Raising Arizona

If the polls are to be believed, a significant majority of Americans support Arizona's harsh new immigration law, signed by Gov. Brewer three weeks ago today. The significant minority of Americans opposed to the law has pushed back fairly powerfully, including through criticism from governors of other border states (California, New Mexico, and Texas) and boycotts by several cities, including most recently, Los Angeles. Perhaps even more striking has been the strong opposition to the law from outside our borders, from Mexican President Felipe Calderon (who stated that the law infringes basic human rights) to the Mexico-based World Boxing Council (which called the law shameful, inhuman, and discriminatory) to Secretary General Jose Miguel Insulza of the Organization of American States (who called the law discriminatory) to the Union of South American Nations (which expressed concern over the law's racist consequences that undermine respect for human rights), much of it leveraging the language of human rights.
The most comprehensive international human rights critique of the law, however, was offered by a group of six independent United Nations experts -- an unusually large team of human rights superheroes -- on Tuesday. Their statement, which also addresses the bill banning ethnic studies courses in Arizona schools that Brewer signed the into law the following day, raises interesting questions about the role of international human rights law in protecting immigrants' rights. Most obviously, if laws that violate human rights are consistent with a country's social norms, as the poll results suggest in the case of Arizona's law, will international pressure help to shift those social norms or will it simply entrench anti-immigrant attitudes and opposition to "foreign meddling" in domestic affairs?
In her own rather confused way, Governor Brewer presents another interesting question about the application of international human rights law in federal systems of government. Her response to the UN experts statement places the responsibility for enforcement of international human rights law squarely on the federal government, arguing that "[i]f the Arizona law violates the international standards, then so does the federal law upon which it is based." Though perhaps not the most compelling argument, it does give rise to questions about whether the federal government should be responsible for challenging state laws that violate international human rights law. While sub-state actors may in some cases be more effective enforcers of international norms, central governments still have an important role to play in keeping rogue sub-state actors in line.
Finally, the statement takes a step towards enforcement of positive rights, a move that highlights the predominance of negative rights in the human rights discourse. At first read, I questioned the existence of binding legal authority to support the claim that "[s]tates are obligated to not only eradicate racial discrimination, but also to promote a social and political environment conducive to respect for ethnic and cultural diversity.” But there it is, clear as day, in the text of Article 7 of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination:

States Parties undertake to adopt immediate and effective measures, particularly in the fields of teaching, education, culture and information, with a view to combating prejudices which lead to racial discrimination and to promoting understanding, tolerance and friendship among nations and racial or ethnical groups. . .

A good reminder that the "spirit" of human rights treaties is sometimes spelled out right there in the text, and that we shouldn't allow the enforcement of negative rights, though unquestionably important, to overshadow legally binding claims to positive rights. (For those interested in further readings on Article 7, here's an excellent short piece by IntLawGrrl Stephanie Farrior.)

Xenophobia Rising?

The economy, of course, is on everyone's minds these days, and when asked how it's likely to affect my field -- immigration -- I think of the obvious: fewer jobs, fewer remittances to send home, and eventually, fewer immigrants, particularly the low-skilled and undocumented. But here's a grimmer possible outcome: increased xenophobia and violence against immigrants. We've seen it before, from Marseilles to Johannesburg -- when unemployment rises, so does anti-immigrant sentiment, which quickly turns to violence against those whom even the police often don't protect. Indeed, we see politicians exploiting racial hatreds in order to get elected, and local officials at best turning a blind eye to abuse of migrants, and at worst, participating in the violence.
This concern may underlie yesterday's press release in which the UN Independent Expert on minority issues, Gay McDougall (right), and the UN Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related forms of intolerance, Githu Muigai (left), expressed "grave concern" over the recent increase in violence against Roma in Europe. The Roma, who migrated to Europe from India in the 11th century, have continually suffered extreme discrimination by state actors, from genocide at the hands of the Nazis to recent reports of coercive sterilization by the Czech government and police brutality in Greece and Romania. In McDougall's words, “Extremists may feel they have license for their attacks when the message they receive from government activities in other spheres is also that the Roma are a problem.”
So what does this all have to do with immigration? While Roma may be citizens of the country in which they reside, their nomadic lifestyle may lead them to cross borders without authorization. Even in states where they are citizens, Roma may face numerous obstacles to obtaining residency documents including exclusion as the "other". This lack of regularized legal status combined with government neglect or hostility is an explosive combination that may lead to severe violence, such as the incident in the Czech Republic that prompted the UN experts' press release, in which far-right extremists attempted to attack a Roma community with stones and petrol bombs. As the world economy faces perilous times, we must be particularly vigilant in ensuring that financial woes aren't translated into increased assaults against migrant communities. As McDougall suggests:

Governments must strongly condemn such actions. Moreover they must be committed to finding ways to create safe environments for all by carefully monitoring and strengthening their own anti-racism activities, through leadership and public education, by swiftly denouncing hate speech and prosecuting the racist and violent actions of others in society.

'Nuff said.

UN: A Post-Racial America? Not Yet.

So. The United States of America is not a “post-racial” (or “post-gender” for that matter) society after all. The racial and gender vitriol and resentment apparent in the current U.S. presidential campaign threatens to overwhelm the early celebratory mood of women (including women of color), people of color, and people hoping for an end to racism and sexism in public office. Let’s hope some optimism remains (about ending “racism” as opposed to “getting past race” as a useful social, political, or cultural construct).

We’ll need optimism, whether or not the post-identity dreams of some pan out. Whatever happens in the U.S. presidential election, either the “new” or “old” politics will have to deal with issues that threaten human survival on a global scale: violent conflicts (including in our own poorest neighborhoods) and the related trade in small arms, disease pandemics, global climate change and “natural” disasters, fair terms of trade and the rights of workers, massive refugee and migrant flows, and extreme poverty. Race and racism play a part in the way such problems play out—on who they impact first or most severely, and the urgency or lack of urgency with which they are resolved.

For those of us who grew up both Black and female in the 60s or 70s, the fact that our country’s final candidates for the nation’s highest office included a talented African-American male Senator and a talented white female Senator should still be inspirational and symbolize progress. It means that at least some entrenched ideas and behaviors are capable of change after years of struggle by many unsung s/heroes. (Photo: Ida B. Wells-Barnett, anti-lynching and African-American women's suffrage campaigner.)

Symbolism is important. It inspires the young and the not-so-young. It grabs media attention that can translate into popular political support on key issues. But our next president (who I hope will be Senator Barack Obama) must move beyond symbolism to address harsh racial and gender realities in this country.

The U.S. is still smarting over recent strong UN critiques of its racial record (see links in "Concluding Observations?": Just the Beginning," “Race-ing Human Rights in the U.S.,” and “UN on Katrina, Race, and Housing.") The administration has, to its credit (I don’t get to say that very often), opened itself to some additional scrutiny. It has invited an independent international expert to review its current practice on race.

From 18 May to 6 June, 2008, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance, Senegalese lawyer Doudou Diene, is visiting the United States.

Diene has been meeting with officials and grassroots groups in Chicago, New York, Omaha, Los Angeles, New Orleans, Washington, DC, Miami, and San Juan to gather information about racial realities in the U.S. Recent reports on racial injustice and poverty in the U.S. by Global Rights, the American Civil Liberties Union, and the US Human Rights Network (a coalition of groups) detail the widespread human rights impact of employment, housing, and educational discrimination, racial disparities in health care, police brutality, racialized imprisonment rates, and abuses against immigrants.
Information on the Special Rapporteur’s meetings so far, remaining schedule of public meetings, and on how to submit written documentation can be found here and here.

Diene’s review occurs during the lead-up to the separate UN Durban + 5 Review—Durban Review Conference 2009, scheduled for 20 April-24 April, 2009, in Geneva (see choike.org’s list of related links here). That conference will attempt to take a global snapshot of responses to racism and progress on recommendations made at the World Conference on Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia, and Related Intolerance in Durban, South Africa in 2001.

The next U.S. president must come to terms with racism (and the sexism and other forms of discrimination that often intersect with it). And that president will have to do so on a much deeper level than mere exchanges of competing internet video soundbites and dueling media pundits can provide. Our discriminatory past and present, in all its complexity, is not only reprehensible and unjust: it violates our international human rights obligations.

(Photo: U.S. anti-apartheid activist Sylvia Hill (center) with Gay McDougall (now UN Independent Expert on Minorities (right) and former President of the Republic of South Africa, Nelson Mandela. From No Easy Victories: African Liberation and American Activists over a Half-Century: 1950-2000 (William Minter, Gail Hovey, and Charles Cobb, Jr. eds., 2007).

The Pasqua Legacy

Apart from other scandals, France's former Interior Minister Charles Pasqua is perhaps best known for his xenophobic immigration laws -- les lois Pasqua -- aimed at achieving "zero immigration." The UN Special Rapporteur on racism and racial discrimination roundly criticized the 1993 Loi Pasqua, which restricted access to visas, eliminated appeal in asylum cases, and created the sans papiers, a class of immigrants including those who could not be deported because of conditions in their home country but could not obtain residence permits to regularize their status. (You may recall the June 1996 protest by 230 African sans papiers in St. Bernard Church in Paris.)
Now French prosecutors have charged Pasqua with illegal arms sales to Angola during that country's civil war, from 1993 to 2000. If the allegations are valid, it would seem that while Pasqua's laws were closing France's border to those fleeing persecution, he and his partners in crime (including Jean-Christophe Mitterand, son of Francois) were pocketing nearly $800 million from weapons sales -- thus enabling the civil war that sent almost 500,000 Angolans fleeing for their lives. While Pasqua may now face his day in court on the arms trafficking charges, we continue to see shades of his anti-immigrant legacy in the debate around France's upcoming elections, as Anna Koransky notes here.