers.
Dickinson, Mifflin and other Framers who objected to slavery were outvoted on that question, however, and the original Constitution sanctioned slavery (although it was not based on either the race or any other characteristic of the slave) and, through the Three-Fifths Compromise, it counted slaves (who were not defined by race) as three-fifths of a Person for purposes of distribution of taxes and representation in the House of Representatives (although the slaves themselves were discriminated against in voting for such representatives).
As the new Constitution took effect in practice, concerns about individual liberties and the concentration of power at the federal level, gave rise to the amendment of the Constitution through the adoption of the
Bill of Rights
A bill of rights, sometimes called a declaration of rights or a charter of rights, is a list of the most important rights to the citizens of a country. The purpose is to protect those rights against infringement from public officials and pr ...
, the first ten amendments to the Constitution. However, this had little impact on judgements by the courts for the first 130 years after its ratification.
Courts and legislatures also began to vary in the interpretation of "Person", with some jurisdictions narrowing the meaning of "Person" to cover only people with property, only men, or only white men. For example, although women had been voting in some states, such as New Jersey, since the founding of the United States, and prior to that in the colonial era, other states denied them the vote. In 1756 Lydia Chapin Taft voted, casting a vote in the local town hall meeting in place of her deceased husband. In 1777 women lost the right to exercise their vote in New York, in 1780 women lost the right to exercise their vote in Massachusetts, and in 1784 women lost the right to exercise their vote in New Hampshire.
From 1775 until 1807, the state constitution in New Jersey permitted all persons worth over fifty pounds (about $7,800 adjusted for inflation, with the election laws referring to the voters as "he or she") to vote; provided they had this property, free black men and single women regardless of race therefore had the vote until 1807, but not married women, who could have no independent claim to ownership of fifty pounds (anything they owned or earned belonged to their husbands by the
Common law
In law, common law (also known as judicial precedent, judge-made law, or case law) is the body of law created by judges and similar quasi-judicial tribunals by virtue of being stated in written opinions."The common law is not a brooding omnipresen ...
of
Coverture
Coverture (sometimes spelled couverture) was a legal doctrine in the English common law in which a married woman's legal existence was considered to be merged with that of her husband, so that she had no independent legal existence of her own. U ...
). In 1790, the law was revised to specifically include women, but in 1807 the law was again revised to exclude them, an unconstitutional act since the state constitution specifically made any such change dependent on the general suffrage. See
Women's suffrage in the United States
In the 1700's to early 1800's New Jersey did allow Women the right to vote before the passing of the Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, 19th Amendment, but in 1807 the state restricted the right to vote to "...tax-paying, ...
. Through the doctrine of
coverture
Coverture (sometimes spelled couverture) was a legal doctrine in the English common law in which a married woman's legal existence was considered to be merged with that of her husband, so that she had no independent legal existence of her own. U ...
, many states also denied married women the right to own property in their own name, although most allowed single women (widowed, divorced or never married) the "Person" status of men, sometimes pursuant to the common law concept of a femme sole. Over the years, a variety of claimants sought to assert that discrimination against women in voting, in property ownership, in occupational license, and other matters was unconstitutional given the Constitution's use of the term "Person", but the all-male courts did not give this fair hearing. See, e.g., Bradwell v. Illinois.
In the 1860s, after decades of conflict over southern states' continued practice of slavery, and northern states' outlawing it, the
Civil War
A civil war or intrastate war is a war between organized groups within the same state (or country).
The aim of one side may be to take control of the country or a region, to achieve independence for a region, or to change government policies ...
was fought, and in its aftermath the Constitution was amended to prohibit slavery and to prohibit states' denying rights granted in the Constitution. Among these amendments was the Fourteenth Amendment, which included an
Equal Protection Clause
The Equal Protection Clause is part of the first section of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. The clause, which took effect in 1868, provides "''nor shall any State ... deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal ...
which seemed to clarify that courts and states were prohibited in narrowing the meaning of "Persons". After the
Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution
The Fourteenth Amendment (Amendment XIV) to the United States Constitution was adopted on July 9, 1868, as one of the Reconstruction Amendments. Often considered as one of the most consequential amendments, it addresses citizenship rights and ...
was adopted,
Susan B. Anthony
Susan B. Anthony (born Susan Anthony; February 15, 1820 – March 13, 1906) was an American social reformer and women's rights activist who played a pivotal role in the women's suffrage movement. Born into a Quaker family committed to s ...
, buttressed by the equal protection language, voted. She was prosecuted for this, however, and ran into an all-male court ruling that women were not "Persons"; the court levied a fine but it was never collected.
Fifty years later, in 1920, the Constitution was amended again, with the Nineteenth Amendment to definitively prohibit discrimination against women's suffrage.
In the 1970s, the
Burger Court
The Burger Court was the period in the history of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1969 to 1986, when Warren Burger served as Chief Justice of the United States. Burger succeeded Earl Warren as Chief Justice after the latter's retir ...
made a series of rulings clarifying that discrimination against women in the status of being Persons violated the Constitution and acknowledged that previous court rulings to the contrary had been
Sui generis
''Sui generis'' ( , ) is a Latin phrase that means "of its/their own kind", "in a class by itself", therefore "unique".
A number of disciplines use the term to refer to unique entities. These include:
* Biology, for species that do not fit in ...
and an abuse of power. The most often cited of these is
Reed v. Reed
''Reed v. Reed'', 404 U.S. 71 (1971), was a landmark decision of the Supreme Court of the United States holding that the administrators of estates cannot be named in a way that discriminates between sexes. In ''Reed v. Reed'' the Supreme Court rule ...
, which held that any discrimination against either sex in the rights associated with Person status must meet a strict scrutiny standard.
The 1970s also saw the adoption of the Twenty-sixth Amendment, which prohibited discrimination on the basis of age, for Persons 18 years old and over, in voting. Other attempts to address the developmental distinction between children and adults in Person status and rights have been addressed mostly by the Supreme Court, with the Court recognizing in 2012, in Miller v. Alabama a political and biological principle that children are different from adults.
In 1945 the members of the
United Nations organization
The United Nations (UN) is an intergovernmental organization whose stated purposes are to maintain international peace and security, develop friendly relations among nations, achieve international cooperation, and be a centre for harmonizi ...
completed the drafting of its founding text – the
United Nations charter
The Charter of the United Nations (UN) is the foundational treaty of the UN, an intergovernmental organization. It establishes the purposes, governing structure, and overall framework of the UN system, including its six principal organs: the ...
: The USA played a significant role in this process.
The
Universal Declaration of Human Rights Drafting Committee The Universal Declaration of Human Rights was drafted between early 1947 and late 1948 by a committee formed by the United Nations Commission on Human Rights. Further discussion and amendments were made by the Commission on Human Rights, the Econom ...
was chaired by former First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, who was known for her human rights advocacy. Similarly, for the United States government and its citizens, much remained uncertain about the future impact, force, and reach of international human rights. Eventually the United States had not yet developed a policy approach regarding whether or not it would recognize international human rights within a domestic context. Certainly there were already some domestic political attempts, as for example President Truman's Committee on Civil rights, which authored a report in 1947 initializing the possibility to apply the
UN charter
The Charter of the United Nations (UN) is the foundational treaty of the UN, an intergovernmental organization. It establishes the purposes, governing structure, and overall framework of the UN system, including its six principal organs: th ...
in order to combat racial discrimination in the US. Now that the United States had successfully adopted the UDHR, obviously it seemed like human rights would play a leading part in domestic law within the US. Still there was harsh controversy over the question whether to apply international law on the inner-land-basis. William H. Fitzpatrick won the
Pulitzer Prize for editorial writing
The Pulitzer Prize for Editorial Writing is one of the fourteen American Pulitzer Prizes that are annually awarded for Journalism. It has been awarded since 1917 for distinguished editorial writing, the test of excellence being clearness of style, ...
in 1951 for his editorials that repeatedly warned against international human rights overthrowing the supreme law of the land. Indeed, Fitzpatrick's concerns and motivations – as well as those of his readers – stood for the longstanding, bitter social and political struggles that divided much of the United States at the time, keeping in mind that in the 1940s and 1950s racial divisions, political exclusion, and
gender inequalities
Gender inequality is the social phenomenon in which men and women are not treated equally. The treatment may arise from distinctions regarding biology, psychology, or cultural norms prevalent in the society. Some of these distinctions are empi ...
were basic facts of American social life.
However, today there is little worry in the United States about the effect that human rights might have on its domestic law. Over the past few decades, the United States government has often held itself up as a strong supporter of human rights in the international arena. Nonetheless, in the view of the government human rights are still an international rather than a domestic phenomenon – representing more of choice than obligation.
Having today overcome many of the inequalities from more than half a dozen decades before, still the United States is in violation of the Declaration, in as much that "everyone has the right to leave any country" because the government may prevent the entry and exit of anyone from the United States for foreign policy, national security, or
child support
Child support (or child maintenance) is an ongoing, periodic payment made by a parent for the financial benefit of a child (or parent, caregiver, guardian) following the end of a marriage or other similar relationship. Child maintenance is paid d ...
rearage reasons by revoking their passport. The United States is also in violation of the United Nations' human rights
Convention on the Rights of the Child
The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (commonly abbreviated as the CRC or UNCRC) is an international human rights treaty which sets out the civil, political, economic, social, health and cultural rights of children. The Con ...
which requires both parents to have a relationship with the child. Conflict between the human rights of the child and those of a mother or father who wishes to leave the country without paying child support or doing the personal work of child care for his child can be considered to be a question of
negative and positive rights
Negative and positive rights are rights that oblige either inaction (''negative rights'') or action (''positive rights''). These obligations may be of either a legal or moral character. The notion of positive and negative rights may also be ap ...
.
Legal framework
Domestic legal protection structure
According to ''Human Rights: The Essential Reference'', "the American Declaration of Independence was the first civic document that met a modern definition of human rights." The Constitution recognizes a number of inalienable human rights, including
freedom of speech
Freedom of speech is a principle that supports the freedom of an individual or a community to articulate their opinions and ideas without fear of retaliation, censorship, or legal sanction. The right to freedom of expression has been recogni ...
,
freedom of assembly
Freedom of peaceful assembly, sometimes used interchangeably with the freedom of association, is the individual right or ability of people to come together and collectively express, promote, pursue, and defend their collective or shared ide ...
,
freedom of religion
Freedom of religion or religious liberty is a principle that supports the freedom of an individual or community, in public or private, to manifest religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship, and observance. It also includes the freedom ...
trial
In law, a trial is a coming together of Party (law), parties to a :wikt:dispute, dispute, to present information (in the form of evidence (law), evidence) in a tribunal, a formal setting with the authority to Adjudication, adjudicate claims or d ...
Civil Rights Act
Civil Rights Act may refer to several acts of the United States Congress, including:
* Civil Rights Act of 1866, extending the rights of emancipated slaves by stating that any person born in the United States regardless of race is an American ci ...
of 1964 and the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 are examples of human rights that were enumerated by Congress well after the Constitution's writing. The scope of the legal protections of human rights afforded by the US government is defined by case law, particularly by the precedent of the
Supreme Court of the United States
The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all U.S. federal court cases, and over state court cases that involve a point o ...
.
Within the federal government, the debate about what may or may not be an emerging human right is held in two forums: the United States Congress, which may enumerate these; and the Supreme Court, which may articulate rights that the law does not spell out. Additionally, individual states, through court action or legislation, have often protected human rights not recognized at federal level. For example, Massachusetts was the first of several states to recognize same sex marriage.
Effect of international treaties
In the context of human rights and treaties that recognize or create individual rights, U.S. constitutional law makes a distinction between self-executing and non-self-executing treaties. Non-self-executing treaties, which ascribe rights that under the constitution may be assigned by law, require legislative action to execute the contract (treaty) before it becomes a part of domestic law. There are also cases that explicitly require legislative approval according to the Constitution, such as cases that could commit the U.S. to declare war or appropriate funds.
Treaties regarding human rights, which create a duty to refrain from acting in a particular manner or confer specific rights, are generally held to be self-executing, requiring no further legislative action. In cases where legislative bodies refuse to recognize otherwise self-executing treaties by ''declaring them to be non-self-executing'' in an act of legislative non-recognition, constitutional scholars argue that such acts violate the separation of powersin cases of controversy, the judiciary, not Congress, has the authority under Article III to apply treaty law to cases before the court. This is a key provision in cases where the Congress declares a human rights treaty to be non-self-executing, for example, by contending it does not add anything to human rights under U.S. domestic law. The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights is one such case, which, while ratified after more than two decades of inaction, was done so with reservations, understandings, and declarations.
Under the principle of ''
pacta sunt servanda
''Pacta sunt servanda'', Latin for "agreements must be kept", is a brocard and a fundamental principle of law. According to Hans Wehberg, a professor of international law, "few rules for the ordering of Society have such a deep moral and religi ...
'', a country may not invoke provisions of its domestic laws or constitution as justification for failure to comply with its international law obligations. Therefore, if a human rights treaty has been ratified by the U.S. but is not considered self-executing, or has not yet been implemented by legislation, it is nonetheless binding on the U.S. government as a matter of international law.
Equality
Racial
The
Equal Protection Clause
The Equal Protection Clause is part of the first section of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. The clause, which took effect in 1868, provides "''nor shall any State ... deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal ...
of the
Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution
The Fourteenth Amendment (Amendment XIV) to the United States Constitution was adopted on July 9, 1868, as one of the Reconstruction Amendments. Often considered as one of the most consequential amendments, it addresses citizenship rights and ...
guarantees that "All persons born or naturalized in the United States ... are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall ... deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws" In addition,
Fifteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution
The Fifteenth Amendment (Amendment XV) to the United States Constitution prohibits the federal government and each state from denying or abridging a citizen's right to vote "on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude." It was ...
prohibits the denial of a citizen of the right to vote based on that citizen's "race, color, or previous condition of servitude".
The United States has enacted comprehensive legislation prohibiting discrimination on the basis of race and national origin in the workplace in the
Civil Rights Act of 1964
The Civil Rights Act of 1964 () is a landmark civil rights and United States labor law, labor law in the United States that outlaws discrimination based on Race (human categorization), race, Person of color, color, religion, sex, and nationa ...
(CRA). The CRA is perhaps the most prominent civil rights legislation enacted in modern times, has served as a model for subsequent anti-discrimination laws and has greatly expanded civil rights protections in a wide variety of settings.Capozzi, Irene Y., ''The Civil Rights Act: background, statutes and primer'', Nova Publishers, 2006, , page 6 The 1991 provision created recourse for victims of such discrimination for
punitive damages
Punitive damages, or exemplary damages, are damages assessed in order to punish the defendant for outrageous conduct and/or to reform or deter the defendant and others from engaging in conduct similar to that which formed the basis of the lawsuit. ...
and full back pay. In addition to individual civil recourse, the United States possesses anti-discrimination government enforcement bodies, such as the
Equal Employment Opportunity Commission
The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) is a federal agency that was established via the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to administer and enforce civil rights laws against workplace discrimination. The EEOC investigates discrimination ...
.
Beginning in 1965, the United States also began a program of affirmative action that not only obliges employers not to discriminate, but requires them to provide preferences for groups protected under the Civil Rights Act to increase their numbers where they are judged to be underrepresented. Such affirmative action programs are also applied in college admissions.
The United States also prohibits the imposition of any "... voting qualification or prerequisite to voting, or standard, practice, or procedure ... to deny or abridge the right of any citizen of the United States to vote on account of race or color," which prevents the use of
grandfather clause
A grandfather clause, also known as grandfather policy, grandfathering, or grandfathered in, is a provision in which an old rule continues to apply to some existing situations while a new rule will apply to all future cases. Those exempt from t ...
s,
literacy test
A literacy test assesses a person's literacy skills: their ability to read and write have been administered by various governments, particularly to immigrants. In the United States, between the 1850s and 1960s, literacy tests were administered t ...
s,
poll taxes
A poll tax, also known as head tax or capitation, is a tax levied as a fixed sum on every liable individual (typically every adult), without reference to income or resources.
Head taxes were important sources of revenue for many governments f ...
and
white primaries
White primaries were primary elections held in the Southern United States in which only white voters were permitted to participate. Statewide white primaries were established by the state Democratic Party units or by state legislatures in South ...
.
Prior to the passage of the
Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution
The Thirteenth Amendment (Amendment XIII) to the United States Constitution abolished slavery and involuntary servitude, except as punishment for a crime. The amendment was passed by the Senate on April 8, 1864, by the House of Representative ...
,
slavery
Slavery and enslavement are both the state and the condition of being a slave—someone forbidden to quit one's service for an enslaver, and who is treated by the enslaver as property. Slavery typically involves slaves being made to perf ...
was legal in some states of the United States until 1865. Influenced by the principles of the
Religious Society of Friends
Quakers are people who belong to a historically Protestant Christian set of denominations known formally as the Religious Society of Friends. Members of these movements ("theFriends") are generally united by a belief in each human's abili ...
,
Anthony Benezet
Anthony Benezet, born Antoine Bénézet (January 31, 1713May 3, 1784), was a French-American abolitionist and educator who was active in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. One of the early American abolitionists, Benezet founded one of the world's fir ...
formed the
Pennsylvania Abolition Society
The Society for the Relief of Free Negroes Unlawfully Held in Bondage was the first American abolition society. It was founded April 14, 1775, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and held four meetings. Seventeen of the 24 men who attended initia ...
in 1775, believing that all ethnic groups were considered equal and human slavery was incompatible with Christian beliefs. Benezet extended the recognition of human rights to Native Americans and argued for a peaceful solution to the violence between Native and
European Americans
European Americans (also referred to as Euro-Americans) are Americans of European ancestry. This term includes people who are descended from the first European settlers in the United States as well as people who are descended from more recent E ...
.
Benjamin Franklin
Benjamin Franklin ( April 17, 1790) was an American polymath who was active as a writer, scientist, inventor, statesman, diplomat, printer, publisher, and political philosopher. Encyclopædia Britannica, Wood, 2021 Among the leading inte ...
became the president of Benezet's abolition society in the late 18th century. In addition, the Fourteenth Amendment was interpreted to permit what was termed ''
Separate but equal
Separate but equal was a legal doctrine in United States constitutional law, according to which racial segregation did not necessarily violate the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which nominally guaranteed "equal protec ...
'' treatment of minorities until the
United States Supreme Court
The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all U.S. federal court cases, and over state court cases that involve a point o ...
overturned this interpretation in 1954, which consequently overturned
Jim Crow laws
The Jim Crow laws were state and local laws enforcing racial segregation in the Southern United States. Other areas of the United States were affected by formal and informal policies of segregation as well, but many states outside the Sout ...
Dawes Act
The Dawes Act of 1887 (also known as the General Allotment Act or the Dawes Severalty Act of 1887) regulated land rights on tribal territories within the United States. Named after Senator Henry L. Dawes of Massachusetts, it authorized the Pre ...
of 1887 and the
Indian Citizenship Act of 1924
The Indian Citizenship Act of 1924, (, enacted June 2, 1924) was an Act of the United States Congress that granted US citizenship to the indigenous peoples of the United States. While the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution ...
.
Following the 2008 presidential election,
Barack Obama
Barack Hussein Obama II ( ; born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who served as the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, Obama was the first African-American president of the U ...
was sworn in as the first African-American president of the United States on January 20, 2009. In his Inaugural Address, President Obama stated "A man whose father less than 60 years ago might not have been served at a local restaurant can now stand before you to take a most sacred oath ... So let us mark this day with remembrance, of who we are and how far we have traveled".
Sex
The Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution prohibits the states and the federal government from denying any citizen the right to vote because of that citizen's sex.Nineteenth Amendment CRS/LII Annotated Constitution While this does not necessarily guarantee all women the right to vote, as
suffrage
Suffrage, political franchise, or simply franchise, is the right to vote in representative democracy, public, political elections and referendums (although the term is sometimes used for any right to vote). In some languages, and occasionally i ...
qualifications are determined by individual states, it does mean that states' suffrage qualifications may not prevent women from voting due to their gender.
The United States has enacted comprehensive CRA legislation prohibiting discrimination on the basis of gender in the workplace.Gould, William B., ''Agenda for Reform: The Future of Employment Relationships and the Law''< MIT Press, 1996, , page 27 The 1991 provision created recourse for discrimination victims for
punitive damages
Punitive damages, or exemplary damages, are damages assessed in order to punish the defendant for outrageous conduct and/or to reform or deter the defendant and others from engaging in conduct similar to that which formed the basis of the lawsuit. ...
and full back pay. In addition to individual civil recourse, the United States possesses anti-discrimination government enforcement bodies, such as the
Equal Employment Opportunity Commission
The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) is a federal agency that was established via the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to administer and enforce civil rights laws against workplace discrimination. The EEOC investigates discrimination ...
.
Beginning in 1965, the United States also began a program of affirmative action that not only obliges employers not to discriminate, but also requires them to provide preferences for groups protected under the CRA to increase their numbers where they are judged to be underrepresented.James W. Russell, ''Double standard: social policy in Europe and the United States'', Rowman & Littlefield, 2006, , pages 147-150 Such affirmative action programs are also applied in college admissions.
The United States has legally defined
sexual harassment
Sexual harassment is a type of harassment involving the use of explicit or implicit sexual overtones, including the unwelcome and inappropriate promises of rewards in exchange for sexual favors. Sexual harassment includes a range of actions fro ...
in the workplace.Zippel, Kathrina, ''Sexual Harassment and Transnational Relations: Why Those Concerned With German-American Relations Should Care'', American Institute for Contemporary German Studies, The Johns Hopkins University, 2002, page 6 Because sexual harassment is therefore a
Civil Rights
Civil and political rights are a class of rights that protect individuals' freedom from infringement by governments, social organizations, and private individuals. They ensure one's entitlement to participate in the civil and political life of ...
violation, individual legal rights of those harassed in the workplace exist in the United States.
The Selective Service System does not require women to register for a possible
military draft
Conscription (also called the draft in the United States) is the state-mandated enlistment of people in a national service, mainly a military service. Conscription dates back to antiquity and it continues in some countries to the present day und ...
. Men are required to sign up for the Selective Service System however.
According to Eman Abdelhadi, an assistant professor at the University of Chicago, Muslim women have lower incomes than other women.
The result of investigating of the UN Working Group on discrimination against women in law and practice associated with the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) was that “The US, which is a leading State in formulating international human rights standards, is allowing its women to lag behind”. They declared that "the US is one of only seven countries which have not ratified the treaty, widely known as CEDAW."
According to the report of HRW, The patchwork of healthcare coverage in the Trump administration caused the loss of insurance for many women and girls who are at risk of deadly diseases such as gynecological cancer.
Disability
The United States has adopted antidiscrimination legislation for people with disabilities, the
Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990
The Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 or ADA () is a civil rights law that prohibits discrimination based on disability. It affords similar protections against discrimination to Americans with disabilities as the Civil Rights Act of 19 ...
(ADA).Midgley, James, and Michelle Livermore, ''The Handbook of Social Policy'', SAGE, 2008, , page 448 The ADA reflected a dramatic shift toward the employment of persons with disabilities to enhance the labor force participation of qualified persons with disabilities and to reduce their dependence on government entitlement programs. Blanck, Peter David and David L. Braddock, ''The Americans with Disabilities Act and the emerging workforce: employment of people with mental retardation'', AAMR, 1998, , page 3 The ADA amends the CRA and permits plaintiffs to recover
punitive damages
Punitive damages, or exemplary damages, are damages assessed in order to punish the defendant for outrageous conduct and/or to reform or deter the defendant and others from engaging in conduct similar to that which formed the basis of the lawsuit. ...
Supplemental Security Income
Supplemental Security Income (SSI) is a means-tested program that provides cash payments to disabled children, disabled adults, and individuals aged 65 or older who are citizens or nationals of the United States. SSI was created by the Social Se ...
(SSI) are often administratively viewed in the United States as being primarily or near-exclusively the entitlement only of
impoverished
Poverty is the state of having few material possessions or little
people with disabilities
Disability is the experience of any condition that makes it more difficult for a person to do certain activities or have equitable access within a given society. Disabilities may be cognitive, developmental, intellectual, mental, physical, se ...
, and not applicable to those with disabilities who make significantly above-
poverty level
The poverty threshold, poverty limit, poverty line or breadline is the minimum level of income deemed adequate in a particular country. The poverty line is usually calculated by estimating the total cost of one year's worth of necessities for t ...
income. This is proven in practice by the general fact that in the U.S., a disabled person on SSI without significant employment income who is suddenly employed, with a salary or wage at or above the
living wage
A living wage is defined as the minimum income necessary for a worker to meet their basic needs. This is not the same as a subsistence wage, which refers to a biological minimum, or a solidarity wage, which refers to a minimum wage tracking labor ...
threshold, often discovers that government benefits they were previously entitled to have ceased, because supposedly the new job "invalidates" the need for this assistance. However, the Stephen Beck, Jr. Achieving a Better Life Experience Act of 2014 (the ABLE Act) amended Section 529 of the Internal Revenue Service Code of 1986 to create tax-free savings accounts (ABLE accounts) for qualified expenses, and with these accounts (each person may have only one account) people with disabilities who have a condition that occurred before age 26 can save up to $100,000 without risking eligibility for
Social Security
Welfare, or commonly social welfare, is a type of government support intended to ensure that members of a society can meet basic human needs such as food and shelter. Social security may either be synonymous with welfare, or refer specificall ...
and other government programs. They can also keep their
Medicaid
Medicaid in the United States is a federal and state program that helps with healthcare costs for some people with limited income and resources. Medicaid also offers benefits not normally covered by Medicare, including nursing home care and pers ...
coverage no matter how much money they accrue in their ABLE account. Under current gift-tax limitations as of 2014, as much as $14,000 could be deposited annually. However, each state must put regulations in place so that financial institutions can make the ABLE accounts available, and there is no guarantee a particular state will do so.
SSI benefits also require frequent reviews to "prove" the person is still disabled, and require the disabled person to be diligent about returning
paperwork
Paperwork refers to written documents or the work needed to create them.
Paperwork may also refer to:
* Paperwork reduction, loosening or reducing documentation requirements
** Paperwork Reduction Act, a United States federal law enacted in 1980
* ...
and reporting any income they make, raising concerns that it is unfair to people with disabilities, especially those with mental disabilities who are often unaware of how to navigate the complex
bureaucracy
The term bureaucracy () refers to a body of non-elected governing officials as well as to an administrative policy-making group. Historically, a bureaucracy was a government administration managed by departments staffed with non-elected offi ...
needed to not lose their benefits, a situation not dissimilar to
probation
Probation in criminal law is a period of supervision over an offender, ordered by the court often in lieu of incarceration.
In some jurisdictions, the term ''probation'' applies only to community sentences (alternatives to incarceration), such ...
. The U.S. is the only industrialized country in the world to have this particular approach to disability assistance programming. These factors make it so that disabled people are in some senses second class citizens.
LGBTQ
The United States federal government voted in the
United Nations General Assembly
The United Nations General Assembly (UNGA or GA; french: link=no, Assemblée générale, AG) is one of the six principal organs of the United Nations (UN), serving as the main deliberative, policymaking, and representative organ of the UN. Curr ...
in favor of A/RES/57/214, A/RES/59/197, abstained A/RES/61/173, A/RES/63/182 A/RES/65/208, A/RES/67/168, and in favor of A/RES/69/182. The United States federal government also voted in favor of the
United Nations Human Rights Council
The United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC), CDH is a United Nations body whose mission is to promote and protect human rights around the world. The Council has 47 members elected for staggered three-year terms on a regional group basis. ...
A/HRC/RES/17/19. The United States federal government signed the United Nations 2006 and 2008 Joint Statements. The United States federal government voted in the
United Nations Security Council
The United Nations Security Council (UNSC) is one of the Organs of the United Nations, six principal organs of the United Nations (UN) and is charged with ensuring international security, international peace and security, recommending the admi ...
in favor of SC/12399.
Intersex
Intersex
Intersex people are individuals born with any of several sex characteristics including chromosome patterns, gonads, or genitals that, according to the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, "do not fit typical bina ...
people in the United States have significant gaps in protections for physical integrity and bodily autonomy, particularly in protection from non-consensual cosmetic medical interventions and violence, and protection from discrimination. Actions by intersex civil society organizations aim to eliminate harmful practices, promote social acceptance, and equality. In recent years, intersex activists have also secured some forms of legal recognition.
Privacy
Privacy is not explicitly stated in the United States Constitution. In the ''
Griswold v. Connecticut
''Griswold v. Connecticut'', 381 U.S. 479 (1965), was a landmark decision of the U.S. Supreme Court in which the Court ruled that the Constitution of the United States protects the liberty of married couples to buy and use contraceptives withou ...
'' case, the Supreme Court ruled that it is implied in the Constitution. In the ''
Roe v. Wade
''Roe v. Wade'', 410 U.S. 113 (1973),. was a landmark decision of the U.S. Supreme Court in which the Court ruled that the Constitution of the United States conferred the right to have an abortion. The decision struck down many federal and s ...
'' case, the Supreme Court used privacy rights to overturn most laws against
abortion in the United States
Abortion in the United States and its territories is a divisive issue in American politics and culture wars, with widely different abortion laws in U.S. states. Since 1976, the Republican Party has generally sought to restrict abortion acc ...
Gonzales v. Oregon
''Gonzales v. Oregon'', 546 U.S. 243 (2006), was a landmark decision of the US Supreme Court which ruled that the United States Attorney General cannot enforce the federal Controlled Substances Act against physicians who prescribed drugs, in com ...
'', the Supreme Court held that the Federal
Controlled Substances Act
The Controlled Substances Act (CSA) is the statute establishing federal government of the United States, federal drug policy of the United States, U.S. drug policy under which the manufacture, importation, possession, use, and distribution of ...
can not prohibit
physician-assisted suicide
Assisted suicide is suicide undertaken with the aid of another person. The term usually refers to physician-assisted suicide (PAS), which is suicide that is assisted by a physician or other healthcare provider. Once it is determined that the p ...
allowed by the
Oregon Death with Dignity Act
Measure 16 of 1994 established the U.S. state of Oregon's Death with Dignity Act (ORS 127.800–995), which legalizes medical aid in dying (commonly referred to as physician-assisted suicide) with certain restrictions. Passage of this initiativ ...
. The Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of criminalizing oral and anal sex in the ''
Bowers v. Hardwick
''Bowers v. Hardwick'', 478 U.S. 186 (1986), was a landmark decision of the U.S. Supreme Court that upheld, in a 5–4 ruling, the constitutionality of a Georgia sodomy law criminalizing oral and anal sex in private between consenting adults ...
'' decision; however, it overturned the decision in the ''
Lawrence v. Texas
''Lawrence v. Texas'', 539 U.S. 558 (2003), is a landmark decision of the U.S. Supreme Court in which the Court ruled that most sanctions of criminal punishment for consensual, adult non- procreative sexual activity (commonly referred to as so ...
'' case and established the protection to sexual privacy.
Kate Ruane, senior legislative counsel for the First Amendment and consumer privacy at the American Civil Liberties Union declared that “We have these companies that are amassing just gigantic amounts of data about each and every one of us, all day, every day,” and “Your data is being taken and it is being used in ways that are harmful.”
Edward Snowden
Edward Joseph Snowden (born June 21, 1983) is an American and naturalized Russian former computer intelligence consultant who leaked highly classified information from the National Security Agency (NSA) in 2013, when he was an employee and su ...
’s document disclosed that "the federal government has routinely violated their right to privacy for more than a decade".
Accused
The United States maintains a
presumption of innocence
The presumption of innocence is a legal principle that every person accused of any crime is considered innocent until proven guilty. Under the presumption of innocence, the legal burden of proof is thus on the prosecution, which must presen ...
Sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution
The Sixth Amendment (Amendment VI) to the United States Constitution sets forth rights related to criminal prosecutions. It was ratified in 1791 as part of the United States Bill of Rights. The Supreme Court has applied the protections of this ...
and
Eighth Amendment to the United States Constitution
The Eighth Amendment (Amendment VIII) to the United States Constitution protects against imposing excessive bail, excessive fines, or cruel and unusual punishments. This amendment was adopted on December 15, 1791, along with the rest of the ...
deals with the rights of criminal suspects. Later the protection was extended to civil cases as well In the ''
Gideon v. Wainwright
''Gideon v. Wainwright'', 372 U.S. 335 (1963), was a landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision in which the Court ruled that the Sixth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution requires U.S. states to provide attorneys to criminal defendants who are unable ...
'' case, the Supreme Court requires that indigent criminal defendants who are unable to afford their own attorney be provided counsel at trial. Since the ''
Miranda v. Arizona
''Miranda v. Arizona'', 384 U.S. 436 (1966), was a landmark decision of the U.S. Supreme Court in which the Court ruled that the Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution restricts prosecutors from using a person's statements made in response to ...
'' case, the United States requires police departments to inform arrested persons of their rights, which is later called
Miranda warning
In the United States, the ''Miranda'' warning is a type of notification customarily given by police to criminal suspects in police custody (or in a custodial interrogation) advising them of their right to silence and, in effect, protection f ...
and typically begins with "You have the right to remain silent."
Freedoms
Freedom of religion
The
Establishment Clause
In United States law, the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution, together with that Amendment's Free Exercise Clause, form the constitutional right of freedom of religion. The relevant constitutional text ...
of the
First Amendment
First or 1st is the ordinal form of the number one (#1).
First or 1st may also refer to:
*World record, specifically the first instance of a particular achievement
Arts and media Music
* 1$T, American rapper, singer-songwriter, DJ, and reco ...
prohibits the establishment of a national religion by Congress or the preference of one religion over another. The clause was used to limit school praying, beginning with ''
Engel v. Vitale
''Engel v. Vitale'', 370 U.S. 421 (1962), was a landmark United States Supreme Court case in which the Court ruled that it is unconstitutional for state officials to compose an official school prayer and encourage its recitation in public school ...
'', which ruled government-led prayer unconstitutional. ''
Wallace v. Jaffree
''Wallace v. Jaffree'', 472 U.S. 38 (1985), was a United States Supreme Court case deciding on the issue of silent school prayer.
Background
An Alabama law authorized teachers to set aside one minute at the start of each day for a moment for ...
'' banned moments of silence allocated for praying. The Supreme Court also ruled clergy-led prayer at public high school graduations unconstitutional with ''
Lee v. Weisman
''Lee v. Weisman'', 505 U.S. 577 (1992), was a United States Supreme Court decision regarding school prayer. It was the first major school prayer case decided by the Rehnquist Court. It held that schools may not sponsor clerics to conduct even non- ...
''.
The
free exercise clause
The Free Exercise Clause accompanies the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution. The ''Establishment Clause'' and the ''Free Exercise Clause'' together read:
Free exercise is the liberty of persons to re ...
guarantees the free exercise of religion. The Supreme Court's ''
Lemon v. Kurtzman
''Lemon v. Kurtzman'', 403 U.S. 602 (1971), was a case argued before the Supreme Court of the United States.. The court ruled in an 8–0 decision that Pennsylvania's Nonpublic Elementary and Secondary Education Act (represented through David Kurtz ...
'' decision established the "Lemon test" exception, which details the requirements for legislation concerning religion. In the ''
Employment Division v. Smith
''Employment Division, Department of Human Resources of Oregon v. Smith'', 494 U.S. 872 (1990), is a United States Supreme Court case that held that the state could deny unemployment benefits to a person fired for violating a state prohibition on t ...
'' decision, the Supreme Court maintained a "neutral law of general applicability" can be used to limit religion exercises. In the ''
City of Boerne v. Flores
''City of Boerne v. Flores'', 521 U.S. 507 (1997), was a landmark decision of the Supreme Court of the United States concerning the scope of Congress's power of enforcement under Section 5 of the Fourteenth Amendment. The case also had a signific ...
'' decision, the
Religious Freedom Restoration Act
The Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993, Pub. L. No. 103-141, 107 Stat. 1488 (November 16, 1993), codified at through (also known as RFRA, pronounced "rifra"), is a 1993 United States federal law that "ensures that interests in religiou ...
was struck down as exceeding congressional power; however, the decision's effect is limited by the ''
Gonzales v. O Centro Espirita Beneficente Uniao do Vegetal Gonzales may refer to:
Places
* Gonzales, California, U.S.
* Gonzales, Louisiana, U.S.
* Gonzales, Texas, U.S.
* Gonzales County, Texas
Other uses
* Battle of Gonzales, 1835
* Gonzales (horse) (1977 – after 1996), an American-bred Thoroughbred r ...
'' decision, which requires states to express compelling interest in prohibiting illegal drug use in religious practices.
Freedom of expression
The United States is a constitutional republic based on founding documents that restrict the power of government and preserve the liberty of the people. The freedom of expression (including speech,
media
Media may refer to:
Communication
* Media (communication), tools used to deliver information or data
** Advertising media, various media, content, buying and placement for advertising
** Broadcast media, communications delivered over mass e ...
, and public assembly) is an important right and is given special protection, as declared by the
First Amendment
First or 1st is the ordinal form of the number one (#1).
First or 1st may also refer to:
*World record, specifically the first instance of a particular achievement
Arts and media Music
* 1$T, American rapper, singer-songwriter, DJ, and reco ...
of the constitution. According to Supreme Court precedent, the federal and lower governments may not apply
prior restraint
Prior restraint (also referred to as prior censorship or pre-publication censorship) is censorship imposed, usually by a government or institution, on expression, that prohibits particular instances of expression. It is in contrast to censorship ...
to expression, with certain exceptions, such as national security and obscenity. Legal limits on expression include:
*
Solicitation
Solicitation is the act of offering, or attempting to purchase, goods and/or services. Legal status may be specific to the time or place where it occurs. The crime of "solicitation to commit a crime" occurs when a person encourages, "solicits, r ...
,
fraud
In law, fraud is intentional deception to secure unfair or unlawful gain, or to deprive a victim of a legal right. Fraud can violate civil law (e.g., a fraud victim may sue the fraud perpetrator to avoid the fraud or recover monetary compens ...
, specific threats of violence, or disclosure of
classified information
Classified information is material that a government body deems to be sensitive information that must be protected. Access is restricted by law or regulation to particular groups of people with the necessary security clearance and need to know, ...
*Advocating the overthrow of the U.S. government through speech or publication, or organizing political parties that advocate the overthrow of the U.S. government (the
Smith Act
The Alien Registration Act, popularly known as the Smith Act, 76th United States Congress, 3d session, ch. 439, , is a United States federal statute that was enacted on June 28, 1940. It set criminal penalties for advocating the overthrow of th ...
)
*Civil offenses involving
defamation
Defamation is the act of communicating to a third party false statements about a person, place or thing that results in damage to its reputation. It can be spoken (slander) or written (libel). It constitutes a tort or a crime. The legal defini ...
, fraud, or workplace
harassment
Harassment covers a wide range of behaviors of offensive nature. It is commonly understood as behavior that demeans, humiliates or embarrasses a person, and it is characteristically identified by its unlikelihood in terms of social and moral ...
*
Copyright
A copyright is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the exclusive right to copy, distribute, adapt, display, and perform a creative work, usually for a limited time. The creative work may be in a literary, artistic, education ...
violations
*
Federal Communications Commission
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is an independent agency of the United States federal government that regulates communications by radio, television, wire, satellite, and cable across the United States. The FCC maintains jurisdiction ...
rules governing the use of
broadcast media
Broadcasting is the distribution of audio or video content to a dispersed audience via any electronic mass communications medium, but typically one using the electromagnetic spectrum ( radio waves), in a one-to-many model. Broadcasting began w ...
*Crimes involving sexual
obscenity
An obscenity is any utterance or act that strongly offends the prevalent morality of the time. It is derived from the Latin ''obscēnus'', ''obscaenus'', "boding ill; disgusting; indecent", of uncertain etymology. Such loaded language can be use ...
in
pornography
Pornography (often shortened to porn or porno) is the portrayal of sexual subject matter for the exclusive purpose of sexual arousal. Primarily intended for adults,
and text-only erotic stories.
*Ordinances requiring mass demonstrations on public property to register in advance.
*The use of
free speech zone
Free speech zones (also known as First Amendment zones, free speech cages, and protest zones) are areas set aside in public places for the purpose of political protesting. The First Amendment to the United States Constitution states that "Congre ...
s and protest free zones.
*Military censorship of blogs written by military personnel claiming some include sensitive information ineligible for release. Some critics view military officials as trying to suppress dissent from troops in the field. The US Constitution specifically limits the human rights of active duty members, and this constitutional authority is used to limit speech rights by members in this and in other ways.
Some laws remain controversial due to concerns that they infringe on freedom of expression. These include the
Digital Millennium Copyright Act
The Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) is a 1998 United States copyright law that implements two 1996 treaties of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO). It criminalizes production and dissemination of technology, devices, or ...
and the
Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act
The Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002 (, ), commonly known as the McCain–Feingold Act or BCRA (pronounced "bik-ruh"), is a United States federal law that amended the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971, which regulates the financing o ...
.
In two high-profile cases, grand juries have decided that ''
Time
Time is the continued sequence of existence and events that occurs in an apparently irreversible succession from the past, through the present, into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequence events, to ...
'' magazine reporter Matthew Cooper and ''
New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...
'' reporter Judith Miller must reveal their sources in cases involving CIA leaks. Time magazine exhausted its legal appeals, and Mr. Cooper eventually agreed to testify. Miller was jailed for 85 days before cooperating. U.S. District Chief Judge Thomas F. Hogan ruled that the First Amendment does not insulate ''Time'' magazine reporters from a requirement to testify before a criminal grand jury that's conducting the investigation into the possible illegal disclosure of classified information.
Approximately 30,000 government employees and contractors are currently employed to monitor telephone calls and other communications.
In November 2013, leaked documents revealed that the government and some large corporations had censored many blogs and news articles using existing surveillance programs.
Right to peaceably assemble
On May 4, 1970, Ohio National Guardsmen opened fire on protesting students at Kent State University, killing four students. Investigators determined that 28 Guardsmen fired 61 to 67 shots. The Justice Department concluded that the Guardsmen were not in danger and that their claim that they fired in self-defense was untrue. The nearest student was almost 100 yards away at the time of the shooting. Guards involved in the shooting were indicted. Eight of the guardsmen were indicted by a grand jury. The guardsmen claimed to have fired in self-defense, a claim that was generally accepted by the criminal justice system. In 1974 U.S. District Judge Frank Battisti dismissed charges against all eight on the basis that the prosecution's case was too weak to warrant a trial. Civil actions were also attempted against the guardsmen, the State of Ohio, and the president of Kent State. The federal court civil action for wrongful death and injury, brought by the victims and their families against Governor Rhodes, the President of Kent State, and the National Guardsmen, resulted in unanimous verdicts for all defendants on all claims after an eleven-week trial. The judgment on those verdicts was reversed by the Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit on the ground that the federal trial judge had mishandled an out-of-court threat against a juror. On remand, the civil case was settled in return for payment of a total of $675,000 to all plaintiffs by the State of Ohio.
Protesters have also been arrested for protesting outside of designated "free speech zones". At the
2004 Republican National Convention
The 2004 Republican National Convention took place from August 30 to September 2, 2004 at Madison Square Garden in New York City, New York. The convention is one of a series of historic quadrennial meetings at which the Republican candidates fo ...
in New York City, over 1,700 protesters were arrested.
On July 24, 2020, the
United Nations
The United Nations (UN) is an intergovernmental organization whose stated purposes are to maintain international peace and international security, security, develop friendly relations among nations, achieve international cooperation, and be ...
human rights office urged U.S. security forces to limit their use of force against peaceful protesters and journalists, as clashes between federal agents and demonstrators continued in
Portland, Oregon
Portland (, ) is a port city in the Pacific Northwest and the largest city in the U.S. state of Oregon. Situated at the confluence of the Willamette and Columbia rivers, Portland is the county seat of Multnomah County, the most populous co ...
.
Freedom of movement
As per § 707(b) of the Foreign Relations Authorization Act, Fiscal Year 1979,
United States passport
United States passports are passports issued to citizens and nationals of the United States of America. They are issued exclusively by the U.S. Department of State. Besides passports (in booklet form), limited-use passport cards are issue ...
s are required to enter and exit the country, and as per the
Passport Act of 1926
Passport Act of 1926, 22 U.S.C § 211, is a United States statue authorizing the issuance of United States passports and visas for a validity of two years from the issue date. The Act of Congress provided the United States Department of State au ...
and Haig v. Agee, the Presidential administration may deny or revoke passports for
foreign policy
A State (polity), state's foreign policy or external policy (as opposed to internal or domestic policy) is its objectives and activities in relation to its interactions with other states, unions, and other political entities, whether bilaterall ...
or
national security
National security, or national defence, is the security and defence of a sovereign state, including its citizens, economy, and institutions, which is regarded as a duty of government. Originally conceived as protection against military atta ...
reasons at any time. Perhaps the most notable example of enforcement of this ability was the 1948 denial of a passport to
U.S. Representative
The United States House of Representatives, often referred to as the House of Representatives, the U.S. House, or simply the House, is the lower chamber of the United States Congress, with the Senate being the upper chamber. Together they c ...
Leo Isacson
Leo Leous Isacson (April 20, 1910 – September 21, 1996) was a New York attorney and politician. He was notable for winning a 1948 election to the United States House of Representatives from New York's twenty-fourth district (Bronx) as the cand ...
, who sought to go to Paris to attend a conference as an observer for the American Council for a Democratic Greece, a
Communist front
A communist front is a political organization identified as a front organization under the effective control of a communist party, the Communist International or other communist organizations. They attracted politicized individuals who were not p ...
organization, because of the group's role in opposing the Greek government in the
Greek Civil War
The Greek Civil War ( el, ο Eμφύλιος όλεμος ''o Emfýlios'' 'Pólemos'' "the Civil War") took place from 1946 to 1949. It was mainly fought against the established Kingdom of Greece, which was supported by the United Kingdom ...
.
The United States prevents U.S. citizens to travel to
Cuba
Cuba ( , ), officially the Republic of Cuba ( es, República de Cuba, links=no ), is an island country comprising the island of Cuba, as well as Isla de la Juventud and several minor archipelagos. Cuba is located where the northern Caribbea ...
, citing national security reasons, as part of an embargo against Cuba that has been condemned as an illegal act by the
United Nations General Assembly
The United Nations General Assembly (UNGA or GA; french: link=no, Assemblée générale, AG) is one of the six principal organs of the United Nations (UN), serving as the main deliberative, policymaking, and representative organ of the UN. Curr ...
. The current exception to the ban on travel to the island, permitted since April 2009, has been an easing of travel restrictions for Cuban-Americans visiting their relatives. Restrictions continue to remain in place for the rest of the American populace.
On June 30, 2010, the
American Civil Liberties Union
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is a nonprofit organization founded in 1920 "to defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties guaranteed to every person in this country by the Constitution and laws of the United States". T ...
filed a lawsuit on behalf of ten people who are either U.S. citizens or legal residents of the U.S., challenging the constitutionality of the government's "no-fly" list. The plaintiffs have not been told why they are on the list. Five of the plaintiffs have been stranded abroad. It is estimated that the "no-fly" list contained about 8,000 names at the time of the lawsuit.
The Secretary of State can deny a passport to anyone imprisoned, on parole, or on supervised release for a conviction for international drug trafficking or sex tourism, or to anyone who is behind on their child support payments.
The following case precedents are typically incorrectly cited in defense of unencumbered travel within the United States:
"The use of the highway for the purpose of travel and transportation is not a mere privilege, but a common fundamental right of which the public and individuals cannot rightfully be deprived." Chicago Motor Coach v. Chicago, 337 Ill. 200; 169 N.E. 22 (1929).
"The right of the citizen to travel upon the public highways and to transport his property thereon, either by carriage or by automobile, is not a mere privilege which a city may prohibit or permit at will, but a common law right which he has under the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." Thompson v. Smith, Supreme Court of Virginia, 155 Va. 367; 154 S.E. 579; (1930).
"Undoubtedly the right of locomotion, the right to move from one place to another according to inclination, is an attribute of personal liberty, and the right, ordinarily, of free transit from or through the territory of any State is a right secured by the 14th amendment and by other provisions of the Constitution." Schactman v. Dulles, 225 F.2d 938; 96 U.S. App. D.C. 287 (1955).
"The right to travel is a well-established common right that does not owe its existence to the federal government. It is recognized by the courts as a natural right." Schactman v. Dulles 225 F.2d 938; 96 U.S. App. D.C. 287 (1955) at 941.
"The right to travel is a part of the liberty of which the citizen cannot be deprived without due process of law under the Fifth Amendment." Kent v. Dulles, 357 US 116, 125 (1958).
Federal courts have ruled that a person does not have the right to drive an automobile, it is a privilege.
Freedom of association
Freedom of association
Freedom of association encompasses both an individual's right to join or leave groups voluntarily, the right of the group to take collective action to pursue the interests of its members, and the right of an association to accept or decline membe ...
is the right of individuals to come together in groups for political action or to pursue common interests.
Freedom of association in the U.S. is restricted by the
Smith Act
The Alien Registration Act, popularly known as the Smith Act, 76th United States Congress, 3d session, ch. 439, , is a United States federal statute that was enacted on June 28, 1940. It set criminal penalties for advocating the overthrow of th ...
, which bans political parties that advocate the violent overthrow of the U.S. government.
Between 1956 and 1971, the
FBI
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is the domestic Intelligence agency, intelligence and Security agency, security service of the United States and its principal Federal law enforcement in the United States, federal law enforcement age ...
attempted to "expose, disrupt, misdirect, discredit, or otherwise neutralize" left-wing and indigenous groups through the
COINTELPRO
COINTELPRO ( syllabic abbreviation derived from Counter Intelligence Program; 1956–1971) was a series of covert and illegal projects actively conducted by the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) aimed at surveilling, infiltrati ...
program.
In 2008, the Maryland State Police admitted that they had added the names of Iraq War protesters and death penalty opponents to a terrorist database. They also admitted that other "protest groups" were added to the terrorist database, but did not specify which groups. It was also discovered that undercover troopers used aliases to infiltrate organizational meetings, rallies and group e-mail lists. Police admitted there was "no evidence whatsoever of any involvement in violent crime" by those classified as terrorists.
Right of revolution
The right of revolution is the right or duty of the people of a nation to overthrow a government that acts against their common interests, and is a traditional assumption in American political thought. The right to revolution played a large part in the writings of the
American revolutionaries
American(s) may refer to:
* American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America"
** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America
** American ancestry, pe ...
in the run up to the
American Revolution
The American Revolution was an ideological and political revolution that occurred in British America between 1765 and 1791. The Americans in the Thirteen Colonies formed independent states that defeated the British in the American Revolut ...
. The political tract ''
Common Sense
''Common Sense'' is a 47-page pamphlet written by Thomas Paine in 1775–1776 advocating independence from Great Britain to people in the Thirteen Colonies. Writing in clear and persuasive prose, Paine collected various moral and political arg ...
'' used the concept as an argument for rejection of the British Monarchy and separation from the
British Empire
The British Empire was composed of the dominions, colonies, protectorates, mandates, and other territories ruled or administered by the United Kingdom and its predecessor states. It began with the overseas possessions and trading posts esta ...
, as opposed to merely self-government within it. It was also cited in the
Declaration of Independence
A declaration of independence or declaration of statehood or proclamation of independence is an assertion by a polity in a defined territory that it is independent and constitutes a state. Such places are usually declared from part or all of th ...
of the United States, when a group of representatives from the various states signed a declaration of independence citing charges against King
George III
George III (George William Frederick; 4 June 173829 January 1820) was King of Great Britain and of Ireland from 25 October 1760 until the union of the two kingdoms on 1 January 1801, after which he was King of the United Kingdom of Great Br ...
. As the American
Declaration of Independence
A declaration of independence or declaration of statehood or proclamation of independence is an assertion by a polity in a defined territory that it is independent and constitutes a state. Such places are usually declared from part or all of th ...
in 1776 expressed it, natural law taught that the people were "endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights" and could alter or abolish government "destructive" of those rights.
National security exceptions
The United States government has declared
martial law
Martial law is the imposition of direct military control of normal civil functions or suspension of civil law by a government, especially in response to an emergency where civil forces are overwhelmed, or in an occupied territory.
Use
Marti ...
, suspended (or claimed exceptions to) some rights on national security grounds, typically in wartime and conflicts such as the
United States Civil War
The American Civil War (April 12, 1861 – May 26, 1865; also known by other names) was a civil war in the United States. It was fought between the Union ("the North") and the Confederacy ("the South"), the latter formed by states ...
,Constitutional Dictatorship: Crisis Government in the Modern Democracies. Clinton Rossiter. 2002. Page X.
Cold War
The Cold War is a term commonly used to refer to a period of geopolitical tension between the United States and the Soviet Union and their respective allies, the Western Bloc and the Eastern Bloc. The term '' cold war'' is used because the ...
or the War against Terror. 70,000 Americans of Japanese ancestry were legally interned during
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
under Executive Order 9066. In some instances the federal courts have allowed these exceptions, while in others the courts have decided that the national security interest was insufficient. Presidents Lincoln, Wilson, and F.D. Roosevelt ignored such judicial decisions.
Historical restrictions
Sedition
Sedition is overt conduct, such as speech and organization, that tends toward rebellion against the established order. Sedition often includes subversion of a constitution and incitement of discontent toward, or insurrection against, estab ...
laws have sometimes placed restrictions on freedom of expression. The
Alien and Sedition Acts
The Alien and Sedition Acts were a set of four laws enacted in 1798 that applied restrictions to immigration and speech in the United States. The Naturalization Act increased the requirements to seek citizenship, the Alien Friends Act allowed th ...
, passed by President
John Adams
John Adams (October 30, 1735 – July 4, 1826) was an American statesman, attorney, diplomat, writer, and Founding Fathers of the United States, Founding Father who served as the second president of the United States from 1797 to 1801. Befor ...
during an undeclared naval conflict with
France
France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...
, allowed the government to punish "false" statements about the government and to deport "dangerous" immigrants. The
Federalist Party
The Federalist Party was a Conservatism in the United States, conservative political party which was the first political party in the United States. As such, under Alexander Hamilton, it dominated the national government from 1789 to 1801.
De ...
used these acts to harass many supporters of the
Democratic-Republican Party
The Democratic-Republican Party, known at the time as the Republican Party and also referred to as the Jeffersonian Republican Party among other names, was an American political party founded by Thomas Jefferson and James Madison in the early ...
. While
Woodrow Wilson
Thomas Woodrow Wilson (December 28, 1856February 3, 1924) was an American politician and academic who served as the 28th president of the United States from 1913 to 1921. A member of the Democratic Party, Wilson served as the president of ...
was president, broad legislation called the
Espionage Act of 1917
The Espionage Act of 1917 is a United States federal law enacted on June 15, 1917, shortly after the United States entered World War I. It has been amended numerous times over the years. It was originally found in Title 50 of the U.S. Code (War ...
and
Sedition Act of 1918
The Sedition Act of 1918 () was an Act of the United States Congress that extended the Espionage Act of 1917 to cover a broader range of offenses, notably speech and the expression of opinion that cast the government or the war effort in a ne ...
were passed during
World War I
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...
. Thousands were jailed for violations of these laws, which prohibited criticizing conscription and the government, or sending literature through the US Mail doing the same. Most prominently it led to the conviction of
Socialist Party of America
The Socialist Party of America (SPA) was a socialist political party in the United States formed in 1901 by a merger between the three-year-old Social Democratic Party of America and disaffected elements of the Socialist Labor Party of Ameri ...
Presidential candidate
Eugene V. Debs
Eugene Victor "Gene" Debs (November 5, 1855 – October 20, 1926) was an American socialist, political activist, trade unionist, one of the founding members of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), and five times the candidate of the Soc ...
for speaking out against US participation in World War I and conscription. Debs received ten years in prison, and ran for president a third time while in prison (on December 25, 1921, his sentence was commuted by President
Warren G. Harding
Warren Gamaliel Harding (November 2, 1865 – August 2, 1923) was the 29th president of the United States, serving from 1921 until his death in 1923. A member of the Republican Party, he was one of the most popular sitting U.S. presidents. A ...
, releasing Debs early). Numerous
conscientious objector
A conscientious objector (often shortened to conchie) is an "individual who has claimed the right to refuse to perform military service" on the grounds of freedom of thought, conscience, or religion. The term has also been extended to object ...
s to conscription were also jailed, with a few dying due to mistreatment. In the post-war Palmer Raids, foreign-born dissidents were arrested in the thousands without legal warrants, and deported for their political beliefs.
Presidents have claimed the power to imprison summarily, under military jurisdiction, those suspected of being combatants for states or groups at war against the United States.
Abraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln ( ; February 12, 1809 – April 15, 1865) was an American lawyer, politician, and statesman who served as the 16th president of the United States from 1861 until his assassination in 1865. Lincoln led the nation thro ...
invoked this power in the
American Civil War
The American Civil War (April 12, 1861 – May 26, 1865; also known by other names) was a civil war in the United States. It was fought between the Union ("the North") and the Confederacy ("the South"), the latter formed by states th ...
to imprison
Maryland
Maryland ( ) is a state in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States. It shares borders with Virginia, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia to its south and west; Pennsylvania to its north; and Delaware and the Atlantic Ocean to ...
secessionists. In that case, the Supreme Court concluded that only
Congress
A congress is a formal meeting of the representatives of different countries, constituent states, organizations, trade unions, political parties, or other groups. The term originated in Late Middle English to denote an encounter (meeting of ...
could suspend the writ of
habeas corpus
''Habeas corpus'' (; from Medieval Latin, ) is a recourse in law through which a person can report an unlawful detention or imprisonment to a court and request that the court order the custodian of the person, usually a prison official, t ...
, and the government released the detainees. During
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
Japan
Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...
might use them as saboteurs-the US Supreme Court upheld this policy.
The
Fourth Amendment of the United States Constitution
The Fourth Amendment (Amendment IV) to the United States Constitution is part of the Bill of Rights. It prohibits unreasonable searches and seizures. In addition, it sets requirements for issuing warrants: warrants must be issued by a judge ...
forbids unreasonable search and seizure without a warrant, but some administrations have claimed exceptions to this rule to investigate alleged
conspiracies
A conspiracy, also known as a plot, is a secret plan or agreement between persons (called conspirers or conspirators) for an unlawful or harmful purpose, such as murder or treason, especially with political motivation, while keeping their agree ...
against the government. During the
Cold War
The Cold War is a term commonly used to refer to a period of geopolitical tension between the United States and the Soviet Union and their respective allies, the Western Bloc and the Eastern Bloc. The term '' cold war'' is used because the ...
, the
Federal Bureau of Investigation
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is the domestic intelligence and security service of the United States and its principal federal law enforcement agency. Operating under the jurisdiction of the United States Department of Justice, ...
established
COINTELPRO
COINTELPRO ( syllabic abbreviation derived from Counter Intelligence Program; 1956–1971) was a series of covert and illegal projects actively conducted by the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) aimed at surveilling, infiltrati ...
to infiltrate and disrupt left-wing organizations, including those that supported the rights of black Americans.
National security, as well as other concerns like
unemployment
Unemployment, according to the OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development), is people above a specified age (usually 15) not being in paid employment or self-employment but currently available for Work (human activity), w ...
, has sometimes led the United States to toughen its generally liberal
immigration
Immigration is the international movement of people to a destination country of which they are not natives or where they do not possess citizenship in order to settle as permanent residents or naturalized citizens. Commuters, tourists, and ...
policy. The
Chinese Exclusion Act
The Chinese Exclusion Act was a United States federal law signed by President Chester A. Arthur on May 6, 1882, prohibiting all immigration of Chinese laborers for 10 years. The law excluded merchants, teachers, students, travelers, and diplo ...
of 1882 all but banned
Chinese
Chinese can refer to:
* Something related to China
* Chinese people, people of Chinese nationality, citizenship, and/or ethnicity
**''Zhonghua minzu'', the supra-ethnic concept of the Chinese nation
** List of ethnic groups in China, people of ...
immigrants, who were accused of crowding out American workers.
The federal government has set up a data collection and storage network that keeps a wide variety of data on tens of thousands of Americans who have not been accused of committing a crime. Operated primarily under the direction of the
Federal Bureau of Investigation
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is the domestic intelligence and security service of the United States and its principal federal law enforcement agency. Operating under the jurisdiction of the United States Department of Justice, ...
, the program is known as the
Nationwide Suspicious Activity Reporting Initiative
The Nationwide Suspicious Activity Reporting (SAR) Initiative (NSI) is a program of the United States Government used to collect and share reports of suspicious activity by people in the United States.
The Nationwide SAR Initiative (NSI) builds ...
or SAR. Reports of suspicious behavior noticed by local law enforcement or by private citizens are forwarded to the program, and profiles are constructed of the persons under suspicion. See also Fusion Center.
Labor rights
Labor rights in the United States have been linked to basic constitutional rights. Comporting with the notion of creating an economy based upon highly skilled and high wage labor employed in a capital-intensive dynamic growth economy, the United States enacted laws mandating the right to a safe workplace, workers compensation,
Unemployment insurance
Unemployment benefits, also called unemployment insurance, unemployment payment, unemployment compensation, or simply unemployment, are payments made by authorized bodies to unemployed people. In the United States, benefits are funded by a comp ...
, fair labor standards,
collective bargaining
Collective bargaining is a process of negotiation between employers and a group of employees aimed at agreements to regulate working salaries, working conditions, benefits, and other aspects of workers' compensation and rights for workers. The i ...
rights,
Social Security
Welfare, or commonly social welfare, is a type of government support intended to ensure that members of a society can meet basic human needs such as food and shelter. Social security may either be synonymous with welfare, or refer specificall ...
, prohibiting
child labor
Child labour refers to the exploitation of children through any form of work that deprives children of their childhood, interferes with their ability to attend regular school, and is mentally, physically, socially and morally harmful. Such e ...
and guaranteeing a
minimum wage
A minimum wage is the lowest remuneration that employers can legally pay their employees—the price floor below which employees may not sell their labor. Most countries had introduced minimum wage legislation by the end of the 20th century. Bec ...
.
During the 19th and 20th centuries, safer conditions and workers' rights were gradually mandated by law, but this trend has reversed to some extent towards
pro-business
A market economy is an economic system in which the decisions regarding investment, production and distribution to the consumers are guided by the price signals created by the forces of supply and demand, where all suppliers and consumers are ...
policies since the 1980s.
In 1935, the
National Labor Relations Act
The National Labor Relations Act of 1935, also known as the Wagner Act, is a foundational statute of United States labor law that guarantees the right of private sector employees to organize into trade unions, engage in collective bargaining, and ...
recognized and protected "the rights of most workers in the private sector to organize labor unions, to engage in collective bargaining, and to take part in strikes and other forms of concerted activity in support of their demands." However, many states hold to the principle of
at-will employment
In United States labor law, at-will employment is an employer's ability to dismiss an employee for any reason (that is, without having to establish " just cause" for termination), and without warning, as long as the reason is not illegal (e.g. fi ...
, which says an employee can be fired for any or no reason, without warning and without recourse, unless violation of State or Federal civil rights laws can be proven. In 2011, 11.8% of U.S. workers were members of labor unions with 37% of public sector (government) workers in unions while only 6.9% of private sector workers were union members.
, U.S. workers worked longer hours on average than any other industrialized country, having surpassed
Japan
Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...
. Info published in 2007 showed U.S. workers rank high in terms of production.
, the United States'
maternity leave
Parental leave, or family leave, is an employee benefit available in almost all countries. The term "parental leave" may include maternity, Paternity (law), paternity, and adoption leave; or may be used distinctively from "maternity leave" an ...
policy is distinct from other industrialized countries for its relative scarcity of benefits. The length of protected maternity leave ranks 20th out of the 21 high-income countries. Moreover, most foreign wealthy nations provide some form of wage compensation for the leave of absence; the United States is the only one of these 21 countries that does not offer such paid leave.
In 2014, the United States received a poor grade of "4" on the ITUC's Global Rights Index, which ranks the worst places in the world for workers' rights, with "1" being the best and "5" the worst.Ishaan Tharoor (May 20, 2014) MAP: The worst places in the world to be a worker ''
The Washington Post
''The Washington Post'' (also known as the ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'') is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C. It is the most widely circulated newspaper within the Washington metropolitan area and has a large nati ...
.'' Retrieved July 31, 2014.
In 2014, the United States was considered a "medium risk" country for
child labor
Child labour refers to the exploitation of children through any form of work that deprives children of their childhood, interferes with their ability to attend regular school, and is mentally, physically, socially and morally harmful. Such e ...
according to
Maplecroft Maplecroft is a global risk and strategic consulting firm based in Bath, England. Its work includes analyzing risks affecting global business and investors.
Maplecroft is regularly quoted in the media, particularly on political risk, economics, a ...
's 2014 Child Labor Index.
In 2015, the United States and
Papua New Guinea
Papua New Guinea (abbreviated PNG; , ; tpi, Papua Niugini; ho, Papua Niu Gini), officially the Independent State of Papua New Guinea ( tpi, Independen Stet bilong Papua Niugini; ho, Independen Stet bilong Papua Niu Gini), is a country i ...
were reported to be the only countries in the world that did not guarantee paid maternal leave by law.
Health care
The
Universal Declaration of Human Rights
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) is an international document adopted by the United Nations General Assembly that enshrines the Human rights, rights and freedoms of all human beings. Drafted by a UN Drafting of the Universal De ...
, adopted by the
United Nations
The United Nations (UN) is an intergovernmental organization whose stated purposes are to maintain international peace and international security, security, develop friendly relations among nations, achieve international cooperation, and be ...
in 1948, states that "everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of oneself and one's family, including food, clothing, housing, and medical care." In addition, the ''Principles of Medical Ethics'' of the American Medical Association require medical doctors to respect the human rights of the patient, including that of providing medical treatment when it is needed. Americans' rights in health care are regulated by the US Patients' Bill of Rights.
Unlike most other industrialized nations, the United States does not offer most of its citizens subsidized health care. The United States
Medicaid
Medicaid in the United States is a federal and state program that helps with healthcare costs for some people with limited income and resources. Medicaid also offers benefits not normally covered by Medicare, including nursing home care and pers ...
program provides subsidized coverage to some categories of individuals and families with low incomes and resources, including children, pregnant women, and very low-income people with disabilities (higher-earning people with disabilities do not qualify for Medicaid, although they do qualify for Medicare). However, according to Medicaid's own documents, "the Medicaid program does not provide health care services, even for very poor people, unless they are in one of the designated eligibility groups."
Nonetheless, some states offer subsidized health insurance to broader populations. Coverage is subsidized for persons age 65 and over, or who meet other special criteria through Medicare. Every person with a permanent disability, both young and old, is inherently entitled to Medicare health benefits — a fact not all disabled US citizens are aware of. However, just like every other Medicare recipient, a disabled person finds that his or her Medicare benefits only cover up to 80% of what the insurer considers reasonable charges in the U.S. medical system, and that the other 20% plus the difference in the reasonable amount and the actual charge must be paid by other means (typically supplemental, privately held insurance plans, or cash out of the person's own pocket). Therefore, even the Medicare program is not truly national health insurance or
universal health care
Universal health care (also called universal health coverage, universal coverage, or universal care) is a health care system in which all residents of a particular country or region are assured access to health care. It is generally organized ar ...
the way most of the rest of the industrialized world understands it.
The
Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act The Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act (EMTALA) is an act of the United States Congress, passed in 1986 as part of the Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act (COBRA). It requires hospital emergency departments that accept paym ...
of 1986, an
unfunded mandate In the United States, federal mandates are orders that induce "responsibility, action, procedure or anything else that is imposed by constitutional, administrative, executive, or judicial action" for state and local governments and/or the private se ...
, mandates that no person may ever be denied emergency services regardless of ability to pay, citizenship, or immigration status. The Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act has been criticized by the
American College of Emergency Physicians
The American College of Emergency Physicians (ACEP) is a professional organization of emergency medicine physicians in the United States.
The organization was founded August 16, 1968, by eight physicians in Lansing, Michigan. ACEP established t ...
as an unfunded mandate.
46.6 million residents, or 15.9 percent, were without health insurance coverage in 2005. This number includes about 10 million non-citizens, millions more who are eligible for Medicaid but never applied, and 18 million with annual household incomes above $50,000. According to a study led by the Johns Hopkins Children's Center, uninsured children who are hospitalized are 60% more likely to die than children who are covered by health insurance.
United States Constitution
The Constitution of the United States is the Supremacy Clause, supreme law of the United States, United States of America. It superseded the Articles of Confederation, the nation's first constitution, in 1789. Originally comprising seven ar ...
(each part of the
Bill of Rights
A bill of rights, sometimes called a declaration of rights or a charter of rights, is a list of the most important rights to the citizens of a country. The purpose is to protect those rights against infringement from public officials and pri ...
criminal defendant
In court proceedings, a defendant is a person or object who is the party either accused of committing a crime in criminal prosecution or against whom some type of civil relief is being sought in a civil case.
Terminology varies from one jurisdic ...
s have significant
procedural rights
Procedural law, adjective law, in some jurisdictions referred to as remedial law, or rules of court, comprises the rules by which a court hears and determines what happens in civil, lawsuit, criminal or administrative proceedings. The rules are ...
. The
incorporation of the Bill of Rights
In United States constitutional law, incorporation is the doctrine by which portions of the Bill of Rights have been made applicable to the states. When the Bill of Rights was ratified, the courts held that its protections extended only to the ...
has extended these constitutional protections to the state and local levels of law enforcement. The United States also possesses a system of
judicial review
Judicial review is a process under which executive, legislative and administrative actions are subject to review by the judiciary. A court with authority for judicial review may invalidate laws, acts and governmental actions that are incompat ...
over government action.Lieberman, Jethro Koller, ''A practical companion to the Constitution: how the Supreme Court has ruled on issues from abortion to zoning'', University of California Press, 1999, , page 6
Punishment
Death penalty
Capital punishment
Capital punishment, also known as the death penalty, is the state-sanctioned practice of deliberately killing a person as a punishment for an actual or supposed crime, usually following an authorized, rule-governed process to conclude that t ...
is a legal penalty in the
United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...
, currently used by 23 states, the federal government, and the military. , there have been 1,517 executions in the United States since 1976 (when the death penalty was reinstated after it had been effectively invalidated as a punishment by a 1972 Supreme Court ruling). The United States is one of 55 countries worldwide that uses the death penalty, and was the first to develop
lethal injection
Lethal injection is the practice of injecting one or more drugs into a person (typically a barbiturate, paralytic, and potassium solution) for the express purpose of causing rapid death. The main application for this procedure is capital puni ...
as a method of execution. Among the 56 countries categorized as 'Very high' on the
Human Development Index
The Human Development Index (HDI) is a statistic composite index of life expectancy, education (mean years of schooling completed and expected years of schooling upon entering the education system), and per capita income indicators, whi ...
, it is one of only 12 that retain the death penalty (the others being
Singapore
Singapore (), officially the Republic of Singapore, is a sovereign island country and city-state in maritime Southeast Asia. It lies about one degree of latitude () north of the equator, off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, borde ...
,
Japan
Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...
, the
United Arab Emirates
The United Arab Emirates (UAE; ar, اَلْإِمَارَات الْعَرَبِيَة الْمُتَحِدَة ), or simply the Emirates ( ar, الِْإمَارَات ), is a country in Western Asia (The Middle East). It is located at th ...
,
Saudi Arabia
Saudi Arabia, officially the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), is a country in Western Asia. It covers the bulk of the Arabian Peninsula, and has a land area of about , making it the fifth-largest country in Asia, the second-largest in the A ...
,
Bahrain
Bahrain ( ; ; ar, البحرين, al-Bahrayn, locally ), officially the Kingdom of Bahrain, ' is an island country in Western Asia. It is situated on the Persian Gulf, and comprises a small archipelago made up of 50 natural islands and an ...
,
Oman
Oman ( ; ar, عُمَان ' ), officially the Sultanate of Oman ( ar, سلْطنةُ عُمان ), is an Arabian country located in southwestern Asia. It is situated on the southeastern coast of the Arabian Peninsula, and spans the mouth of t ...
,
Belarus
Belarus,, , ; alternatively and formerly known as Byelorussia (from Russian ). officially the Republic of Belarus,; rus, Республика Беларусь, Respublika Belarus. is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe. It is bordered by R ...
,
Kuwait
Kuwait (; ar, الكويت ', or ), officially the State of Kuwait ( ar, دولة الكويت '), is a country in Western Asia. It is situated in the northern edge of Eastern Arabia at the tip of the Persian Gulf, bordering Iraq to the nort ...
,
Qatar
Qatar (, ; ar, قطر, Qaṭar ; local vernacular pronunciation: ), officially the State of Qatar,) is a country in Western Asia. It occupies the Qatar Peninsula on the northeastern coast of the Arabian Peninsula in the Middle East; it sh ...
,
Malaysia
Malaysia ( ; ) is a country in Southeast Asia. The federation, federal constitutional monarchy consists of States and federal territories of Malaysia, thirteen states and three federal territories, separated by the South China Sea into two r ...
, and
Taiwan
Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia, at the junction of the East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocean, with the People's Republic of China (PRC) to the northwest, Japan to the nort ...
). Among the world's most economically and politically powerful countries, it is one of the few who utilize capital punishment. In 2011, for instance, it was the only country in the G8 that carried out executions, and was among only three countries in the
G20
The G20 or Group of Twenty is an intergovernmental forum comprising 19 countries and the European Union (EU). It works to address major issues related to the global economy, such as international financial stability, climate change mitigatio ...
(along with
China
China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...
and
Saudi Arabia
Saudi Arabia, officially the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), is a country in Western Asia. It covers the bulk of the Arabian Peninsula, and has a land area of about , making it the fifth-largest country in Asia, the second-largest in the A ...
Belarus
Belarus,, , ; alternatively and formerly known as Byelorussia (from Russian ). officially the Republic of Belarus,; rus, Республика Беларусь, Respublika Belarus. is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe. It is bordered by R ...
were the only two that carried out executions in 2011.
The vast majority of executions are carried out by state governments, largely as a result of the
federal
Federal or foederal (archaic) may refer to:
Politics
General
*Federal monarchy, a federation of monarchies
*Federation, or ''Federal state'' (federal system), a type of government characterized by both a central (federal) government and states or ...
political structure of the United States, in which most crimes are prosecuted by state governments rather than the federal government. Capital punishment is heavily concentrated among several states, with Texas overwhelmingly leading in number of executions at 569 between 1976 and 2020, followed by Virginia with 113 executions, and Oklahoma with 112. The disparity is particularly stark when broken down by county: since 1976, only 2% of counties have been responsible for more than half of all executions. As of January 25, 2008, the death penalty has been abolished in the
District of Columbia
)
, image_skyline =
, image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan, ...
Northeast
The points of the compass are a set of horizontal, radially arrayed compass directions (or azimuths) used in navigation and cartography. A compass rose is primarily composed of four cardinal directions—north, east, south, and west—each se ...
and
Midwest
The Midwestern United States, also referred to as the Midwest or the American Midwest, is one of four Census Bureau Region, census regions of the United States Census Bureau (also known as "Region 2"). It occupies the northern central part of ...
.
The death penalty has a complex legal history. While modern critics have challenged capital punishment on grounds that it violates the Eighth Amendment's ban on the use of "cruel and unusual punishment", the
United States Supreme Court
The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all U.S. federal court cases, and over state court cases that involve a point o ...
has held that it does not. At the time of the ratification of the
Bill of Rights
A bill of rights, sometimes called a declaration of rights or a charter of rights, is a list of the most important rights to the citizens of a country. The purpose is to protect those rights against infringement from public officials and pr ...
, societal moral standards did not hold the death penalty was "cruel and unusual", so it was used throughout early American history. However, the death penalty was temporarily halted by the Supreme Court on Eighth Amendment grounds from 1972 to 1976. In 1958, the
United States Supreme Court
The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all U.S. federal court cases, and over state court cases that involve a point o ...
ruled in '' Trop v. Dulles'' that the Eighth Amendment "must draw its meaning from the evolving standards of decency". This opened the way to the 1972 US Supreme Court case ''
Furman v. Georgia
''Furman v. Georgia'', 408 U.S. 238 (1972), was a landmark criminal case in which the United States Supreme Court invalidated all then existing legal constructions for the death penalty in the United States. It was 5–4 decision, with each memb ...
'' , which found that the imposition of the death penalty at the states' discretion constituted
cruel and unusual punishment
Cruel and unusual punishment is a phrase in common law describing punishment that is considered unacceptable due to the suffering, pain, or humiliation it inflicts on the person subjected to the sanction. The precise definition varies by jurisd ...
in violation of the
Eighth Amendment to the United States Constitution
The Eighth Amendment (Amendment VIII) to the United States Constitution protects against imposing excessive bail, excessive fines, or cruel and unusual punishments. This amendment was adopted on December 15, 1791, along with the rest of the ...
, with the Court stating that the death penalty had been applied in a "harsh, freakish, and arbitrary" manner. This ruling was preceded by the
Supreme Court of California
The Supreme Court of California is the highest and final court of appeals in the courts of the U.S. state of California. It is headquartered in San Francisco at the Earl Warren Building, but it regularly holds sessions in Los Angeles and Sacra ...
's ruling in '' California v. Anderson'' 64 Cal.2d 633, 414 P.2d 366 (Cal. 1972), which classified capital punishment as cruel and unusual and outlawed the use of capital punishment in California (however, this was reversed the same year through a
ballot initiative
In political science, an initiative (also known as a popular initiative or citizens' initiative) is a means by which a petition signed by a certain number of registered voters can force a government to choose either to enact a law or hold a p ...
, Proposition 17). However, the death penalty was ultimately reinstated nationally in 1976 after the US Supreme Court rulings ''
Gregg v. Georgia
''Gregg v. Georgia'', ''Proffitt v. Florida'', ''Jurek v. Texas'', ''Woodson v. North Carolina'', and ''Roberts v. Louisiana'', 428 U.S. 153 (1976), is a landmark decision of the U.S. Supreme Court. It reaffirmed the Court's acceptance of the use ...
Proffitt v. Florida
''Gregg v. Georgia'', ''Proffitt v. Florida'', ''Jurek v. Texas'', ''Woodson v. North Carolina'', and ''Roberts v. Louisiana'', 428 U.S. 153 (1976), is a landmark decision of the U.S. Supreme Court. It reaffirmed the Court's acceptance of the us ...
'', . Further refinements have been made to death penalty since then, with a ruling on March 1, 2005, by the Supreme Court in '' Roper v. Simmons'' prohibiting the execution of people who committed their crimes when they were under the age of 18 (between 1990 and 2005,
Amnesty International
Amnesty International (also referred to as Amnesty or AI) is an international non-governmental organization focused on human rights, with its headquarters in the United Kingdom. The organization says it has more than ten million members and sup ...
recorded 19 executions in the United States for crimes committed by juveniles). In
international law
International law (also known as public international law and the law of nations) is the set of rules, norms, and standards generally recognized as binding between states. It establishes normative guidelines and a common conceptual framework for ...
, it has been argued that the United States may be in violation of international human rights treaties in its use of the death penalty. In 1998, the UN special
rapporteur
A rapporteur is a person who is appointed by an organization to report on the proceedings of its meetings. The term is a French-derived word.
For example, Dick Marty was appointed ''rapporteur'' by the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Eur ...
recommended to a committee of the UN General Assembly that the United States be found to be in violation of Article 6 of the
International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights
The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) is a multilateral treaty that commits nations to respect the civil and political rights of individuals, including the right to life, freedom of religion, freedom of speech, freedo ...
with regards to the death penalty, and called for an immediate capital punishment moratorium. The recommendation of the special
rapporteur
A rapporteur is a person who is appointed by an organization to report on the proceedings of its meetings. The term is a French-derived word.
For example, Dick Marty was appointed ''rapporteur'' by the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Eur ...
, however, is not legally binding under international law and in this case the UN did not act upon the lawyer's recommendation.
Capital punishment within the United States is controversial. Death penalty opponents consider it "inhumane", criticize it for its irreversibility, and assert that it is ineffective as a deterrent against crime, pointing to several studies which show it has little deterring effect on crime (though this point is controversial as studies have conflicted in their conclusions on the effectiveness of the death penalty as a deterrent). Human rights organizations have been particularly critical of it, with
Amnesty International
Amnesty International (also referred to as Amnesty or AI) is an international non-governmental organization focused on human rights, with its headquarters in the United Kingdom. The organization says it has more than ten million members and sup ...
, for example, stating that "the death penalty is the ultimate, irreversible denial of human rights." Notably, the
European Union
The European Union (EU) is a supranational political and economic union of member states that are located primarily in Europe. The union has a total area of and an estimated total population of about 447million. The EU has often been des ...
, in accordance with its official policy of attempting to achieve global abolition of the death penalty, has been vocal in its criticism of the death penalty in the US and has submitted ''
amicus curiae
An ''amicus curiae'' (; ) is an individual or organization who is not a party to a legal case, but who is permitted to assist a court by offering information, expertise, or insight that has a bearing on the issues in the case. The decision on ...
'' briefs in a number of important US court cases related to capital punishment. The
American Bar Association
The American Bar Association (ABA) is a voluntary bar association of lawyers and law students, which is not specific to any jurisdiction in the United States. Founded in 1878, the ABA's most important stated activities are the setting of acad ...
also sponsors a project aimed at abolishing the death penalty in the United States, criticizing the US's execution of minors and the mentally disabled and arguing that the US fails to adequately protect the rights of the innocent.
Some opponents criticize the over-representation of
black people
Black is a racialized classification of people, usually a political and skin color-based category for specific populations with a mid to dark brown complexion. Not all people considered "black" have dark skin; in certain countries, often in s ...
on death row as evidence of the unequal racial application of the death penalty. In '' McCleskey v. Kemp'', for example, it was alleged the capital sentencing process was administered in a racially discriminatory manner in violation of the
Equal Protection Clause
The Equal Protection Clause is part of the first section of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. The clause, which took effect in 1868, provides "''nor shall any State ... deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal ...
of the Fourteenth Amendment. This over-representation is not limited to capital offenses—in 1992, at a time when black people accounted for 12% of the US population, about 34% of prison inmates were from this group. Furthermore, in 2003
Amnesty International
Amnesty International (also referred to as Amnesty or AI) is an international non-governmental organization focused on human rights, with its headquarters in the United Kingdom. The organization says it has more than ten million members and sup ...
reported those who kill whites are more likely to be executed than those who kill blacks, citing that of the 845 people executed since 1977 eighty percent were put to death for killing whites and 13 percent were executed for killing blacks, even though blacks and whites are murdered in almost equal numbers. The extent of racism in this is, however, disputed—black people also commit crimes at a rate disproportionate to their representation in the population and over half of homicides where the race of the offender is known were perpetuated by black people.
Solitary confinement
The
United Nations
The United Nations (UN) is an intergovernmental organization whose stated purposes are to maintain international peace and international security, security, develop friendly relations among nations, achieve international cooperation, and be ...
estimates there are about 80,000 prisoners in solitary confinement in the U.S., 12,000 of whom are in California. The use of
solitary confinement
Solitary confinement is a form of imprisonment in which the inmate lives in a single cell with little or no meaningful contact with other people. A prison may enforce stricter measures to control contraband on a solitary prisoner and use additi ...
has drawn criticism and is increasingly viewed as a form of torture because of the psychological harm it causes. The United Nations Special Rapporteur on torture, Juan E. Méndez, has requested that the United States stop holding prisoners in solitary confinement, as "it often causes mental and physical suffering or humiliation, amounting to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, and if the resulting pain or sufferings are severe, solitary confinement even amounts to torture." In a severe example, Herman Wallace and Albert Woodfox, two prisoners at the
Angola prison
The Louisiana State Penitentiary (known as Angola, and nicknamed the "Alcatraz of the South", "The Angola Plantation" and "The Farm"Sutton, Keith "Catfish".Out There: Angola angling. ''ESPN Outdoors''. May 31, 2006. Retrieved on August 25, 2010. ...
in Louisiana, have each spent more than 40 years in solitary confinement.
Sex offender registries
The NGO
Human Rights Watch
Human Rights Watch (HRW) is an international non-governmental organization, headquartered in New York City, that conducts research and advocacy on human rights. The group pressures governments, policy makers, companies, and individual human r ...
has stated that there are human rights issues created by the current
sex offender registration
A sex offender registry is a system in various countries designed to allow government authorities to keep track of the activities of sex offenders, including those who have completed their criminal sentences. In some jurisdictions, registration i ...
laws, and that they believe that the burden of being publicly listed as a
sex offender
A sex offender (sexual offender, sex abuser, or sexual abuser) is a person who has committed a sex crime. What constitutes a sex crime differs by culture and legal jurisdiction. The majority of convicted sex offenders have convictions for crim ...
, combined with the onerous restrictions placed on former offenders and their family members, are serious human rights violations. They have criticized the over-breadth of the registration requirements, which tend to treat all offenders the same regardless of the nature of the offense and without accounting the risk of future re-offending, as well as the application of such laws to
juvenile offender
A young offender is a young person who has been convicted or cautioned for a criminal offense. Criminal justice systems often deal with young offenders differently from adult offenders, but different countries apply the term "young offender" ...
s,
consensual
Consent occurs when one person voluntarily agrees to the proposal or desires of another. It is a term of common speech, with specific definitions as used in such fields as the law, medicine, research, and sexual relationships. Consent as und ...
teenage sex,
prostitution
Prostitution is the business or practice of engaging in Sex work, sexual activity in exchange for payment. The definition of "sexual activity" varies, and is often defined as an activity requiring physical contact (e.g., sexual intercourse, n ...
, consensual teenage
sexting
Sexting is sending, receiving, or forwarding sexually explicit messages, photographs, or videos, primarily between mobile phones. It may also include the use of a computer or any digital device. The term was first popularized early in the 21st ...
RSOL
The National Association for Rational Sexual Offense Laws (NARSOL) is a national civil rights and justice reform organization headquartered in Raleigh, North Carolina with operations based in Albuquerque, New Mexico and with affiliated organizati ...
also believe that measures against sex offenders are inhumane and that current legislation violates the constitutional rights of those with a legal obligation to register. Both organizations have challenged elements of the registration laws in court. By comparison, the
European Court of Human Rights
The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR or ECtHR), also known as the Strasbourg Court, is an international court of the Council of Europe which interprets the European Convention on Human Rights. The court hears applications alleging that a ...
has found that indefinite placement on the United Kingdom sex offender registry, which is not available to the general public, is incompatible with an offender's right to privacy if the person has no right to judicial review.
Prison system
International and domestic
human rights
Human rights are moral principles or normsJames Nickel, with assistance from Thomas Pogge, M.B.E. Smith, and Leif Wenar, 13 December 2013, Stanford Encyclopedia of PhilosophyHuman Rights Retrieved 14 August 2014 for certain standards of hu ...
groups,
civil rights
Civil and political rights are a class of rights that protect individuals' freedom from infringement by governments, social organizations, and private individuals. They ensure one's entitlement to participate in the civil and political life of ...
organizations, and social critics have criticized the United States for violating fundamental human rights through the use of disproportionately heavy penalties compared to many other countries, overly long prison sentences, over-reliance on police control, excessive control of individual behavior, and societal control of disadvantaged groups through a harsh police and
criminal justice
Criminal justice is the delivery of justice to those who have been accused of committing crimes. The criminal justice system is a series of government agencies and institutions. Goals include the Rehabilitation (penology), rehabilitation of o ...
system.
Human Rights Watch
Human Rights Watch (HRW) is an international non-governmental organization, headquartered in New York City, that conducts research and advocacy on human rights. The group pressures governments, policy makers, companies, and individual human r ...
, for instance, has argued that "the extraordinary rate of incarceration in the United States wreaks havoc on individuals, families and communities, and saps the strength of the nation as a whole."
The United States has been criticized for its large prison population, with more than 2.2 million people in prisons or jails. It has the world's highest incarceration rate, imprisoning roughly 1 out of every 136 Americans (737 per 100,000 people) and disproportionately imprisoning
racial minorities
The term 'minority group' has different usages depending on the context. According to its common usage, a minority group can simply be understood in terms of demographic sizes within a population: i.e. a group in society with the least number o ...
and those from the lowest socioeconomic backgrounds. In particular, The United States has been criticized for incarcerating a large number of non-violent and victim-less offenders. Half of all persons incarcerated under State jurisdiction were convicted of non-violent offenses and 20 percent for drug offenses, mostly the possession of
cannabis
''Cannabis'' () is a genus of flowering plants in the family Cannabaceae. The number of species within the genus is disputed. Three species may be recognized: ''Cannabis sativa'', '' C. indica'', and '' C. ruderalis''. Alternatively ...
. Marijuana legalization and decriminalization is seen as a step of progress in decreasing the prison population. Other non-violent offenses which carry extremely long prison sentences in the United States include
fraud
In law, fraud is intentional deception to secure unfair or unlawful gain, or to deprive a victim of a legal right. Fraud can violate civil law (e.g., a fraud victim may sue the fraud perpetrator to avoid the fraud or recover monetary compens ...
and other acts of corruption, offenses relating to
child pornography
Child pornography (also called CP, child sexual abuse material, CSAM, child porn, or kiddie porn) is pornography that unlawfully exploits children for sexual stimulation. It may be produced with the direct involvement or sexual assault of a ...
, and
contempt of court
Contempt of court, often referred to simply as "contempt", is the crime of being disobedient to or disrespectful toward a court of law and its officers in the form of behavior that opposes or defies the authority, justice, and dignity of the cour ...
.
The United States also has a high rate of youth imprisonment, with many held in the same prisons as adults. According to The National Council on Crime and Delinquency, since 1990 the incarceration of
youth
Youth is the time of life when one is young. The word, youth, can also mean the time between childhood and adulthood ( maturity), but it can also refer to one's peak, in terms of health or the period of life known as being a young adult. You ...
in adult jails has increased 208%. They found that juveniles were often incarcerated awaiting trial for up to two years, subjected to the same treatment as adult inmates, and were at greater risk of assault, abuse, or death. The length of prison sentences in the United States is widely criticized in other countries and is believed to be the biggest contributor to the country's large prison population. The length of the average prison sentences in the United States tends to exceed those in other developed countries. The United States is currently the country with the most
life sentences
Life imprisonment is any sentence of imprisonment for a crime under which convicted people are to remain in prison for the rest of their natural lives or indefinitely until pardoned, paroled, or otherwise commuted to a fixed term. Crimes ...
, most of which are
life without parole
Life imprisonment is any sentence of imprisonment for a crime under which convicted people are to remain in prison for the rest of their natural lives or indefinitely until pardoned, paroled, or otherwise commuted to a fixed term. Crimes for ...
(LWOP).
Mandatory minimum sentences
Mandatory sentencing requires that offenders serve a predefined term for certain crimes, commonly serious and violent offenses. Judges are bound by law; these sentences are produced through the legislature, not the judicial system. They are inst ...
and
three-strikes law
In the United States, habitual offender laws (commonly referred to as three-strikes laws) have been implemented since at least 1952, and are part of the United States Justice Department's Anti-Violence Strategy. These laws require a person who ...
s are probably the largest contributors to the country's frequency of life imprisonment. It is estimated that 35% of federal US prisoners are older than age 60, many of whom were younger than 30 at the time of sentencing.
The US also has a large number of
foreign national
A foreign national is any person (including an organization) who is not a national of a specific country. ("The term 'person' means an individual or an organization.") For example, in the United States and in its territories, a foreign national ...
s in US prisons, with 21% of all federal inmates in 2017 being non-citizens or non-nationals. Additionally, the US Justice Department rarely approves extraditions of foreign prisoners to their home countries, and most are deported after serving their sentences rather than before their trials. This is seen as a huge contributor to prison overcrowding, especially in California, Arizona, and Texas. This goes hand-in-hand with the US immigration policies, which have also been criticized by human rights groups.
Tolerance of serious
sexual abuse
Sexual abuse or sex abuse, also referred to as molestation, is abusive sexual behavior by one person upon another. It is often perpetrated using force or by taking advantage of another. Molestation often refers to an instance of sexual assa ...
Human Rights Watch
Human Rights Watch (HRW) is an international non-governmental organization, headquartered in New York City, that conducts research and advocacy on human rights. The group pressures governments, policy makers, companies, and individual human r ...
Prison Journal
''The Prison Journal'' is a peer-reviewed academic journal that publishes papers in the field of Criminology. The journal's editor is Rosemary L. Gido (Indiana University of Pennsylvania). It has been in publication since 1921 and is currently ...
, about 21% claimed they had been coerced or pressured into sexual activity during their incarceration and 7% claimed that they had been raped in their current facility.
The United States has also been widely criticized for its attitude towards
parole
Parole (also known as provisional release or supervised release) is a form of early release of a prison inmate where the prisoner agrees to abide by certain behavioral conditions, including checking-in with their designated parole officers, or ...
and incarceration alternatives. There is no parole in the federal prison system, which has drawn international outrage from human rights groups and is believed to be a major contributor to prison overcrowding. In addition, 16 states have no parole in their prison systems. Parole is rarely granted where it is allowed, and the United States is the only country that currently has juveniles serving life sentences without parole. The United States has also been heavily criticized for having few or no
alternatives to incarceration
Decarceration in the United States involves government policies and community campaigns aimed at reducing the number of people held in custody or custodial supervision. Decarceration, the opposite of incarceration, also entails reducing the rate ...
.
Probation
Probation in criminal law is a period of supervision over an offender, ordered by the court often in lieu of incarceration.
In some jurisdictions, the term ''probation'' applies only to community sentences (alternatives to incarceration), such ...
, fines, and
community service
Community service is unpaid work performed by a person or group of people for the benefit and betterment of their community without any form of compensation. Community service can be distinct from volunteering, since it is not always performed ...
are extremely rarely issued instead of prison time.
Police brutality
In a 1999 report,
Amnesty International
Amnesty International (also referred to as Amnesty or AI) is an international non-governmental organization focused on human rights, with its headquarters in the United Kingdom. The organization says it has more than ten million members and sup ...
said it had "documented patterns of ill-treatment across the U.S., including police beatings, unjustified shootings and the use of dangerous restraint techniques."
According to a 1998 Human Rights Watch report, incidents of police use of excessive force had occurred in cities throughout the U.S., and this behavior goes largely unchecked. An article in ''USA Today'' reports that in 2006, 96% of cases referred to the U.S. Justice Department for prosecution by investigative agencies were declined. In 2005, 98% were declined. In 2001, ''
The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'' reported that the U.S. government is unable or unwilling to collect statistics showing the precise number of people killed by the police or the prevalence of the use of excessive force.
From 1999 to 2005, at least 148 people have died in the United States and Canada after being shocked with Tasers by police officers, according to a 2005 ACLU report.
In one case, a handcuffed suspect was tasered nine times by a police officer before dying, and six of those taserings occurred within less than three minutes. The officer was fired and faced the possibility of criminal charges.
On June 2, 2020, George Floyd's official post-mortem report declared the cause of death as
asphyxia
Asphyxia or asphyxiation is a condition of deficient supply of oxygen to the body which arises from abnormal breathing. Asphyxia causes generalized hypoxia, which affects primarily the tissues and organs. There are many circumstances that ca ...
(lack of oxygen) due to a compression on his neck and back. It also found that the death was a homicide, a statement from the family's legal team said.
On June 23, 2020, a report from the
University of Chicago Law School
The University of Chicago Law School is the law school of the University of Chicago, a private research university in Chicago, Illinois. It is consistently ranked among the best and most prestigious law schools in the world, and has many dist ...
claimed that law enforcement policies in the police departments of 20 largest cities in the
United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...
failed to meet even basic standards under international
human rights
Human rights are moral principles or normsJames Nickel, with assistance from Thomas Pogge, M.B.E. Smith, and Leif Wenar, 13 December 2013, Stanford Encyclopedia of PhilosophyHuman Rights Retrieved 14 August 2014 for certain standards of hu ...
guidelines. The law enforcement forces are authorized to commit ‘state-sanctioned violence’ without significant reform.
The use of
strip search
A strip search is a practice of searching a person for weapons or other contraband suspected of being hidden on their body or inside their clothing, and not found by performing a frisk search, but by requiring the person to remove some or al ...
es and
cavity search
A body cavity search, also known simply as a cavity search, is either a visual search or a manual internal inspection of body cavities for prohibited materials (contraband), such as illegal drugs, money, jewelry, or weapons. Body cavities frequen ...
es by law enforcement agencies and in the prison system has raised human rights concerns.
The practice of taking an arrested person on a perp walk, often handcuffed, through a public place at some point after the arrest, creating an opportunity for the media to take photographs and video of the event has raised civil and human rights concerns.
Racial discrimination
Human rights organization A human rights group, or human rights organization, is a non-governmental organization which advocates for human rights through identification of their violation, collecting incident data, its analysis and publication, promotion of public awareness ...
s,
civil rights
Civil and political rights are a class of rights that protect individuals' freedom from infringement by governments, social organizations, and private individuals. They ensure one's entitlement to participate in the civil and political life of ...
groups, academics, journalists, and other critics have argued that the US justice system exhibits racial biases that harm minority groups, particularly
African American
African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American" generally denotes descendants of ens ...
s. There are significant racial disparities within the United States prison population, with black individuals making up 38.2% of the federal prison population in 2020 despite accounting for only 13.4% of the total population. Studies have also found that black people, as well as other minority groups, are shot and killed by the police at higher rates than white people, tend to receive harsher punishments than white people, are more likely to be charged for
drug crime
A drug-related crime is a crime to possess, manufacture, or distribute drugs classified as having a potential for abuse (such as cocaine, heroin, morphine and amphetamines). Drugs are also related to crime as drug trafficking and drug product ...
s despite consuming drugs at similar rates as white people, are at higher lifetime risk of being killed by police than white people, are more likely to be stopped by police while driving, and are more likely to be arrested during a police stop. As the Sentencing Project said in their report to the
United Nations
The United Nations (UN) is an intergovernmental organization whose stated purposes are to maintain international peace and international security, security, develop friendly relations among nations, achieve international cooperation, and be ...
:
African American
African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American" generally denotes descendants of ens ...
s are more likely than white Americans to be arrested; once arrested, they are more likely to be convicted; and once convicted, they are more likely to experience lengthy prison sentences.
The cause of this is disputed. There is a widespread belief among the American public that racial discrimination by the police is a persistent problem, and many academics and journalists assert that
systemic racism
Institutional racism, also known as systemic racism, is a form of racism that is embedded in the laws and regulations of a society or an organization. It manifests as discrimination in areas such as criminal justice, employment, housing, healt ...
, as well as a number of factors like
concentrated poverty
Concentrated poverty concerns the spatial distribution of socio-economic deprivation, specifically focusing on the density of poor populations. Within the United States, common usage of the term concentrated poverty is observed in the fields of p ...
and higher rates of substandard housing (which has also led to greater rates of lead poisoning among African Americans) that they argue arise out of past
racial segregation
Racial segregation is the systematic separation of people into race (human classification), racial or other Ethnicity, ethnic groups in daily life. Racial segregation can amount to the international crime of apartheid and a crimes against hum ...
or other forms of historical oppression, contribute to the racial disparities. Some—particularly conservatism in the United States, conservative political commentators—however, allege that the disparities arise primarily out of greater rates of criminal activity among black people, and point to studies that have found little evidence that anti-black racism causes disparities in altercations with the police.
Procedural concerns
There have been a number of criticisms over certain legal procedures. The National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers and
Human Rights Watch
Human Rights Watch (HRW) is an international non-governmental organization, headquartered in New York City, that conducts research and advocacy on human rights. The group pressures governments, policy makers, companies, and individual human r ...
have, for instance, argued that there exists a "trial penalty"—a penalty for electing to go to trial that arises from the significant discrepancy between the punishment a defendant would receive by waiving the right to trial and accepting a plea bargain compared to the punishment they might receive at trial—which they argue abridges the right to trial guaranteed by the
Sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution
The Sixth Amendment (Amendment VI) to the United States Constitution sets forth rights related to criminal prosecutions. It was ratified in 1791 as part of the United States Bill of Rights. The Supreme Court has applied the protections of this ...
. There has also been significant criticism over qualified immunity, a
judicial precedent
A precedent is a principle or rule established in a previous legal case that is either binding on or persuasive for a court or other tribunal when deciding subsequent cases with similar issues or facts. Common-law legal systems place great value ...
that grants government officials—including police officers—significant immunity from civil suits. Critics have argued that qualified immunity makes it excessively difficult to sue public officials for misconduct, including civil rights violations; this has been implicated in particular for enabling police brutality.
There has also been criticism of police department hiring practices. Despite safeguards in place around recruitment, some police departments have hired officers who had histories of poor performance or misconduct in other departments, an issue known as hiring gypsy cop, "gypsy cops".
Inhumane treatment and torture of captured non-U.S. citizens
International and U.S. law prohibits
torture
Torture is the deliberate infliction of severe pain or suffering on a person for reasons such as punishment, extracting a confession, interrogation for information, or intimidating third parties. Some definitions are restricted to acts c ...
and other acts of Cruel and unusual punishment, cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment of any person in custody in all circumstances, especially in a state of armed conflict. However, the United States Government has categorized a large number of people as unlawful combatants, a classification which denies the privileges of prisoner of war (POW) designation of the Geneva Conventions.International Committee of the Red Cross, ICRC official statement: The relevance of IHL in the context of terrorism '', January 1, 2011
Certain practices of the United States military and Central Intelligence Agency have been widely condemned domestically and internationally as torture. A fierce debate regarding non-standard interrogation techniques exists within the U.S. civilian and military intelligence community, with no general consensus as to what practices under what conditions are acceptable.
Abuse of prisoners is considered a crime in the United States Uniform Code of Military Justice. According to a January 2006 Human Rights First report, there were 45 suspected or confirmed homicides while in U.S. custody in Iraq and Afghanistan; "Certainly 8, as many as 12, people were tortured to death."
Abu Ghraib prison abuse
In 2004, photos showing humiliation and abuse of prisoners were leaked from Abu Ghraib prison, causing a political and media scandal in the US. Forced humiliation of the detainees included, but was not limited to: forced nudity; rape; human piling of nude detainees; masturbation; eating food out of toilets; crawling on hands and knees while American soldiers sat on their backs, sometimes requiring them to bark like dogs; and hooking up electrical wires to fingers, toes, and penises. Bertrand Ramcharan, the acting UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, stated that while the removal of Saddam Hussein represented "a major contribution to human rights in Iraq" and that the United States had condemned the conduct at Abu Ghraib and pledged to bring violators to justice, "willful killing, torture and inhuman treatment" represented a grave breach of international law and "might be designated as war crimes by a competent tribunal".
In addition to the acts of humiliation, there were more violent claims, such as American soldiers sodomizing detainees (including an event involving an underage boy), an incident in which a phosphoric light was broken and the chemicals poured on a detainee, repeated beatings, and threats of death. Six military personnel were charged with prisoner abuse in the Abu Ghraib torture and prisoner abuse scandal. The harshest sentence was handed out to Charles Graner, who received a 10-year sentence to be served in a military prison and a demotion to private; the other offenders received lesser sentences.
In their report ''The Road to Abu Ghraib'',
Human Rights Watch
Human Rights Watch (HRW) is an international non-governmental organization, headquartered in New York City, that conducts research and advocacy on human rights. The group pressures governments, policy makers, companies, and individual human r ...
states:
The Presidency of George W. Bush, [Bush] administration effectively sought to re-write the Geneva Conventions of 1949 to eviscerate many of their most important protections. These include the rights of all detainees in an armed conflict to be free from humiliating and degrading treatment, as well as from torture and other forms of coercive interrogation...[M]ethods included holding detainees in painful stress positions, depriving them of sleep and light for prolonged periods, exposing them to extremes of heat, cold, noise and light, hooding, and depriving them of all clothing...Concern for the basic rights of persons taken into custody in Afghanistan and Iraq did not factor into the Bush administration's agenda. The administration largely dismissed expressions of concern for their treatment, from both within the government and without.
Enhanced interrogation and waterboarding
On February 6, 2008, the CIA director General Michael Hayden (general), Michael Hayden stated that the CIA had used waterboarding on three prisoners during 2002 and 2003, namely Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, Abu Zubayda and Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri.
The June 21, 2004, issue of ''Newsweek'' stated that the Bybee memo, a 2002 legal memorandum drafted by former OLC lawyer John Yoo that described what sort of interrogation tactics against suspected terrorists or terrorist affiliates the Bush administration would consider legal, was "... prompted by CIA questions about what to do with a top Qaeda captive, Abu Zubaydah, who had turned uncooperative ... and was drafted after White House meetings convened by George W. Bush's chief counsel, Alberto Gonzales, along with Defense Department general counsel William J. Haynes, II, William Haynes and David Addington, Vice President Dick Cheney's counsel, who discussed specific interrogation techniques," citing "a source familiar with the discussions." Amongst the methods they found acceptable was waterboarding.
In November 2005, ABC News reported that former CIA agents claimed that the CIA engaged in a modern form of waterboarding, along with five other "enhanced interrogation techniques", against suspected members of al Qaeda.
UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Louise Arbour, stated on the subject of waterboarding "I would have no problems with describing this practice as falling under the prohibition of torture," and that violators of the UN Convention Against Torture should be prosecuted under the principle of universal jurisdiction.
Bent Sørensen, Senior Medical Consultant to the International Rehabilitation Council for Torture Victims and former member of the United Nations United Nations Convention against Torture#Committee against Torture, Committee Against Torture has said:
It's a clear-cut case: Waterboarding can without any reservation be labeled as torture. It fulfils all of the four central criteria that according to the United Nations Convention Against Torture (UNCAT) defines an act of torture. First, when water is forced into your lungs in this fashion, in addition to the pain you are likely to experience an immediate and extreme fear of death. You may even suffer a heart attack from the stress or damage to the lungs and brain from inhalation of water and oxygen deprivation. In other words there is no doubt that waterboarding causes severe physical and/or mental suffering – one central element in the UNCAT's definition of torture. In addition the CIA's waterboarding clearly fulfills the three additional definition criteria stated in the Convention for a deed to be labeled torture, since it is 1) done intentionally, 2) for a specific purpose and 3) by a representative of a state – in this case the US.Bent Sørensen on waterboarding as torture Former member of UN Committee Against Torture: "Yes, waterboarding is torture" International Rehabilitation Council for Torture Victims, February 12, 2008
Both
Human Rights Watch
Human Rights Watch (HRW) is an international non-governmental organization, headquartered in New York City, that conducts research and advocacy on human rights. The group pressures governments, policy makers, companies, and individual human r ...
and
Amnesty International
Amnesty International (also referred to as Amnesty or AI) is an international non-governmental organization focused on human rights, with its headquarters in the United Kingdom. The organization says it has more than ten million members and sup ...
have condemned waterboarding as a form of torture, the latter group demanding that former president George W. Bush be prosecuted.
Lt. Gen. Michael D. Maples, the director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, concurred by stating, in a hearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee, that he believes waterboarding violates Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions.Violating international la Army Official: Yes, Waterboarding Breaks International Law By Paul Kiel, Talking Points Memo, February 27, 2008
The International Military Tribunal for the Far East, Tokyo War Crimes Tribunal and United Nations War Crimes Commission both defined waterboarding as ill-treatment and torture in the aftermath of World War II.CBS New "McCain: Japanese Hanged For Waterboarding" CBS News, 29 November 2007. Retrieved 9 November 2010.
The CIA director testified that waterboarding has not been used since 2003.
In April 2009, the Obama administration released four memos in which government lawyers from the Bush administration approved tough interrogation methods used against 28 terror suspects. The rough tactics range from waterboarding (simulated drowning) to keeping suspects naked and denying them solid food.
These memos were accompanied by the Justice Department's release of four Bush-era legal opinions covering (in graphic and extensive detail) the interrogation of 14 high-value terror detainees using harsh techniques beyond waterboarding. These additional techniques include keeping detainees in a painful standing position for long periods (Used often, once for 180 hours), using a plastic neck collar to slam detainees into walls, keeping the detainee's cell cold for long periods, beating and kicking the detainee, insects placed in a confinement box (the suspect had a fear of insects), sleep-deprivation, prolonged shackling, and threats to a detainee's family. One of the memos also authorized a method for combining multiple techniques.
Details from the memos also included the number of times that techniques such as waterboarding were used. A footnote said that one detainee was waterboarded 83 times in one month, while another was waterboarded 183 times in a month.
This may have gone beyond even what was allowed by the CIA's own directives, which limit waterboarding to 12 times a day.
The Fox News website carried reports from an unnamed U.S. official who claimed that these were the number of pourings, not the number of sessions.Despite Reports, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed Was Not Waterboarded 183 Times , Joseph Abrams, ''Fox News Channel'', April 28, 2009
Physicians for Human Rights has accused the Bush administration of conducting illegal human experiments and unethical medical research during interrogations of suspected terrorists. The group has suggested this activity was a violation of the standards set by the Nuremberg Trials.
Guantánamo Bay
The United States maintains a detention center at its military base at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba where enemy combatants of the war on terror are held. The detention center has been the source of various controversies regarding the legality of the center and the treatment of detainees.''In re Guantanamo Detainee Cases'', 355 F.Supp.2d 443 (D.D.C. 2005).
Amnesty International
Amnesty International (also referred to as Amnesty or AI) is an international non-governmental organization focused on human rights, with its headquarters in the United Kingdom. The organization says it has more than ten million members and sup ...
has called the situation "a human rights scandal" in a series of reports. 775 detainees have been brought to Guantánamo. Of these, many have been released without charge. The United States assumed territorial control over Guantánamo Bay under the 1903 Cuban–American Treaty of Relations (1903), Cuban–American Treaty of Relations, which granted the United States a perpetual lease of the area. United States, by virtue of its complete jurisdiction and control, maintains "de facto" sovereignty over this territory, while Cuba retained ultimate sovereignty over the territory. The current government of Cuba regards the U.S. presence in Guantánamo as illegal and insists the Cuban-American Treaty was obtained by threat of force in violation of international law.
A delegation of UN Special Rapporteurs to Guantanamo Bay claimed that interrogation techniques used in the detention center amount to degrading treatment in violation of the ICCPR and the Convention Against Torture.
In 2005,
Amnesty International
Amnesty International (also referred to as Amnesty or AI) is an international non-governmental organization focused on human rights, with its headquarters in the United Kingdom. The organization says it has more than ten million members and sup ...
expressed alarm at the erosion in civil liberties since the 9/11 attacks. According to Amnesty International:
The Guantánamo Bay detention camp has become a symbol of the United States administration's refusal to put human rights and the rule of law at the heart of its response to the atrocities of September 11, 2001. It has become synonymous with the United States executive's pursuit of unfettered power, and has become firmly associated with the systematic denial of human dignity and resort to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment that has marked the U.S.'s detentions and interrogations in the "war on terror".
Amnesty International also condemned the Guantánamo facility as "... the gulag of our times," which raised heated conversation in the United States. The purported legal status of "''unlawful combatants''" in those nations currently holding detainees under that name has been the subject of criticism by other nations and international human rights institutions including Human Rights Watch and the International Committee of the Red Cross. The ICRC, in response to the U.S.-led military campaign in Afghanistan, published a paper on the subject. HRW cites two sergeants and a captain accusing U.S. troops of torturing prisoners in Iraq and Afghanistan.
However, former US Republican Party, Republican governor Mike Huckabee, for example, has stated that the conditions in Guantanamo Bay detention camp, Guantánamo are better than most U.S. prisons.
The U.S. government argues that even if detainees were entitled to POW status, they would not have the right to lawyers, access to the courts to challenge their detention, or the opportunity to be released prior to the end of hostilities—and that nothing in the Third Geneva Convention provides POWs such rights, and POWs in past wars—such as Japanese prisoners of war in World War II—have generally not been given these rights. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in ''Hamdan v. Rumsfeld'' on June 29, 2006, that they were entitled to the minimal protections listed under Geneva Conventions#Common Article 3, Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions. Following this, on July 7, 2006, the United States Department of Defense, Department of Defense issued an internal memo stating that prisoners would in the future be entitled to protection under Common Article 3.
Extraordinary rendition
In a process known as Extraordinary rendition by the United States, extraordinary rendition, foreign nationals have been captured and Kidnapping, abducted outside of the United States and transferred to secret US-administered detention facilities, sometimes being held incommunicado for months or years. According to ''The New Yorker'', "The most common destinations for rendered suspects are Egypt, Morocco, Syria, and Jordan, all of which have been cited for human-rights violations by the US State Department, State Department, and are known to torture suspects."
Notable cases
In November 2001, Yaser Esam Hamdi, a U.S. citizen, was captured by Afghan Northern Alliance forces in Konduz, Afghanistan, amongst hundreds of surrendering Taliban fighters and was transferred into U.S. custody. The U.S. government alleged that Hamdi was there fighting for the Taliban, while Hamdi, through his father, has claimed that he was merely there as a relief worker and was mistakenly captured. Hamdi was transferred into CIA custody and transferred to the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base, but when it was discovered that he was a U.S. citizen, he was transferred to naval brig in Norfolk, Virginia, Norfolk, Virginia and then he was transferred brig in Charleston, South Carolina, Charleston, South Carolina. The George W. Bush, Bush Administration identified him as an unlawful combatant and denied him access to an attorney or the court system, despite his Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution, Fifth Amendment right to due process. In 2002 Hamdi's father filed a ''
habeas corpus
''Habeas corpus'' (; from Medieval Latin, ) is a recourse in law through which a person can report an unlawful detention or imprisonment to a court and request that the court order the custodian of the person, usually a prison official, t ...
'' petition, the Judge ruled in Hamdi's favor and required he be allowed a public defender; however, on appeal the decision was reversed. In 2004, in the case of ''Hamdi v. Rumsfeld'' the U.S. Supreme court reversed the dismissal of a ''habeas corpus'' petition and ruled detainees who are U.S. citizens must have the ability to challenge their detention before an impartial judge.
In December 2004, Khalid El-Masri, a Germany, German citizen, was apprehended by Republic of Macedonia, Macedonian authorities when traveling to Skopje because his name was similar to Khalid al-Masri, an alleged mentor to the al-Qaeda Hamburg cell. After being held in a motel in Macedonia for over three weeks he was transferred to the CIA and Extraordinary rendition by the United States, extradited to Afghanistan. While held in Afghanistan, El-Masri claims he was sodomized, beaten, and repeatedly interrogated about alleged terrorist ties. After being in custody for five months, Condoleezza Rice learned of his detention and ordered his release. El-Masri was released at night on a desolate road in Albania, without apology or funds to return home. He was intercepted by Albanian guards, who believed he was a terrorist due to his haggard and unkept appearance. He was subsequently reunited with his wife who had returned to her family in Lebanon with their children because she thought her husband had abandoned them. Using isotope analysis, scientists at the Bavarian archive for geology in Munich analyzed his hair and verified that he was malnourished during his disappearance.Georg Mascolo, Holger Stark: The US Stands Accused of Kidnapping ''. SPIEGEL ONLINE, February 14, 2005
In 2007, U.S. President Bush signed an Executive order (United States), Executive order banning the use of torture in the CIA's interrogation program.
According to the
Human Rights Watch
Human Rights Watch (HRW) is an international non-governmental organization, headquartered in New York City, that conducts research and advocacy on human rights. The group pressures governments, policy makers, companies, and individual human r ...
report (September 2012) the United States government during the U.S. President Bush republican administration "waterboarding"
torture
Torture is the deliberate infliction of severe pain or suffering on a person for reasons such as punishment, extracting a confession, interrogation for information, or intimidating third parties. Some definitions are restricted to acts c ...
d opponents of Muammar Gaddafi during interrogations, then transferred them to mistreatment in Libya.
President
Barack Obama
Barack Hussein Obama II ( ; born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who served as the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, Obama was the first African-American president of the U ...
has denied water torture.
Unethical human experimentation in the United States
Well-known cases include:
* Acres of Skin, Albert Kligman's dermatology experiments
* ''Greenberg v. Miami Children's Hospital Research Institute''
* Henrietta Lacks
* Human radiation experiments
* Jesse Gelsinger
* Medical Apartheid, Medical Experimentation on Black Americans
* Milgram experiment
* Monster Study
* ''Moore v. Regents of the University of California''
* The Plutonium Files, Plutonium injections
* Project MKULTRA
* Project MKOFTEN
* U.S. Atomic Energy Commission, Radioactive iodine experiments
* Stanford prison experiment
* Madhouse: A Tragic Tale of Megalomania and Modern Medicine, Surgical removal of body parts to try to improve mental health
* Tuskegee syphilis experiment
* Willowbrook State School
International comparison
According to Canadian historian Michael Ignatieff, during and after the
Cold War
The Cold War is a term commonly used to refer to a period of geopolitical tension between the United States and the Soviet Union and their respective allies, the Western Bloc and the Eastern Bloc. The term '' cold war'' is used because the ...
, the United States placed greater emphasis than other nations on human rights as part of its foreign policy, awarded foreign aid to facilitate human rights progress, and annually assessed the human rights records of other national governments.
Support
The U.S. Department of State publishes a yearly report "Supporting Human Rights and Democracy: The U.S. Record" in compliance with a 2002 law that requires the department to report on actions taken by the U.S. Government to encourage respect for human rights. It also publishes yearly "Country Reports on Human Rights Practices." In 2006 the United States created a "Human Rights Defenders Fund" and "Freedom Awards." The "Ambassadorial Roundtable Series", created in 2006, are informal discussions between newly confirmed U.S. Ambassadors and human rights and democracy non-governmental organizations. The United States also support democracy and human rights through several other tools.
The "Human Rights and Democracy Achievement Award" recognizes the exceptional achievement of officers of foreign affairs agencies posted abroad.
*In 2006 the award went to Joshua Morris of the embassy in Mauritania who recognized necessary democracy and human rights improvements in Mauritania and made democracy promotion one of his primary responsibilities. He persuaded the Government of Mauritania to re-open voter registration lists to an additional 85,000 citizens, which includes a significant number of Afro-Mauritanian minority individuals. He also organized and managed the largest youth-focused democracy project in Mauritania in 5 years.
*Nathaniel Jensen of the embassy in Vietnam was runner-up. He successfully advanced the human rights agenda on several fronts, including organizing the resumption of a bilateral Human Rights Dialogue, pushing for the release of Vietnam's prisoners of concern, and dedicating himself to improving religion freedom in northern Vietnam.
Under legislation by congress, the United States declared that countries utilizing child soldiers may no longer be eligible for US military assistance, in an attempt to end this practice.
Treaties ratified
:''See also International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights#United States, International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights - United States''
The U.S. has signed and ratified the following human rights treaties:
*
International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights
The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) is a multilateral treaty that commits nations to respect the civil and political rights of individuals, including the right to life, freedom of religion, freedom of speech, freedo ...
(ICCPR) (ratified with 5 reservation (law), reservations, 5 understandings, and 4 declarations.)
* Optional protocol on the involvement of children in armed conflict
* International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination
* United Nations Convention Against Torture, Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment
* Protocol relating to the Status of Refugees
* Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the Sale of Children, Child Prostitution and Child Pornography
Non-binding documents voted for:
*
Universal Declaration of Human Rights
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) is an international document adopted by the United Nations General Assembly that enshrines the Human rights, rights and freedoms of all human beings. Drafted by a UN Drafting of the Universal De ...
International Bill of Rights
:''See also International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights#United States, International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights - United States''
The
International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights
The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) is a multilateral treaty that commits nations to respect the civil and political rights of individuals, including the right to life, freedom of religion, freedom of speech, freedo ...
(ICCPR) and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) are the legal treaties that enshrine the rights outlined in the
Universal Declaration of Human Rights
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) is an international document adopted by the United Nations General Assembly that enshrines the Human rights, rights and freedoms of all human beings. Drafted by a UN Drafting of the Universal De ...
. Together, and along with the First Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, first and First Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, second optional protocols of the ICCPR they constitute the International bill of rights The US has not ratified the ICESCR or either of the optional protocols of the ICCPR.
The US's ratification of the ICCPR was done with five Reservation (law), reservations – or limits – on the treaty, 5 understandings and 4 declarations. Among these is the rejection of sections of the treaty that prohibit capital punishment. Included in the Senate's ratification was the declaration that "the provisions of Article 1 through 27 of the Covenant are not self-executing", and in a Senate Executive Report stated that the declaration was meant to "clarify that the Covenant will not create a private cause of action in U.S. Courts." This way of ratifying the treaty was criticized as incompatible with the Supremacy Clause by Louis Henkin.
As a reservation that is "incompatible with the object and purpose" of a treaty is void as a matter of international law, Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties, art. 19, 1155 U.N.T.S. 331 (entered into force January 27, 1980) (specifying conditions under which signatory States can offer "reservations"), there is some issue as to whether the non-self-execution declaration is even legal under domestic law. At any rate, the United States is but a signatory in name only.
International Criminal Court
The U.S. has not ratified the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC), which was drafted for prosecuting individuals above the authority of national courts in the event of accusations of genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes, and crime of aggression. Nations that have accepted the Rome Statute can defer to the jurisdiction of the ICC or must surrender their jurisdiction when ordered.
The US rejected the Rome Statute after its attempts to include the nation of origin as a party in international proceedings failed, and after certain requests were not met, including recognition of gender issues, "rigorous" qualifications for judges, viable definitions of crimes, protection of national security information that might be sought by the court, and jurisdiction of the UN Security Council to halt court proceedings in special cases. Since the passage of the statute, the US has actively encouraged nations around the world to sign "bilateral immunity agreements" prohibiting the surrender of US personnel before the ICC and actively attempted to undermine the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. The US Congress also passed a law, American Service-Members' Protection Act (ASPA) authorizing the use of military force to free any US personnel that are brought before the court rather than its own court system. Human Rights Watch criticized the United States for removing itself from the Statute.
Judge Richard Goldstone, the first chief prosecutor at ICTY, The Hague war crimes tribunal on the former Yugoslavia, echoed these sentiments saying:
I think it is a very backwards step. It is unprecedented which I think to an extent smacks of pettiness in the sense that it is not going to affect in any way the establishment of the international criminal court ... The US have really isolated themselves and are putting themselves into bed with the likes of China, the Yemen and other undemocratic countries.
While the US has maintained that it will "bring to justice those who commit genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes," even though the U.S.A. has supported many genocides, for example the Indonesian genocide in the 1960s; its primary objections to the Rome Statute have revolved around the issues of jurisdiction and process. A US ambassador for War Crimes Issues to the UN Security Council said to the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee that because the Rome Statute requires only one nation to submit to the ICC, and that this nation can be the country in which an alleged crime was committed rather than defendant's country of origin, U.S. military personnel and US foreign peaceworkers in more than 100 countries could be tried in international court without the consent of the US. The ambassador states that "most atrocities are committed internally and most internal conflicts are between warring parties of the same nationality, the worst offenders of international humanitarian law can choose never to join the treaty and be fully insulated from its reach absent a Security Council referral. Yet multinational peacekeeping forces operating in a country that has joined the treaty can be exposed to the court's jurisdiction even if the country of the individual peacekeeper has not joined the treaty."
Other treaties not signed or signed but not ratified
Where the signature is subject to ratification, acceptance or approval, the signature does not establish the consent to be bound. However, it is a means of authentication and expresses the willingness of the signatory state to continue the treaty-making process. The signature qualifies the signatory state to proceed to ratification, acceptance or approval. It also creates an obligation to refrain, in good faith, from acts that would defeat the object and the purpose of the treaty.
The U.S. has not ratified the following international human rights treaties:
* First Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR)
* Second Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, aiming at the abolition of the death penalty
* Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, Optional Protocol to CEDAW
* Optional Protocol to the Convention against Torture
* Convention relating to the Status of Refugees (1951)
* Convention Relating to the Status of Stateless Persons (1954)
* 1961 Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness, Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness (1961)
* United Nations Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families, International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of their Families
The US has signed but not ratified the following treaties:
* Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW)
*
Convention on the Rights of the Child
The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (commonly abbreviated as the CRC or UNCRC) is an international human rights treaty which sets out the civil, political, economic, social, health and cultural rights of children. The Con ...
(CRC)
*International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights
*Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities
Non-binding documents voted against:
* Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples in September 2007.
Inter-American human rights system
The US is a signatory to the 1948 American Declaration of the Rights and Duties of Man and has signed but not ratified the 1969 American Convention on Human Rights. It is a member of Inter-American Convention on the Granting of Political Rights to Women (1948). It does not accept the adjudicatory jurisdiction of the Costa Rica-based Inter-American Court of Human Rights.
The US has not ratified any of the other regional human rights treaties of the Organization of American States, which include:
* Protocol to the American Convention on Human Rights to Abolish the Death Penalty (1990)
* Additional Protocol to the American Convention on Human Rights in the Area of Economic, Social and Cultural Rights
* Inter-American Convention to Prevent and Punish Torture (1985)
* Inter-American Convention on the Prevention, Punishment and Eradication of Violence Against Women (1994)
* Inter-American Convention on Forced Disappearance of Persons (1994)
* Inter-American Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Persons with Disabilities
Coverage of violations in the media
Studies have found that ''The New York Times'' coverage of worldwide human rights violations is seriously biased, predominantly focusing on the human rights violations in nations where there is clear U.S. involvement, while having relatively little coverage of the human rights violations in other nations.
Amnesty International
Amnesty International (also referred to as Amnesty or AI) is an international non-governmental organization focused on human rights, with its headquarters in the United Kingdom. The organization says it has more than ten million members and sup ...
's Secretary General Irene Khan explains, "If we focus on the U.S. it's because we believe that the U.S. is a country whose enormous influence and power has to be used constructively ... When countries like the U.S. are seen to undermine or ignore human rights, it sends a very powerful message to others."
Further assessments
The Polity data series generated by the Political Instability Task Force, a Federal government of the United States, U.S. government research project funded by the CIA, rating regime and authority characteristics, covering the years 1800–2018, has given the US 10 points out of 10 for the years 1871–1966 and 1974–2015. The US score declined to 8 in 2016, 2017, and 2018.
According to the ''Economist Magazines Democracy Index (2016), the US ranks 21 out of 167 nations. In 2016 and 2017, the United States is classified as a "Flawed Democracy" by Democracy Index and received a score of 8.24 out of 10.00 with respect to civil liberties. This is the first time the United States has been downgraded from a "Full Democracy" to a "Flawed Democracy" since The Economist began publishing the Democracy Index report.
According to the annual Reporters Without Borders#World Press Freedom Index, Worldwide Press Freedom Index published by Reporters Without Borders, due to journalist harassment and public distrust in mainstream media, the U.S ranked 44 out of 197 countries for press freedom.
According to the annual Corruption Perceptions Index, which was published by Transparency International, the United States ranked 25th out of 180 countries with of 67/100 for political transparency.
According to the annual Privacy International index of 2007, the United States was ranked an "endemic surveillance society", scoring only 1.5 out of 5 privacy points.
According to the annual Democracy Matrix, which is published by the University of Würzburg, the US was a "working democracy" in 2019, which is the highest category in that index, although it is the third-lowest ranking country in that category (36th overall).
According to the Gallup International Association, Gallup International Millennium Survey, the United States ranked 23rd in citizens' perception of human rights observance when its citizens were asked, "In general, do you think that human rights are being fully respected, partially respected or are they not being respected at all in your country?"
Other issues
In the aftermath of the devastation caused by Hurricane Katrina, criticism by some groups commenting on human rights issues was made regarding the recovery and reconstruction issues The
American Civil Liberties Union
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is a nonprofit organization founded in 1920 "to defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties guaranteed to every person in this country by the Constitution and laws of the United States". T ...
and the National Prison Project documented mistreatment of the prison population during the flooding, while United Nations Special Rapporteur Doudou Diène delivered a 2008 report on such issues. The United States was elected in 2009 to sit on the
United Nations Human Rights Council
The United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC), CDH is a United Nations body whose mission is to promote and protect human rights around the world. The Council has 47 members elected for staggered three-year terms on a regional group basis. ...
(UNHRC), which the U.S. State Department had previously asserted had lost its credibility by its prior stances and lack of safeguards against severe human rights violators taking a seat. In 2006 and 2007, the UNHCR and Martin Scheinin were critical of the United States regard permitting executions by lethal injection, housing children in adult jails, subjecting prisoners to prolonged isolation in supermax, supermax prisons, using enhanced interrogation techniques and domestic poverty gaps.
On 28 October 2020,
Amnesty International
Amnesty International (also referred to as Amnesty or AI) is an international non-governmental organization focused on human rights, with its headquarters in the United Kingdom. The organization says it has more than ten million members and sup ...
raised concerns over the condition of human rights in the
United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...
, and decided to monitor and expose the human rights violations related to protests during and after the 3 November United States elections.
On 9 November 2020, during the 3.5 -hour session at the UN's main human rights body, the United States came under scrutiny for the first time in five years, regarding the detention of migrant children and the killings of unarmed Black people during Donald Trump’s tenure. The US critics, including Iran, Syria, Venezuela, Russia and China, raised concerns on the United States human rights records that followed up on an August report about past rights records of the US.
See also
Criticism of the US human rights record
*Human Rights Record of the United States, report prepared by the People's Republic of China
*United States and State terrorism
US Human rights abuses
*Unethical human experimentation in the United States
*Human rights violations by the CIA
Organizations involved in US human rights
*
Pennsylvania Abolition Society
The Society for the Relief of Free Negroes Unlawfully Held in Bondage was the first American abolition society. It was founded April 14, 1775, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and held four meetings. Seventeen of the 24 men who attended initia ...
*National Organization for Women
*US Human Rights Network
People involved in US human rights
*
Susan B. Anthony
Susan B. Anthony (born Susan Anthony; February 15, 1820 – March 13, 1906) was an American social reformer and women's rights activist who played a pivotal role in the women's suffrage movement. Born into a Quaker family committed to s ...
*
Anthony Benezet
Anthony Benezet, born Antoine Bénézet (January 31, 1713May 3, 1784), was a French-American abolitionist and educator who was active in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. One of the early American abolitionists, Benezet founded one of the world's fir ...
*Mary Bonauto
*Louis Henkin
*Gay McDougall
*Gloria Steinem
Notable comments on US human rights
*Four Freedoms, a 1941 speech made by U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt
*Second Bill of Rights, a list of rights proposed by Roosevelt during his State of the Union Address on January 11, 1944.
Human Rights Watch
Human Rights Watch (HRW) is an international non-governmental organization, headquartered in New York City, that conducts research and advocacy on human rights. The group pressures governments, policy makers, companies, and individual human r ...