4 hours

“Holding the United States accountable for racial discrimination against Native Americans; How Indigenous Nations, their organizations can file our own Parallel Reports on US Compliance with the CERD Convention.1”[1 The full name of the Convention is the International Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Racial Discrimination. The CERD Committee, a group of international experts that monitors compliance with the Convention is called the CERD Committee.]

Background:
The United States has legal obligations under international human rights treaties and or conventions. These obligations are not dependent on US courts and US law, but are in fact checks on US law and practice subject to international standards.. International standards, not national standards, are applied in the monitoring of US compliance with the requirements of the Convention.

The United States has signed and ratified the United Nations International Convention on racial Discrimination, and is a “State Party” to the CERD Convention. Although there are complaints procedures provided for under the CERD Convention these procedures require that the State party agree to have the CERD Committee receive and hear the complaints. The US has up to now refused to do so.

Under the Convention the United States must file so-called Periodic Reports, informing the CERD Committee on its compliance with the convention. The only practical way to hold the United States accountable under the Convention is to file our own “parallel reports” informing the Committee of the true state of racial discrimination in the United States.
It is important to note that the CERD Committee places special importance on a State’s compliance with regard to Indigenous Peoples.

The Workshop:
The United States has filed its Periodic Report with the CERD Committee and is slated to be examined by the Committee next spring.

This workshop would review previous CERD Conclusions and Recommendations to the United States with regard to Indigenous Peoples, the standards applied to States by the CERD Committee, and the issues that might be presented to the Committee by Indigenous Peoples in the US.

The workshop would be interactive, with participants invited to raise their issues in order to get an idea as to how to apply international standards. It would be a “how to” workshop, building on presentations by the WSDP and other groups who will be presenting their own situation before the CERD Committee.

Participants:
Native American participants to the USSF would be especially welcome to attend. We would hope that around 50 or so would be interested.
The workshop would be coordinated by the International Indian Treaty Council, who would invite other experts on international Indigenous human rights to help coordinate and conduct the workshop, to the end that it have maximum participation by Indian attendees.