U.S. Death Penalty Criticized by U.N. Human Rights Council During Human Rights Review

The United States faced harsh crit­i­cism from the world com­mu­ni­ty for its con­tin­ued use of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment dur­ing a United Nations review of its human rights record on November 9, 2020. During the U.N. Human Rights Council Universal Periodic Review of the United States’ human rights record on November 9, 2020, coun­tries around the world crit­i­cized the U.S. for sys­temic racism, police vio­lence against civil­ians, sep­a­ra­tion of immi­grant fam­i­lies and intern­ment of immi­grant chil­dren, and use of the death penalty.

The U.N. Human Rights Council reviews its mem­ber nations’ human rights prac­tices every five years. The last review of the U.S. human rights record was in 2015, pri­or to the Trump administration’s praise of auto­crat­ic regimes around the world, insti­tu­tion of harsh poli­cies against refugees and asy­lum seek­ers, trav­el bans direct­ed at Muslim nations, use of force against peace­ful demon­stra­tors, and an unprece­dent­ed fed­er­al exe­cu­tion spree. The U.S. with­drew from its mem­ber­ship on the human rights coun­cil in 2018.

In a state­ment issued in response to the review, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said ​“The United States has been, and always will be, a leader in trans­par­ent, rights-respect­ing gov­er­nance. … We don’t sim­ply dis­cuss human rights in the United States; we cher­ish and defend them,” he said.

Several major United States allies urged the U.S. to halt exe­cu­tions or abol­ish the death penal­ty entire­ly. France called for the U.S. to halt fed­er­al exe­cu­tions, and Germany called for the U.S. to resume a fed­er­al mora­to­ri­um on the death penal­ty, estab­lish state mora­to­ria, and take steps towards abol­ish­ing cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment nation­al­ly. Austria rec­om­mend­ed that the U.S. “[c]ontinue efforts towards abol­ish­ing death penal­ty and halt­ing exe­cu­tions.” Australia, the Netherlands, and Switzerland called for the U.S. to take steps towards abol­ish­ing the death penalty altogether.

At a press brief­ing, Jamil Dakwar, the direc­tor of the human rights pro­gram at the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), described the review as an ​“unsur­pris­ing con­dem­na­tion” of the United States’ human rights record. ​“We’ve heard coun­try after coun­try … call­ing and urg­ing the United States to take seri­ous mea­sures to address struc­tur­al racism and police vio­lence,” he said.

Dakwar urged President-elect Joe Biden to ​“pri­or­i­tize re-engage­ment with inter­na­tion­al human rights.” ​“While the American vot­ers elect­ed a new pres­i­dent who is more com­mit­ted to uni­ver­sal human rights, the inter­na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty must con­tin­ue to hold the U.S. account­able to its inter­na­tion­al human rights oblig­a­tions,” Dakwar said. He called on the U.N. to ​“ensure that the U.S. repair the dam­ages caused to mil­lions of people’s lives over the past four years.”