International Community Categorized Police Brutality as Crimes Against Humanity

Universal Human Rights

There are a few unalienable rights that are universally agreed upon that all humans deserve. They are laid out in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. A quick summary is:

• Everyone is born free equal and equal in dignity and rights.
• No discrimination against race, color, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or social status.
• Everyone has the right to life, liberty, and security of person.
• No slavery
• No torture
• All are equal before the law and are entitled to protection of the law without discrimination.
• No one shall be subjected to arbitrary arrest, detention or exile.

Now we all know, there are countries that do not abide by some of these human rights. Including Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestine, armed conflicts with civilian casualties in Africa, unlawful killings in Venezuela, China’s treatment of Uyghur Muslim’s in internment camps, Saudi Arabia's intimidation and silencing of journalists, etc. (yeah, I could go on and on and on and on). And those countries sometimes get punished by the international community depending on the political season through sanctions.

Does the U.S. abide by all International Human Rights

One would hope that the U.S. would be the exemplary student of learning from past mistakes and be a leader for the world. However, the U.S. is not exempt from violating even the most basic of these human rights declarations. Most recently we have seen voting rights in Georgia being violated, environmental human rights being violated, the human rights of children being violated in detention centers, and we all witnessed the very aggressive policing tactics used last summer, especially in D.C. when an unnamed elected official condoned pepper-spraying civilians off the street for a photo-op in front of the now-famous, St. John’s Episcopal Church which is directly in front of the White House.

Police Brutality = Crime Against Humanity

We can discuss another one that human rights experts and lawyers from 11 different countries have published in a 188-page report holding the U.S. accountable: the systematic killing and maiming of unarmed African Americans by police. This report has classified the long history of police brutality against African Americans to be a violation of international law which should be investigated and prosecuted under international law. Some of these violations amount to crimes against humanity. In the report they define these crimes against humanity as “severe deprivation of physical liberty, torture, persecution, and other inhuman acts”.

The report summarizes the extreme disparity of policing against African Americans, and more specifically the “alarming national pattern of disproportionate use of deadly force” against Black people. They go on to say that police officers responsible for the overuse of force and deaths are rarely held responsible creating a “culture of impunity” by dismissing their actions as “just a few bad apples”.

For those of you who believe that this is a bunch of hogwash, let’s look at the numbers. In 2015 and 2016 the Justice Department conducted an investigation in Baltimore which found that black people were much more likely to be stopped than their white counterparts. It was so ridiculous that one 50-year-old black man was stopped 30 times in less than 4 years (almost once a month) and never received a citation or criminal charge. It’s also a fault of perspective to not feel empathy towards this situation. Just because you may have not experienced this kind of injustice, does not mean that it does not exist.

This is a huge win, not because a group of human rights lawyers announced this, but because its finally getting the attention that it should have been getting. It’s clear that we have a long ways to go to try and fix policing, in general. There are hurdles like qualified immunity, billion-dollar budgets for police departments, and de-escalation tactics that aren't being put into action in some instances. Since we haven’t been able to keep ourselves accountable, its good that experts from 11 other countries have sounded the alarm. The international community should hold us accountable for the various human rights laws that are being violated within our borders against civilians by police officers who swore to protect and serve those very civilians. The first step in resolving this issue should be accountability on a personal level. Once police officers know they will be held accountable for their actions in more than a disciplinary manner (paid leave), I think that’s when more steps can be taken to reduce the excessive force like retraining officers on diversity, racial bias, and conflict resolution tactics.

 - TBC