Congress Must Ratify the Treaty for America to Join the International Criminal Court

Congress Must Ratify the Treaty for America to Join the International Criminal Court

Started
April 25, 2020
Petition to
Senate Committee on Foreign Relations
Signatures: 81Next Goal: 100
Support now

Why this petition matters

Started by Louisiana United International, Inc.

1.        Government reports on what is happening in Louisiana detention centers, jails, and prisons are inconsistent with what people confined in those facilities are telling their family members.  So at this point, the government reports are unreliable, and we have reason to believe that everyone incarcerated in the State of Louisiana is at risk of dying from COVID-19 infections, and that means thousands of Black people may get sick or die in captivity;

2.        The U.S. Constitution and international human rights treaties that are part of America’s federal law have a lot of fancy ways of making this point and that is:  The punishment should fit the crime.  Louisiana officials talking public safety outside that parameter – outside of keeping crime and punishment in proportion . . . when they go beyond those dynamics, they’re flirting with genocide;

3.        This is not an episode of Gray’s Anatomy.  Governors and Wardens are not empowered to choose one life versus another.  In the context of an epidemic or pandemic, their comparison should be limited to crimes and punishments that may include exposure to a deadly virus.  When that price is too high to pay given the circumstances of a person’s incarceration, he or she should be released under appropriate terms; 

4.        What we have now are people confined because the tough on crime folks don’t want them released.  And, in recent history, not a single branch of U.S. government has upset their apple cart;

5.        The UN Human Rights Committee encouraged the Trump Administration to meet with Opt IN USA and other civil society groups about such dilemmas before average Americans even knew of a COVID-19 pandemic.  Opt IN USA’s basic complaint is that America’s legal system is regularly weaponized against Black people and anybody else it wants to take down.  On January 18, 2020, a coalition of 20 organizations joined in requesting the Trump Administration/Opt IN USA meeting, so far to no avail;

6.        Louisiana United International, Inc. (LUI) is among those 20 organizations.  It is also leading the fight against the COVID-19 Death Chambers that Louisiana's detention centers, jails, and prisons have become.  If LUI cannot take that fight to the International Criminal Court (ICC), there is unlikely to be any relief or accountability for the avoidable deaths of African Americans in the detention centers, jails, and prisons of Louisiana during the 2019-2020 COVID-19 pandemic; 

7.      Congress should act immediately to ratify the treaty that would make America part of the ICC.       

Support now
Signatures: 81Next Goal: 100
Support now
Share this petition in person or use the QR code for your own material.Download QR Code

Decision Makers

  • Senate Committee on Foreign Relations