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DC Human Rights Advocates Hail Historic Decision
By Timothy Cooper

December 2001/ January 2002
Volume 38, Number 10

The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights has examined a human rights petition filed by 23 District of Columbia residents in 1993 and confirmed that human rights violations are taking place in the national capital, due to the continuing denial of equal political rights to the nearly 600,000 residents of DC. The Commission is empowered to protect and defend human rights anywhere in the Western Hemisphere under the auspices of the Organization of American States (OAS), a regional agency of the United Nations.

The rights to equality before the law, and to political participation in national government through duly elected representatives, constitute fundamental human rights under Articles 2 and 20 of the American Declaration of the Rights and Duties of Man. The U.S. government is legally bound to guarantee these rights, as they define the human rights referred to in the OAS charter.

In its 1993 petition, members of the Statehood Solidarity Committee claimed that the US government was continually violating their fundamental human rights by denying them equal representation in Congress as well as full self-government and freedom from Congressional intervention in the DistrictÕs budget and legislation. The Statehood Solidarity Committee has been involved in eight and a half years of litigation with the US State Department, which represented the US government before the OAS Commission.

The Inter-American Commission has finally issued its report to the US government and has directed the US to inform the Commission as to the measures taken to comply with its recommendations. This indicates that human rights violations of DC residents have, in fact, been found.

In correspondence communicated to the Statehood Solidarity Committee on October 26, 2001, the Commission stated that its confidential report Òhas been transmitted to the Government of the United States so that it may inform the Commission, within a period of 60 days, as to the measures taken to comply with the recommendations made to resolve the situation addressed.... [I]f within three months from the transmittal of the preliminary report the matter has not been solved, the Commission may subsequently issue a final report that contains its opinion and final conclusions and recommendations.Ó

ÒDC residents have taken a momentous step in their 200 year-old campaign to win equal political rights,Ó declared Timothy Cooper, executive director of DC Statehood Solidarity Committee, and the architect of the OAS human rights petition. ÒFor the first time in District of Columbia history a legal judgment has been rendered by a panel of international human rights experts, which has concluded after years of exhaustive study that serious and continuing human rights violations are taking place in the nationÕs capital. The US governmentÕs day of reckoning has finally come.

ÒWhile the precise language of the CommissionÕs report will not be made public until the conclusion of the CommissionÕs next sessions, one thing is now certain: the Inter-American Commission has found that the denial of equal political rights to Washingtonians constitute violations under international law and must be remedied.

ÒWe therefore call upon the US government to pass such national legislation as is necessary to bring the political status of DC residents under the US constitution into conformity with its international legal obligations under the OAS Charter,Ó concluded Cooper. The CommissionÕs final decision will likely be made at the end of its next sessions in March, 2002.

Timothy Cooper is the Executive Director of the DC Statehood Solidarity Committee, and can be reached at (202) 244-9479 or Worldright@aol.com.

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