US. Politics: US admits human rights shortcomings in UN report

Since the U.S. evaluates Mexico's human rights record, Mexicans ask if the U.S. ever gets evaluated. This report is a self-evaluation - and no funding is dependent on it, as it is with Mexico and the Merida Initiative evaluation - but it does open up the international dialogue. 


This article is from a newspaper, El Mañana ("Tomorrow"), in Nuevo Laredo, Tamaulipas State, Mexico, directly across the Río Bravo/Rio Grande from Laredo Texas. Nuevo Laredo is one of the centers of the "drug war." The newspaper publishes both Spanish and English editions and provides home delivery on both sides of the border. 

US admits human rights shortcomings in UN report - El Mañana - Río Online: "Promising to improve America’s world relations, President Obama’s administration has released the first-ever report on conditions in the U.S. to the U.N. Human Rights Council. The State Department reported that some Americans, notably minorities, are still victims of discrimination and said that considerable progress is still needed. High unemployment rates, hate crime, poverty, poor housing, lack of access to health care and discriminatory hiring practices are among the challenges the report identified as affecting blacks, Latinos, Muslims, South Asians, Native Americans and gays and lesbians in the United States. 

While the American Civil Liberties Union praised the administration for engaging with the council, it also said the report neglected to address key areas where the U.S. has fallen short on its human rights obligations such as inhumane prison conditions, racial disparities in death penalty cases and abuses in the immigration detention system." Sept. 2, 2010.