This short briefing paper is presented to the UN International Independent Expert Mechanism to Advance Racial Justice and Equality in the context of Law Enforcement (UN EMLER), to assist in the mechanism’s country visit to the United States from April 24 - May 5, 2023. The Movement for Black Lives (M4BL) and the Center for Constitutional Rights welcome the UN EMLER’s mandate “to further transformative change for racial justice and equality in the context of law enforcement globally, especially where relating to the legacies of colonialism and the Transatlantic slave trade in enslaved Africans.” We belong to the Black radical tradition and generations of organizers, lawyers and public intellectuals who recognize in the international human rights framework the “language and philosophical power to address not only the political and legal inequalities that African Americans [have] endured, but also the education, health care, housing and employment needs” of the Black community. Our expectation is that the mechanism will seriously contend with and lend support to a growing movement for the abolition of the prison industrial complex, and to the reordering of society necessary to account for historical injustices and to guarantee safety for Africans and people of African descent.

Read our full report here.