US Election and Human Rights

Following the September 11, 2001 attacks, the United States government implemented a program of state-sanctioned torture with which it has still not properly reckoned. Debate moderators would do well to ask candidates in the US presidential election where they stand on the use of torture and how they intend to address past abuses.

In 2014, the Senate Intelligence Committee released the summary of a still classified report describing the Central Intelligence Agency’s detention and interrogation program, through which scores of men apprehended in the “global war on terror” were tortured and otherwise mistreated in secret detention sites around the world. But, while the US has prosecuted some individuals – albeit insufficiently – for torturing detainees in US military custody, it has not prosecuted anyone in connection with the CIA torture program, and no redress has been provided to the victims.

Early in the campaign Donald Trump said that if elected, he would “immediately” resume waterboarding and other “much worse” techniques. In March, he acknowledged that waterboarding is illegal and said that he would not order the US military to engage in proscribed acts. He soon added that he would work to change the law.

Hillary Clinton has said that if she becomes president, “the United States will not condone or practice torture anywhere in the world.” She also said that torture does not work, based on “lots of empirical evidence” and statements from intelligence, military, and law enforcement experts.

December 1, 2015 Report

No More Excuses

A Roadmap to Justice for CIA Torture

• Download the full report
• Download the summary and recommendations in Arabic
• Download the summary and recommendations in Chinese

Torture is a serious violation of US and international law, and during armed conflict is a war crime. Moreover, the use of torture is an unreliable means of gathering useful intelligence according to professional interrogators, became a recruiting tool for terrorist organizations, and destroys the lives of those affected by it. The US practice of torture has undercut its efforts to work with other countries and communities to tackle the problem of terrorism.

For the US to genuinely end its dark chapter on torture, it needs to fulfill its obligations under international law to investigate and appropriately prosecute those responsible for torture and provide redress to victims. Trump has said nothing publicly on the issues of prosecutions or redress for past torture and would seemingly oppose both. Clinton has said that she does not support criminally prosecuting those “who were doing what they were told to do,” and does not appear to have addressed the issue of redress for victims.

The failure of successive US administrations to hold those responsible for CIA torture to account increases the danger that a future president will authorize similar illegal interrogation methods in response to an inevitable serious security threat. 

The United States election has been marked by heated debate on unauthorized immigrants and the extent to which they contribute to crime in this country. 

Donald Trump has repeatedly called for the immediate deportation of immigrants with criminal convictions as well as increased immigration enforcement, which he says is necessary to keep out terrorists and dangerous criminals and to keep US citizens safe.

Hillary Clinton has actively sought to distinguish her stance on immigration from Trump’s, promising “humane” enforcement, but at the same time she has also promised to focus on “deporting those individuals who pose a violent threat to public safety.” 

Rhetoric that conflates immigration with crime is both false and dangerous. Numerous studies have debunked the myth that increased immigration leads to increased crime. Many local law enforcement agencies encourage community members –regardless of immigration status –to report crime, believing it is the best way to protect everyone’s safety. Around the world, we’ve seen how such rhetoric from elected officials and politicians have coincided with increased acts of xenophobic violence. 

The US immigration system already imposes extremely harsh and unforgiving consequences for immigrants – even green card holders – who have criminal convictions. Immigrants are subject to mandatory detention and deportation for a wide range of crimes, including low-level drug offenses that are increasingly seen by law enforcement officials and policymakers as deserving less punishment, not more. Detention and deportation harms not only the immigrants, but also devastates their US families. 

Crime prevention is an important issue deserving of serious debate. The next president of the US can help create effective policies by staying focused on reforming the criminal justice system, rather than scapegoating immigrants.

How to respond to the challenge of asylum seekers and refugees fleeing from Syria and Central America has been a heated topic in the United States election.

Hillary Clinton has said that if they reach the US, “all people fleeing persecution have a full and fair opportunity to tell their story.” She has also called for increased admission of Syrian refugees, with rigorous vetting.

Donald Trump has repeatedly urged banning all Syrian refugees on security grounds, saying, “We cannot let them into this country, period.” Beyond calling for bans on Syrian refugees and immigrants coming from countries plagued by “radical Islamic terrorism,” Trump’s immigration policy document calls for “increase[d] standards for the admission of refugees and asylum seekers to crack down on abuses.”

Whether they come from Syria or Congo, Central America or China, people fleeing persecution should get a fair hearing. Governments should not prevent asylum seekers from reaching safe places where their claims can be fairly examined.

Unfortunately, our research has shown that the US has failed to take adequate steps to identify people seeking protection at the US-Mexico border and has pressured Mexico to prevent Central Americans from reaching the US. Neither candidate has indicated a clear commitment to abandon this approach. The US has also detained migrants, including women and children seeking asylum, to deter them, violating its obligations under international law.

In addition to identifying people needing protection who reach US borders, the US and all governments should do their fair share to accept people living in camps or other places of first asylum who have been identified as refugees in need of resettlement.

Security screening is built into the refugee system, and those who have violated the human rights of others or committed serious crimes are excluded from refugee protection. Existing US law and policy on asylum and refugees includes this, and many other rigorous vetting standards. These standards have functioned well for more than six decades; of the nearly 800,000 refugees resettled in the US since September 11, 2001, just three have been arrested for planning terrorist activities.

Setting the right policy toward refugees is not just a US challenge, it’s an international responsibility. The next president of the US – indeed all the world’s governments – could move toward a much better response to refugees by following these and a few other basic principles on refugee protection. 

The water crisis in Flint, Michigan, is on the radar of both presidential candidates, but it’s not clear that either understands the scale of the issue nationally or has a plan to address it. 

“It used to be cars were made in Flint, and you couldn’t drink the water in Mexico,” Donald Trump told an audience in Flint, Michigan two weeks ago. “Now, the cars are made in Mexico and you can’t drink the water in Flint.” 

“When the children of majority-black Flint, Michigan, have been drinking and bathing in lead-poisoned water for more than a year, making sure all Americans have clean air and water isn’t just a health issue,” Hillary Clinton said in February. “It’s a civil rights issue.” 

But the crisis in Flint, in which thousands of children were exposed to toxic lead while officials denied there was a problem, is the tip of the iceberg and a cautionary tale for the next president. The tainted water in Flint – and the government’s failure to provide timely information to the public – is a human rights disaster that requires resolute action by Congress – not the partisan bickering delaying it. 

But, the next United States president will have to face the aging water and wastewater systems that plague municipalities around the country. In 2013, the US Conference of Mayors raised the alarm about the high cost of necessary investments in aging water infrastructure and services and that financing these investments would disproportionately affect elderly, poor, and middle class households through rate hikes and taxes. The conference of mayors called for “a fresh look at local affordability and national water policy.”

The US hasn’t recognized a human right to water. But it’s clear that people’s rights are at stake. The candidates need to offer nationwide approaches to ensuring safe drinking water that don’t burden poor families or put the health of the most vulnerable people – a community’s children – at risk.

Despite much discussion about crime during the US presidential election campaign, neither major party candidate has fully spelled out their views on a defining feature of US criminal justice policy: the so-called “war on drugs.”

For decades, the US has poured billions of dollars a year into combatting drugs, through heavy-handed enforcement within the country and abroad of criminal laws on drug possession, production, and distribution. But in recent years, countries like Mexico and Colombia have questioned the effectiveness of this approach. Several US states have legalized marijuana, and the administration of President Barack Obama has increasingly stressed treatment for problematic drug use rather than punishment.

Donald Trump recently said: “we will appoint the best… federal law enforcement officers in the country to dismantle the international cartels… and I will stop the drugs from flowing into our country and poisoning our youth….” In the past, he has spoken of the need for treatment for drug dependence.

Hillary Clinton’s campaign has talked about various criminal justice reforms, including prioritizing treatment over incarceration for low-level, non-violent drug offenders, and “focusing federal enforcement resources on violent crime, not simple marijuana possession.”

Clinton has signaled openness to allowing states to experiment with legalization of marijuana, while Trump has not taken a definitive position.

The reality is that, 45 years since US President Richard Nixon declared the “war on drugs,” little has changed in the rates of global drug production or overall drug use in the US. Rather than helping people with problematic drug use, tough enforcement has often led to human rights abuses – extrajudicial executions in the Philippines, the death penalty for drug offenses in Indonesia, killings and torture in Mexico. In the US, existing policies have contributed to mass arrests, disproportionately of Black people, with devastating consequences for the lives and communities of those arrested. Meanwhile, the criminalization of drugs has generated enormous revenues for organized criminal groups that commit atrocities, corrupt authorities, and undermine democratic institutions in countries from Colombia to Afghanistan.

Many people in the US and across the world are starting to come to terms with this reality and to call for a fresh approach, moving away from the current heavy emphasis on criminalization. The candidates should listen, and the next president should chart a course away from the failed policies of the war on drugs.

The death penalty hasn’t been an issue in this presidential election, in part because the two main candidates support the continued use of capital punishment.

Hillary Clinton backs the death penalty for certain terrorism-related crimes and supports the Justice Department decision to seek the death penalty for Dylann Roof, who is accused of the June 2015 mass shooting at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina. Donald Trump has stated that he would support the death penalty for any person who kills a police officer. 

But while the candidates support capital punishment, the death penalty is very much in play in two key states: California and Nebraska.

California voters are asked to vote on two ballot measures on the death penalty: Proposition 62, which would abolish capital punishment in the state, and Proposition 66, which aims to streamline the appeals process for capital cases, in effect speeding up executions. A 2012 attempt to abolish the death penalty via ballot initiative failed, with 52 percent voting to retain the penalty.

Nebraska voters will vote to retain or reject their legislature’s decision to abolish the death penalty. If they reject the legislature’s decision, Nebraska will be the first US state in 21 years to reinstate the death penalty after abolishing it.

The number of people being executed in the US is falling – 15 so far this year, most of them in Texas and Georgia. That’s the lowest number since 1991. Thirty states still allow for the death penalty, though in 2016 only five have carried out executions.

Human Rights Watch opposes capital punishment in all cases because the inherent dignity of the person cannot be squared with the death penalty, a form of punishment unique in its cruelty and finality. It is a penalty widely rejected by countries around the world. In fact, the vast majority of all executions each year are carried out by just five countries: Saudi Arabia, China, Iran, Pakistan, and the United States.

While abolishing the death penalty has not been up for discussion during the US presidential election, the state-by-state promise of progress on abolition – as well as the threat of retreat – will still be very much in play in November.