Bill Schulz on Domestic Human Rights

Why should the United States apply international human rights standards at home?

There are three reasons the United States should apply international human rights standards to our domestic practices. First, because they're the law. Every time the Senate ratifies an international treaty under the Supremacy Clause of the U.S. Constitution, it becomes the law of the land. Second, because it does the Untied States good internationally. It improves our reputation if we are seen as abiding by the same human rights standards that we ask the rest of the world to abide by. And third, of course, it does justice here in the United States ,and it cuts down on the number of people who suffer from various forms of injustice from violation of their rights here in this country, as well.

Why hasn't the United States focused on human rights at home?

When the Puritans first came to this continent, they came because they were separatists, to establish a more pure utopia, a new Jerusalem. And the United States ever since then has seen itself as an exceptional nation, as a nation that was a model for others, that made the rules, but didn't necessarily have to follow them. In subsequent centuries, people have suggested that abiding by international law may cut down on the U.S.' sovereignty, or that respect for social and economic rights will lead to socialism. All that is not true. In fact, there are great benefits to respecting international human rights treaties here in our practices at home. But those are some of the reasons that Americans have resisted abiding by those standards.

How can the United States apply international human rights standards to its domestic policies?

Those standards can be applied at every different level of government. Consider, for example, if the United States federal government had regarded the repair of New Orleans, regarded the needs of the citizens of New Orleans following Katrina, to be not just a matter of charity or social policy, but a matter of the human right to housing or to health care. How would that have changed the federal government's response? Significantly, I think. Or, consider the fact that the United States is the only country in the world that continues to sentence juvenile offenders to life without parole. If we paid attention to international human rights standards at the state level, that too would change. Or, consider at the local level, the experience of San Francisco, the city council of which voted some years ago to apply the standards of the Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women to all the city's policies and practices. And when they did that, they discovered that some poor women, some women from minority groups, were being handicapped because they were not able to pursue their employment as a result of the lack of child care and the child care burdens under which they, rather than wealthier people, suffered. San Francisco made some changes in their employment practices, and that, too, addressed international human rights standards.