ACLU Statement to the UN on the Persistence of Police Violence and Racial Discrimination in the US

On August 9th, 2022, Jamil Dakwar, Director of the ACLU's Human Rights Program, delivered a statement to the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (Committee) on the persistence of police violence and racial discrimination in the United States. Highlighting that the U.S. and its 18,000 police agencies have failed to meet their obligations under the International Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Racial Discrimination (Convention), Dakwar calls for a paradigm shift to reimagine the role of police institutions in public safety. He provides the Committee with concrete actions that it could ask the US government to do now: revise the US Department of Justice's racial equity plan to fully implement the Convention and repeal exceptions in border and national security policies insofar as they permit racial profiling, illegal surveillance, monitoring and intelligence gathering.