Women’s Rights Groups Call on U.S. to Improve Response to Domestic Violence and Gun Violence

September 23, 2013

U.N. Human Rights Committee Urged to Recommend that United States Implement Universal Background Checks, Mandatory Police Training, Re-Evaluation of “Stand Your Ground”

Legal Momentum, the Advocates for Human Rights, the Human Rights Clinic of the University of Miami School of Law, and Women Enabled, Inc. (“U.S. Women’s Rights Organizations”) submitted a shadow report on violence against women in the United States to the United Nations Human Rights Committee, and called for the Committee to recommend significant improvements to U.S. law and policy.

Because the United States signed and ratified the International Convention on Civil and Political Rights in 1992, it must report to the United Nations Human Rights Committee on its treaty implementation every four years. The United States last reported to the Human Rights Committee in 2006, and its 2011 report will be reviewed on October 17 and 18, 2013 in Geneva. The Human Rights Committee, which consists of an international panel of 18 independent experts, will hear a presentation from the U.S. State Department, ask questions, and issue final recommendations on ways the U.S. has improved its compliance with its international human rights obligations—and on ways it has not.