“We Have to Fix That”: The ICCPR, U.S. voting rights & lessons learned from Venezuela's process

(Part 1 of a 4-part series comparing voting in the United States and Venezuela, in light of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. Part 2 is here; Part 3 is here; Part 4 is here.)

'I want to thank every American who participated in this election, whether you voted for the very first time or waited in line for a very long time. By the way, we have to fix that.'

- President Barack Obama, Chicago, Illinois, United States, November 6, 2012

President Obama’s remarks came on the heels of an election he won, despite persistent problems with:
►Restrictions on early voting, voter registration drives, and voter ID legislation, and
►In some cases, third-party voter intimidation in the United States.
What seemed to be an ad-lib in Obama’s victory speech resonated deeply with my observations in the field on Election Day in the United States. And as a captain with the volunteer nonpartisan National Election Protection Coalition Field Program, I heard reports of third-party voter intimidation in southern and central California, and of other forms of voter suppression in Ohio and Arizona.
The statement that "we have to fix that" placed in some contrast my observations this fall in the field in Venezuela – another country that, like the United States, bears the burden of a racially discriminatory past and historical problems with access to a free and fair vote.
On October 7, along with 7 other members of the National Lawyers Guild International Committee delegation and over 200 international parliamentarians, election officials, academics, journalists, and judges, I had the opportunity to observe Venezuela's 2012 Presidential Elections. I was able to get a glimpse as to how Venezuela's democratic process functions on a procedural, technical level. And I saw the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights in action. In the 4-part series that I begin with this post, I will set forth my own observations and comparisons of the 2012 elections processes in Venezuela and the United States – observations informed by the guarantees of the international civil rights covenant.

Photo Credit: NLG International Committee Delegation 

from the U.S., CNE Accompañamiento Internacional 

de las Elecciones Venezolanas del 7 de octubre, 2012

Article 25 of the ICCPR requires that every citizen shall have the right and opportunity without unreasonable restrictions to take part in the conduct of public affairs, directly or through freely chosen representatives; “to vote and to be elected at genuine periodic elections…by universal and equal suffrage and…by secret ballot, guaranteeing the free expression of the will of the electors;” and “to have access, on general terms of equality, to public service.”
After reviewing the Carter Center’s pre-electoral report examining Venezuela’s electoral process and procedural guarantees, former President Jimmy Carter stated:

On May 12

On this day in ...
... 2002 (10 years ago today), arriving in Havana, Jimmy Carter became the 1st U.S. President, incumbent or, as in his case, former, to visit Cuba since Fidel Castro seized power in 1959. The former President's own report of this trip appears here, at the website of the Atlanta-based Carter Center. A key point of the several-day trip was Carter's speech broadcast in Cuba, in which he said,

'[M]y hope is that the Congress will soon act to permit unrestricted travel between the United States and Cuba, establish open trading relationships, and repeal the embargo.'

Some relaxation of tensions has occurred since then, but the embargo remains in place to this day -- fact that generated papal criticism just a few weeks ago.

(Prior May 12 posts are here, here, here, here, and here.)

On September 18

On this day in ...
... 1978, was reported a "breakthrough" in Middle East peace negotiations between the leaders of Israel and Egypt, Menachem Begin (right) and Anwar al-Sadat (left). Meeting at Camp David, Maryland, with U.S. President Jimmy Carter (center), Begin and Sadat agreed: 1st, that Palestinians and others resident in the West Bank and Gaza have a right to self-determination respecting those territories; and 2d, that Egypt would recognize the state of Israel "in return for Israeli military withdrawal from Sinai." (photo credit) Despite the optimism evident in the 1978 BBC report quoted above, as this recent article and IntLawGrrl guest/alumna Yaël Ronen's post demonstrate, the need for full settlement of the Israel-Palestine dispute continues to this day.

(Prior September 18 posts are here, here, here, and here.)

On December 31

On this day in ...
... 1980 (30 years ago today), Radio Tehran threatened that 52 American hostages could face execution. As posted (and see here), the hostages had been seized during the takeover of the U.S. embassy on November 4, 1979. (credit for 2004 photo of defaced U.S. seal at the former embassy building) Earlier that same year, revolutionaries had ousted Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, who'd been the Shah of Iran since 1941. On this same day 3 years earlier, in 1977, President Jimmy Carter had given a New Year's toast in Tehran, "reiterating American support" for the shah, "and calling him 'an island of stability' in the troubled region." The hostages would be released the following month, minutes after Ronald Reagan was sworn in as Carter's successor.

(Prior December 31 posts are here, here, and here.)

Go On! Hearings on the Ratification of CEDAW

This Thursday, Nov. 18, in the Dirksen Senate Office Building, Room 226, the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Human Rights & the Law will hold hearings on U.S. ratification of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW). The Committee is chaired by Senator Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill, right).


By way of background, the United Nations adopted CEDAW in 1979, and the U.S. played an important role in the drafting of the treaty. President Jimmy Carter signed the treaty on July 17, 1980, and transmitted it to the Senate for consideration in November 1980.
The Senate Foreign Relations Committee has twice voted favorably on CEDAW with bipartisan support: in 1994 (with a vote of 13-5) and in 2002 (with a vote of 12-7). Nonetheless, the treaty has never been brought to the Senate floor for a vote.

Thursday's event is the first hearing on CEDAW since 2002 and the first such hearing in this particular Committee.
Information about the campaign to encourage the U.S. to ratify CEDAW is available here. The ratification record is available here.

On October 4

On this day in ...
... 1952, Anita deFrantz (right) was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. She earned her J.D. from Penn Law in 1977. While in law school, deFrantz was a member of the U.S. Women's Rowing Team, serving as captain at the 1976 Olympics in Montreal, Canada, where her team won the bronze medal. Her competitive career ended in 1980, when U.S. President Jimmy Carter withdrew the U.S. team from the Olympic Games in Moscow to protest the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. Along with other athletes, lawyer DeFrantz sued the U.S. Olympic Committee on the ground that no organization could block an athlete's right to compete. The effort was unsuccessful, and seen as unpatriotic by some at home. But 6 years later she was named a lifetime member of the International Olympic Committee -- the 1st woman and the 1st African American person to be appointed to that body. DeFrantz was the IOC's Vice President -- the 1st woman to hold the position -- from 1997 to 2001.

(Prior October 4 posts are here, here, and here.)

On February 20

On this day in ...
... 1980 (30 years ago today), The New York Times reported that "the White House reaffirmed today what officials termed a 'final and irrevocable' decision for the United States to boycott the Olympic Games in Moscow" (logo at right) slated for the summer of the same year.
The move -- spurred by President Jimmy Carter's opposition to the presence of Soviet troops in Afghanistan -- is worth recalling even as, now, we watch the ongoing Winter Olympics in Vancouver, Canada (logo at left).

(Prior February 20 posts are here, here, and here)

On January 1

On this day in ...
... 1979, following years of negotiations (prior post), the United States and the People's Republic of China entered into full diplomatic relations. U.S. President Jimmy Carter and Chinese Prime Minister Hua Kuo-feng, as well as their foreign ministers and other leaders and diplomats, marked the milestone with toasts.

(Prior January 1 posts are here and here.)

On September 26

On this day in ...
... 1980, Cuba ordered vessels in Mariel Harbor to leave without refugees, thus putting an official end to a "boatlift" by which 125,000 persons had come to the United States. President Jimmy Carter learned of Cuba's unilateral decision to stop the 8-month boatlift (left) "only after the Coast Guard received word from boat captains returning from Cuba" to the United States. (photo credit) Carter initially had welcomed the refugees, according to The New York Times, but later backed away from what a State Department official called an "'illegal, disorderly and dangerous flood of Cuban refugees.'" A crewmember on a turned-back boat told a UPI reporter:

'Everybody in the harbor was crying.'

(Prior September 26 posts are here and here.)

On March 26

On this day in ...
... 1979 (30 years ago today), in a televised White House ceremony hosted by U.S. President Jimmy Carter, Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin and Egyptian President Anwar al-Sadat shook hands to mark the signing of a peace treaty that had evolved out of the Camp David peace accords. The treaty was intended to bring to an end more than 3 decades of hostilities between the 2 countries. (photo credit)
... 1995, the Convention Implementing the Schengen Agreement (sometimes called the Schengen acquis) "took practical effect" nearly a year and a half after it entered into force. The delay was caused be the time it took to put in place "the necessary technical and legal prerequisites such as data banks and the relevant data protection authorities." As described on this official German site, the Convention's

key points relate to measures designed to create, following the abolition
of common border checks, a common area of security and justice. Specifically it is concerned with
► harmonizing provisions relating to entry into and short stays in the Schengen area by non-EU citizens (uniform Schengen visa),
► asylum matters (determining in which Member State an application for asylum may be submitted),
► measures to combat cross-border drugs-related crime,
► police cooperation, and
► cooperation among Schengen states on judicial matters.

Countries that have fully implented Schengen include Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, and Switzerland.

(Prior March 26 posts are here and here.)

On October 18

On this day in ...
... 1908 (100 years ago today), a treaty was concluded by which Belgium annexed the Congo Free State. Within a month the Belgian Parliament passed a law authorizing colonial administration. The ensuing century roiled the central African state, which still struggles to govern itself. Excellent accounts of the era depicted in the 1910 postage stamp at right may be found in fiction -- for example, Barbara Kingsolver's Poisonwood Bible (1998) -- and nonfiction -- Adam Hochschild's King Leopold's Ghost (1998) -- alike.
... 1978 (30 years ago today), President Jimmy Carter ordered U.S. production of some parts of the neutron bomb, "reserving judgement on assembly or deployment." A news video of the White House announcement is available here.

On September 5

On this day in ...
... 1793 (215 years ago today), Maximilien Robespierre (right) launched the period of the French Revolution known as the Reign of Terror when he "declare[d] Terror 'the order of the day.'" The declaration touched off nearly 2 years in which political enemies -- an estimated 18,500-40,000 persons -- were killed. Robespierre himself would perish beneath the guillotine days after the end of La Terreur. (image credit)
... 1978 (30 years ago today), Egyptian President Anwar Sadat, Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin, and U.S. President Jimmy Carter began what would be nearly 2 weeks of negotiations on framework for Middle East peace at the U.S. President's Maryland retreat, Camp David. The Camp David Accords were released at the conclusion of the meeting, on September 17. A collection of historial materials related to the negotiations may be found here. (credit for photo of Begin playing chess with U.S. National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski during Camp David negotiations)

On July 15

On this day in ...

... 1955, at a conference in Germany, 18 Nobel laureates signed the Mainau Declaration condemning the military use of nuclear weapons. Eventually more than 50 Nobelists would sign.

... 1979, U.S. President Jimmy Carter declared that America was suffering from a "crisis of confidence," particularly with regard to the then-current energy troubles. His recommendation that the country begin conserving were met with derision then. But it's enjoyed a revival in some circles during the energy crisis of today. See the full speech below.

On July 3

On this day in ...
... 1844, on a small island near Iceland, for reasons that are unclear, 3 fishermen strangled to death the last pair of Great Auks and smashed the egg the couple was incubating. Although a single adult was sighted in Newfoundland a few years afterward, by the end of the mid-18th C. the once-prevalent Great Auk (left), a flightless, 30-some-inch-tall, 11-pound bird that resembled a penguin, was extinct.
... 1979, U.S. President Jimmy "Carter signed the first directive for secret aid to the opponents of the pro-Soviet regime in Kabul," Afghanistan (map below), as described in an interview by Carter's National Security Adviser, Zbigniew Brzezinski. The Soviet Union would send its troops to invade the country in December of the same year.

On May 24

On this day in ...
... 1980, the International Court of Justice rendered its decision in United States Diplomatic and Consular Staff in Tehran (United States of America v. Iran). The court ruled that Iran was responsible for breaches of obligations to the United States -- related to the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations -- arising out of the November 4, 1979, takeover of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran. The court ordered immediate release of the hostages then taken and payment by Iran of reparations to the United States. But the hostages would not be released until January 20, 1981, minutes after the U.S. Presidency was transferred from Jimmy Carter to Ronald Reagan. The Iran-U.S. Claims Tribunal, still in operation at The Hague, then was established to resolve disputes between the 2 countries.
... 1830, the nursery rhyme "Mary Had a Little Lamb" was published. Its author was New Hampshire resident Sarah Josepha Hale, 42, a lifelong women's rights activist whose novel Northwood (1827) had caused a stir because of its treatment of slavery. In "Mary" Hale turned into verse the true story of one Mary Sawyer, who used to take her lamb to her hometown school in Sterling, Massachusetts. Among the many versions of the song is this one by former Beatle Paul McCartney. (image credit)

On April 18

On this day in ...

... 1978 (30 years ago today), the U.S. Senate gave its advise and consent to a treaty transferring control of the Panama Canal to Panama. The decision to approve the pace sometimes known as the Carter-Torrijos Treaty, was a victory for President Jimmy Carter, albeit "by the narrowest of margins," the BBC reported. The margin of "68 votes to 32" was "just one vote more than the two-thirds majority required."

... 1945, Margaret Fitzsimmons was born in Dublin, Ireland. She grew up in London, England, and eventually married an Iraqi man, Tahseen Ali Hassan, with whom she moved to Iraq in the 1970s. Margaret Hassan (right) was a triple citizen, of Ireland, Iraq, and Britain. The head of CARE International's humanitarian aid effort in Iraq for a decade at the time of the 2003 invasion, in 2004 Hassan, 59, was kidnapped in Baghdad and eventually killed by her abductors. (photo credit)

On January 20, ...

... 1981, minutes after the inauguration of Ronald Reagan to succeed Jimmy Carter as U.S. President, Iran released 52 hostages held since the takeover of the U.S. embassy in Tehran 444 days earlier. The New York Times reported that Carter "look[ed] haggard and worn after spending two largely sleepless nights trying to resolve the hostage crisis as the final chapter of his Presidency." The ex-President planned "to fly to West Germany early tomorrow to greet the hostages personally at the invitation of" Reagan, "the man who defeated him for re-election."
... 1956, Maria Larsson (right) was born in Långasjö, Småland, Sweden. A onetime schoolteacher, Larsson eventually became active in Christian Democratic party politics in her country. She's served as Sweden's Minister for Elderly Care and Public Health, in the Ministry of Health and Social Affairs, since 2006.
... 1951, U.S. Rep. Shelley Berkley (D-Nev.) was born in New York.

Humanitarian motives?

Yesterday's NY Times featured CARE's refusal of almost $50 million in federal funding in protest against American food aid policy. One of the world's largest providers of humanitarian relief, CARE's decision stemmed from its disapproval of U.S.-funded aid groups' sale of tons of subsidized American crops in African countries whose farmers are struggling to compete in their own domestic markets. This move has divided the humanitarian community, with some NGOs who receive federal funds arguing that the current system works just fine, thank you. Jimmy Carter warned of the political power of this position, noting that charities "speak from the standpoint of angels" and are thus difficult for politicos to dismiss. As the UN peacekeeper scandals have demonstrated most vividly, we need to be asking harder questions about the motivation and practices of humanitarian groups. A good start can be found in Rights in Exile: Janus-Faced Humanitarianism, a recent book by Guglielmo Verdirame and Barbara Harrell-Bond that investigates international organizations responsible for refugee protection, finding extensive and avoidable violations of the rights of the migrants in their care. While we should of course support the vital work that these groups perform, we should not be blinded to their shortcomings because of their humanitarian nature.
On a related note, a study recently reported in the Economist argues that "[c]harity is just as 'selfish' as self-indulgence." Dr. Geoffrey Miller of the University of New Mexico theorizes that because men look for self-sacrifice in their partner, women demonstrate blatant benevolence as a mating strategy (while men demonstrate their ability to provide through conspicuous consumption). I wasn't entirely convinced by this hypothesis; perhaps it was the gender stereotyping or the obliviousness to sexual orientation (at least as reported). But I'm interested in your thoughts, reader, as to whether the predominance of women in the international human rights field (discussed here) might stem in part from this impulse . . .

On July 19, ...

... 1848, Elizabeth Cady Stanton (pictured at left with 1 of her daughters, Harriot) read aloud a Declaration of Sentiments at a Seneca Falls, N.Y., women's rights convention. The following day delegates unanimously adopted the 1848 Declaration -- the text of which parallels the 1776 American Declaration of Independence, and so includes phrasing such as, "We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men and women are created equal ..."
... 1980, the XXII Olympic Games opened in Moscow with a record-low number of countries participating, as scores of countries joined a boycott called by U.S. President Jimmy Carter to protest the 1979 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.