The Human Rights at Home Campaign (HuRAH Campaign) arose out of the need for a national organizing and advocacy effort to achieve greater U.S. accountability to human rights. Generating an accountability infrastructure for human rights in the United States has the potential to transform the country’s social and political landscape.
USHRN was a founding member of the HuRAH Campaign, and now serves on the HuRAH Steering Committee. USHRN co-chairs the CERD Taskforce with the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law.
HuRAH has steadily worked to build support for greater U.S. human rights accountability through both federal and state advocacy. To date the Campaign has focused on strengthening accountability mechanisms through its work to:
- Secure an Executive Order to establish an interagency human rights entity led by the National Security Council (NSC) that would be responsible for ensuring that U.S. international human rights responsibilities are implemented and coordinated among all relevant executive agencies and departments, with efforts led by the EO Sub-Committee;
- Reform the national Civil Rights Commission towards reforming and transforming the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights (“USCCR”) into an independent civil and human rights monitoring and investigatory agency, with efforts led by the Civil Rights Commission Sub-Committee;
- Strengthen local human rights bodies, by educating local, state and federal officials on ways that a human rights accountability framework can advance equality and opportunity locally, as well as the importance of federal support for these efforts, with efforts led by the State and Local Government Sub-Committee;
- Promote full compliance by the U.S. Government with its obligations under the International Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Racial Discrimination (CERD) through the adoption of a National Plan of Action on CERD to address and reduce disparities produced by centuries of structural racism, with efforts led by the CERD Taskforce.
The Movement Building Sub-Committee works to support all of the campaign policy goals by building the capacity of the field to promote and support a human rights accountability agenda.
The National Economic and Social Rights Initiative chairs the HuRAH Campaign. The American Civil Liberties Union, the Rights Working Group, the Border Network for Human Rights, the National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty, and the Columbia Human Rights Institute also serve on the Steering Committee.
