United Nations human rights experts join Minneapolis leaders to talk policing and prison

[MUSIC PLAYING] CATHY WURZER: A United Nations effort that was created after the murder of George Floyd arrives in Minneapolis today. Three human rights experts appointed by the UN spent the morning hearing from people affected by systemic racism in policing and prisons. The UN panel is spending two weeks in the United States and making similar stops in cities, including LA, Atlanta, and Chicago.

Here to help us understand their mission is Fionnuala Ní Aoláin. She is a faculty director of the Human Rights Center at the University of Minnesota and a UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights, and she's on the line. Welcome, Fionnuala. How are you?

FIONNUALA NÍ AOLÁIN: Thank you. Good. Good to be with you.

CATHY WURZER: Nice to have you with us. Help us understand this United Nations body. How did it come about?

FIONNUALA NÍ AOLÁIN: Yes. So this body-- it has a long name, Expert Mechanism to Advance Racial Justice and Equality in the Context of Law Enforcement. But really, it's shorthand name is the George Floyd Mechanism because it was really birthed by the response of the United Nations following the murder of George Floyd right here in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

And the body in the UN, which is the Human Rights Commission, the Human Rights Council-- it's the body that has the responsibility for the oversight of human rights around the world-- really created this mechanism as a way to address these global structural issues about racial justice and the lack of equality and the lack of dignity for many people in the context of law enforcement.

But this is its first visit to the United States. It's had reports and looked at other contexts, but it's enormously, of course, symbolically powerful that it is in Minneapolis today.

CATHY WURZER: You mentioned symbolic power. I'm assuming that this body makes recommendations and maybe a little bit of international pressure on the criminal justice system in this country? How much power do they have, ultimately?

FIONNUALA NÍ AOLÁIN: Well, I think a human rights entity like this created by the UN-- it's created by a resolution, so it has a set of powers or authorities granted to it mostly to gather information and to report back to all member states of the United Nations.

So when they go out and they gather information, they're doing that in a way to bring it back out to the world and to sort of lay bare both what they hear, what they see, what they learn, but also to make very specific recommendations to the countries they visit and to the institutions they observe.

I think it's enormously powerful for many families to have a UN body come and listen to them, particularly in domestic contexts where families who have lost or have loved ones harmed by the use of violence in law enforcement contexts often feel unheard and unseen. So there's an enormous convening power to these bodies. The reporting power is that it brings what they see to the attention of the entire global community.

And when states really want to listen to what these bodies have to say, they can often be the instigator of significant change. It's worth noting that in this US administration, the Biden administration, they have to get permission to come. UN bodies don't just show up at your door without being allowed in if you're a member state of the United Nations.

So I think it sends a really powerful signal that this administration was prepared to allow the mechanism in, enable it to engage. And many countries don't allow UN mechanisms to come in and do their investigative and reporting work. So it's symbolic, but it can also have really practical effect if a member state like the United States is prepared to listen.

CATHY WURZER: The testimony earlier today in the meeting was powerful. Several people testified about their experiences in solitary confinement as young people. Specifically, Antonio Williams spoke, and we want to play a little bit of audio from Antonio. He talked about his experience being incarcerated as a teenager. Let's listen.

ANTONIO WILLIAMS: Solitary confinement as a child hyper-amplified the self-consciousness every [INAUDIBLE] teen has. I felt damaged, unloved, ugly. But the regular feelings of awkwardness and image consciousness morphed into an unhealthy feeling of being stupid. I felt stupid. I felt unloved, and I felt irredeemable. I wasn't able to hold eye contact-- started to talk very soft, and I lashed out.

CATHY WURZER: What are you hearing in his testimony?

FIONNUALA NÍ AOLÁIN: Well, for me, as a UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights, I hear profound human rights violations. Solitary confinement by the UN Human Rights system is considered torture. When a child is subject to solitary confinement, it breaches the most profound right to dignity and equality of a child.

And when that solitary experience is visited on a child of color, a child who is already substantially disadvantaged in many ways in a legal system, then that speaks to me as a UN Special Rapporteur of structural discrimination. And again, these testimonies are really important because it's not just a local audience that's listening, it's the UN that's listening, and member states are listening.

And the United States can play an enormously powerful role in being a voice for rights across the world, but it also has to live up to those promises domestically. And when it doesn't, and it gets called out-- and I think in this way the role here is in part to have these voices heard outside of Minneapolis. And maybe the very fact that a UN are really expert, very-- and these individuals are all human rights advocates of substance with global reputations.

Hearing these voices, elevating these voices-- that may make us listen a little better at home to what we're hearing from young men and women who've been incarcerated in the United States, including in Minnesota.

CATHY WURZER: Fionnuala, I wish I had more time with you. Thank you very much for what you're doing and for joining us today.

FIONNUALA NÍ AOLÁIN: Thanks.