Black Lives Matter Will Save the World

[Kaitlin Ball has a J.D. from the University of Georgia School of Law, and a PhD in Politics and International Studies at the University of Cambridge. She lives and works in The Netherlands.]

On 8 June 2020, following over a week of global demonstrations, the families of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Michael Brown and Philando Castile—all black Americans who lost their lives to police violence—put their names to a letter to the Human Rights Council (HRC). The letter, also signed by 600 rights groups including Black Lives Matter and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) demands that the HRC “urgently convene a Special Session on the situation of human rights in the United States in order to respond to the unfolding grave human rights crisis borne out of the repression of nationwide protests”. The letter goes on to note that the signatories’ greatest concern is that the protests take attention away from race issues in the United States, stating:

[T]he violence and counter-violence are diverting the gaze of the global community  away from the pain being expressed by a nation in mourning over the callous manner of the 8 minutes and 46 seconds that ended George Floyd’s life while a group of police stood and watched, about the death of more than 100,000 souls from the coronavirus—disproportionately killing Black, Brown and Indigenous Peoples.

The letter closes by noting that issues of race in America are not limited to police violence, calling for the HRC to support a call for United Nations detention and trial monitoring for criminal cases related to the protests in the United States.

To date, the United States has successfully shaped the domestic discourse on racial issues away from the international language of human rights, instead styling issues such as discriminatory voter suppression tactics as a civil rights matter, and not, also, as contrary to the United States’ obligations under Article 2 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. This tracks, generally, with the American narrative of exceptionalism, but also has the effect of robbing American civil society of the moral authority that comes with engaging in the discourse of international human rights. Perhaps more importantly, this framing of human rights issues in the United States as a purely domestic, civil matter has the effect of making venues such as the HRC appear less accessible to Americans.

This is certainly not the first time American anti-racism advocates have engaged with the international human rights discourse. In the final year of his life, Malcolm X began to advocate for internationalizing the United States civil rights movement. Looking to the international nature of the anti-apartheid movement in South Africa and to decolonization efforts more generally, X felt the United States could not escape censure from the United Nations for its oppression of American minorities. Indeed, in his autobiography X went so far as to suggest this would be a loss on the United States’ “own home ground” (415). Although he raised this at two meetings of the Organization of African Unity (OAU) in 1964, the idea ultimately got little purchase at home in the United States or abroad.

In this same work, X lamented what he called “brainwashing” of black Americans, stating:

I must be honest. Negroes—Afro-Americans—showed no inclination to rush to the United Nations and demand justice for themselves here in America. I really had known in advance that they wouldn’t. The American white man has so thoroughly brainwashed the black man to see himself as only a domestic ‘civil rights’ problem that it will probably take longer than I live before the Negro sees the struggle of the American black man is international. (419)

While X’s overtures to African leaders to raise United States abuses of black Americans at the United Nations went largely unheard by American civil rights leaders, it did pique the interest of the United States authorities. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) kept a file on X’s 1964 tour through Africa and his attendance of OAU meetings. The fact that X was lobbying for African states to raise American race issues at the United Nations warranted its own FBI memorandum, which includes a copy of a resolution condemning racial discrimination in the United States, passed at by the OAU at its July 1964 OAU summit with X’s support.

In the months following X’s assassination, United Nations Undersecretary General for Special Political Affairs and Nobel laureate Ralph Bunche joined Martin Luther King, Jr., in the 1965 March on Selma. The United Nations flag flew, together with the American flag, behind Martin Luther King, Jr. during portions of the march. In a speech following the eventual completion of the 1965 March on Selma (only with the help of the National Guard after days of violence against the marchers), Undersecretary General Bunche referenced the United Nations’ values, and assured the marchers that they had global support: “In the UN we have known from the beginning that secure foundations for peace in the world can be built only upon the principles and practices of equal rights and status for all peoples, respect and dignity for all men. The world, I can assure you, is overwhelmingly with us”. The Undersecretary went on to note that the deployment of the National Guard in Selma “was an indication of the firm determination of [the United States] Government to protect the human rights of all of its citizens”.

Domestically, Black Lives Matter and related rights organizations continue to fulfil their historic role in protecting human rights in the United States. The role of black activists in safeguarding fundamental American rights is a broad one: they played an overlooked role in the women’s suffrage movement, and today continue to advocate for political rights, as well as economic, and even environmental rights. The work of anti-racist civil society in the United States has, however, even had to address in recent decades premeditated, systemic torture of black Americans and others at the hands of American police departments, most notably including Chicago. These efforts have played a crucial role in ensuring the United States lives up to its international human rights obligations. Nevertheless, American anti-racist organizations have rarely engaged as explicitly with the United Nations human rights framework as with the recent ACLU submission to the HRC.

In this vein, it is important to recall the global context in which the ACLU’s submission takes place. The Trump administration has taken the ball and gone home from a number of multilateral venues, including UNESCO, the WTO and a churlish response to the International Criminal Court investigation in Afghanistan. The United States is not alone in its shunning of multilateralism; Brexit is a clear snub to the European Union and Bolsonaro’s threats to withdraw from the Paris Climate Accords do nothing to bolster the global fight against climate change. As noted by Philippe Sands on this forum, the COVID-19 pandemic has only exasperated the already alarming and “corrosive” global retreat from multilateralism.

Even before this retreat, the role of civil society at international law has been a limited one. In large part, this is because the authors of international law sought to preserve their own powers: it is a system by states, for states, and in certain instances, the law is defined by reference only to “civilized nations”. Even in the limited fora available at international law to individuals and civil society organizations, the role and voices of civil society at international law tends to be a limited one.  

The important role of civil society in buttressing international organizations is not new to this forum. I suggest, instead, that in particular the advocacy of anti-racism organizations in the United States and elsewhere are playing a particularly significant part in stepping up to defend multilateralism from attacks. The ACLU submission to the HRC should not just be seen as a cry for help; it is also an investment in the stock and legitimacy of internationalism. By turning its attention and critiques of American policing practices to the international community, Black Lives Matters and others are now doing for internationalism what they have done for American governance for over a century: holding it to highest standards.