Clinic Students Spotlight Human Rights Abuses with New York City Event

Saint Louis University School of Law students Faith Whatley-Blaine (3L) and Bashar Zaheer (3L) joined Professor Lauren Bartlett, the director of the Human Rights at Home Litigation Clinic, in New York City for an event spotlighting human rights abuses for the United Nations. 

The event was co-hosted by the University of Illinois Chicago’s International Human Rights Clinic.

Representatives from human rights organizations present at the press conference for the People's UPR in New York.

Called the People’s UPR, the daylong event was an effort to replace the United Nations’ Universal Periodic Review (UPR). The UPR is a mechanism of the United Nations Human Rights Council that calls for each UN member state to undergo a peer review of its human rights records. For the first time in the history of the review, the United States has declined to participate.

Human Rights at Home students Faith Whatley-Blaine (left) and Bashar Zaheer (right) with Professor Lauren Bartlett (center) in front of the United Nations building in New York, NY 

“By not participating in their review — an act which is completely unprecedented in the history of the UPR — the U.S. is failing its own people by dodging transparency and accountability,” said Zaheer. “I was incredibly honored to help organize the People's UPR as part of the effort to create that record despite U.S. withdrawal from participation in the Human Rights Council, and help to give an international voice to just a few of the regular people from across this country who experience violations of their human rights every day.”

Directly impacted people from across the United States spoke on issues of immigration, women’s rights, prison reform, racial discrimination, and LBGTQ+ rights. A "directly impacted person" is someone who is personally and directly affected by the law, policy, practice, act or omission by the government.

“At the event, seeing so many people from diverse backgrounds, identities, and experiences united around a shared vision of justice and dignity filled me with an overwhelming sense of community and hope,” said Whatley-Blaine. “This experience showed me that our collective voices hold power and can shape narratives and actions about what true accountability and equity look like. It reminded me that lasting change begins with hope and the ability to imagine a more just and compassionate world, and that every voice raised for justice moves us closer to the world we deserve.”

This event was live-streamed in the United States and Geneva.