By Barbara Borgese, graduate from the School of International and Public Affairs

On the night of the November 6th, about 11 million DREAMers and their supporters anxiously awaited the results of the Presidential election. Their fate in the United States – whether they will be able to pursue higher education, build a career and a have future in this country – largely depends on the decisions that our political leaders in Washington will have to make in the months to come. With President Obama’s reelection, the DREAM Act and the policy directive, Deferred Action for Child Arrivals (DACA), two important acts to advance immigrants’ rights in this country, will continue to be endorsed by the administration.

The Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors (DREAM) Act is a bi-partisan legislative proposal that has been stalled in the Senate for a decade. In December 2010, after passing in the House of Representatives, it failed to pass in the Senate due to a Republican filibuster. Should this bill become law, it would allow undocumented students who were brought to this country as children to attend college, join the military, work legally and have a pathway to citizenship. This legislation, no doubt, would change the lives of millions of youth across the country. Maria* is one of these individuals for whom the DREAM Act is vitally important.

Maria is one of the approximately 4,550 undocumented students who graduated from a New York high school last year (country-wide, there are approximately 65,000 undocumented high school graduates every year). At age 10, Maria entered the US with her mother, fleeing gang violence and poverty in Honduras, to seek a better life in this country. Bright-eyed and fiercely determined to become a successful American, she has studied relentlessly to master a new language and culture. Her hard work paid off. This past June, she graduated at the top of her high school class and was awarded a full scholarship from a private university. But Maria is one of the few lucky ones. Only 5-10% of undocumented students pursue a college education due to the barriers they face. And those who do attend college are then excluded from lawful employment after graduation.

Even though Plyer vs. Doe (1982) established the right to education for all – stating that all students, regardless of their immigration status, are entitled to free elementary and secondary education, federal law bars undocumented students from accessing federal financial aid for higher education. These students are also ineligible for most scholarships and loans. In practice, this situation prevents undocumented students, most of which live in low-income households, from going to college. In a knowledge-based economy like the USA’s, does providing free K-12 education – while de facto limiting college access – really ensure the right to education for all?

In substance, the schooling of these youth – and the tax dollars spent on it – is deprived of any further educational and economic purpose. In fact, these DREAMers – who, as Obama said, “are American in every single way but one: on paper” – can neither access college funding nor work legally in a country they call home. As a result, with limited to no prospects for the future, many end up dropping out of school and accepting jobs for sub-minimum wages, subjecting themselves to economic exploitation and further human rights violations. This situation has also impacted the emotional and mental health of these youth, causing higher depression and suicide rates among undocumented adolescents – who reported feeling hopeless and resentful.

Speech by President Obama, June 15, 2012

While the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, to which the United States is a signatory nation, provides that education must be “directed to the full development of the human personality and the sense of its dignity,” that it should “enable all persons to participate effectively in a free society” and that “higher education should be made equally accessible to all,” the reality of young undocumented immigrants in the United States today is dire – so much so that even the fundamental right to health of this group is being greatly jeopardized.

Yet, the data shows that providing undocumented students with access to educational financial aid is not just a human rights issue but an economic one, as well. According to the US Census Bureau, “those who obtain a Bachelor’s degree earn $1 million more over the course of their lifetime than those with only a high school diploma.” Despite this difference in potential earnings, undocumented workers still contribute to the states’ revenue: in 2010, undocumented workers in New York paid $662.4 million in taxes. Furthermore, the National Skills Coalition reports that New York is facing a shortage of skilled workers: about 46% of jobs require more than a high school diploma but less than a Bachelor’s degree; and only 39% of workers had the skills to fill these positions in 2009. Providing undocumented students with access to financial aid for higher education would place them in a position to fill this shortage, thus contributing to the states’ and country’s economic growth.

Today, the New York DREAM Act and the Deferred Action for Child Arrivals (DACA) are providing some hope and relief. The former is a bill that, if passed, would allow undocumented youth meeting certain eligibility requirements to have access to the state’s Tuition Assistance Program; the latter, introduced by President Obama in June 2011, allows DREAMers to work legally in the United States. Specifically, the New York DREAM Act is a state version of the federal DREAM Act with the notable difference that it does not provide a pathway to citizenship. Texas, New Mexico and California have already passed state-level DREAM Acts. The New York DREAM Act has received the endorsement of Mayor Bloomberg, CUNY, SUNY and several private colleges.

DACA, on the other hand, allows youth with no criminal record who entered the United States illegally or overstayed their visa as of June 15, 2012 to request a 2-year grace period during which time they would not be deported but, instead, could apply for a work permit. These youth would not accrue unlawful presence in the US and could receive state-funded Medicaid or Family/Child Health Plus, as well as welfare through the Safety Net program, if otherwise eligible. However, there are cons to DACA: the applicants are making themselves known to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). Therefore, if DHS finds them to be of high priority for deportation, they may be placed in removal proceedings. Also, there is no guarantee that the program will continue in the future since it is not a bi-partisan proposal like the DREAM Act but, instead, heavily depends on the political party in office. Had Romney become president, DACA would have been halted.

In sum, while DACA has provided DREAMers with renewed hope for the future, it is still not enough. The 2012 election was a wake-up call: both Republicans and Democrats have understood that immigration reform can no longer wait. There are millions of youth who can no longer wait for their voices to be heard.

To support the passage of the New York DREAM Act and make education accessible to all, go to: http://action.dreamactivist.org/nydreamact/.  For more ways to take action: http://action.dreamactivist.org/movedream/.

Barbara Borgese has worked on human rights education with a particular focus on the rights of immigrants and children in Italy, France and the USA for the past seven years. She is a graduate of SIPA where she concentrated in Human Rights. She also holds an M.S. Ed. in TESOL (Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages).

By Hal Levy, undergraduate student in the Human Rights program at Columbia University.

The White House moved with uncharacteristic speed to announce a surprising foreign policy initiative two days after President Obama’s reelection.  He was going to Burma and it was happening right now, less than two weeks after the votes were counted, and because he decided that everything would happen so quickly it was far too late to haggle over his itinerary, which by the way was already in place.  “Why scrutinize this?” was the implicit message to human rights activists, “because we don’t want your input this time.”

However, this landmark engagement with the current Burmese regime warrants scrutiny and at the very least revision if it is to go forward.  Burma is finally opening to Western investment, but Obama must not abandon America’s responsibility to protect potential Burmese workers in favor of geopolitical games and economic opportunity.  Fraudulent elections held in 2010 transferred power to a mixture of civilians and military-appointed candidates in name only, while President Thein Sein and the military establishment retained near-total control of the country.  The concern that has been reluctantly expressed by activists – including a silenced Daw Aung San Suu Kyi – is that Obama’s visit is really a cynical approach to ending successful sanctions merely in exchange for recent reforms in Burma that may be cosmetic and temporary.  While dialogue is generally good in any situation, a visit from Obama (and on the heels of the high-profile visit from Secretary Clinton in December 2011) is a rebuke to the international human rights community, and one that has startled even more “realist” domestic observers.

It is true that reformers in the Burmese government have fought military hardliners to break Burma’s long isolation from the West, and are certainly due for increased international backing.  However, the U.S. has so far managed to provide appropriately escalating support with the appointment of a new ambassador and fewer trade restrictions.  A visit from the President is a great deal stronger than the current framework of “action for action” and risks delivering a message to the Burmese government that it is safe to stop their welcome but incremental progress on reform.

Will this be seen as rewarding a democratic transition, or the mere start of a client state relationship?  White House human rights advisor Samantha Power wrote the day after news of the trip broke that it will help the administration monitor “continued progress on the road to democracy.”  Despite this, Human Rights Watch “think[s] that the visit is premature,” with their puzzled Asia director Phil Robertson quoted in a Los Angeles Times article asking, “what’s actually the rush?”

Much less information about Burma filters out to the West than that of more prominent human rights violators, and so the U.S. government is privy to more details than the public.  And the idea of Burmese engagement as a credible demonstration of Western-supported democratization for North Korea is perhaps the most appealing aspect of the trip.  Yet for Obama, it is indisputably irresponsible to engage Thein Sein without making meaningful assurances on the part of the U.S. to protect human rights in Burma.

While time may prove otherwise, it appears Obama’s visit is not the beginning of massive civic change but rather presages a freeze on rights (a conciliatory amnesty declaration in advance of Obama’s visit was revised to exclude political prisoners) and the expansion of sweatshop labor for Burma’s massive underemployed population.  At a minimum, all statements that the White House releases about President Obama’s time in Burma should make clear that the minimum standards for Burma’s development do not begin at the current point, and that the end of U.S. sanction efforts are conditioned on the continuance of reforms.

Since Obama has inexorably set himself on the path to Burma, he should at least reverse the course of his discussions there and turn his trip into a push for justice.  Commerce and shared foreign policy interests are certainly valid topics for Obama and his Burmese counterparts to address, but there is room for human rights as well…be it the need for an independent judiciary, internet access sans censorship, or to give strength to recently escalated calls to prevent the ethnic cleansing of the Muslim Rohingya minority.

The President currently has a singular chance to control the timetable of U.S. investment in Burma.  In light of little domestic opposition, he should do this by sticking to the commitments he has publicly made to begin a fair trading relationship; what Daw Aung San Suu Kyi has repeatedly referred to as “democracy friendly, human rights friendly investments.”  Burma has no shortage of human rights indicators to tie to economic cooperation.  And even when Obama leaves, stringently enforced rights-aware trade will give the international community the continued leverage to ensure Burma’s democratic transition.  The U.S. can go a long way towards funding civil society and free association in Burma, even if done indirectly through conditional approval of local business operations.

To be sure, these are bold steps.  But if Obama is comfortable with making bold steps in regard to the sensitive subject of human rights in Burma, he might as well do it in full measure.  Transitional solutions should appeal to the Burmese military, foreign investors and the President alike as paths to true stability in Burma.  A military-civilian hybrid Burma will remain just another political actor, but a grateful democratic Burma can become a new U.S. ally in the region.  (I realize this argument has been used to justify disastrous misadventures over time and in America’s recent past. However, the will of the people as evidenced by the success of the National League for Democracy, the Burmese populace’s favorable opinion of the U.S., and perhaps even lessons learned in other nation-building follies may contribute to different circumstances in this case).

The White House’s own statement on Obama’s trip mentions the relative benefits of transparency and democracy.  President Obama has recognized Burma’s problems, but has he simultaneously excused them?  It is still quite possible that this much slower approach to human rights may succeed, but Obama has historically made a mockery out of human rights trade enforcement. It is up to President Obama to demonstrate America’s lasting commitment by making the solidification of Burmese civil society the primary focus of his trip, and not merely a hollow excuse for unfair and unsustainable trade.

Hal Levy is a junior at Columbia University majoring in human rights.  He is the Treasurer of Columbia University Students for Human Rights.

By Allison Tamer, MA student in the Human Rights Studies program at Columbia University

For many people living in Northern Uganda, land is their only means of survival. Land is such a prized possession that disputes over land is a common occurrence, frequently escalating into aggressive and sometimes violent situations.  For example, one man in the Amuru district attempted to poison a village’s water source so he could take over the deceased’s land. In 2010, a family in the same district lit another family’s home aflame during the night over a land dispute. This act of violence took the lives of two young girls who were sleeping during the attack.

As land conflicts intensify in this region, the situation for women and their right to land seems to be getting worse.  Gender and socio-cultural factors compounded with the aftermath of the two decades of civil war in Northern Uganda has made the struggle for women’s right to land more difficult.

Women’s land rights are protected under Uganda’s 1995 constitution and the Land Act 1998, which defines the types of land ownership that are legally recognized. In Northern Uganda, however, the majority of land ownership is under the customary tenure system and is typically passed from one generation to another. This type of land ownership is guided by informal rules that are reinforced by the Acholi traditional clan structure.  This means that land is under the custody of clan heads (i.e., family heads) and elders, who are almost always men. Often times, male clan leaders refuse to grant their female relatives land ownership, as they believe that land should be transferred through male heads of household.

The customary land tenure system makes it difficult for women to navigate and advocate for their land rights.  Many widows, divorcees and separated women are denied land by their own relatives, and live, often with children to support, in misery and destitution. In a non-industrialized region with low unemployment, having nowhere to farm means no food on the table or money for children’s school fees

This summer, I worked with Charity for Rural Development (CHAFORD) in Gulu, Uganda. CHAFORD teaches women how land ownership can improve their livelihood and how they can protect themselves from unforeseen circumstances such as divorce or widowhood.  CHAFORD formed one group of about twenty-five women in Attiak, a sub-county in the Amuru district, and provided them with a safe outlet to discuss their land rights and receive educational training in the value of land ownership.

CHAFORD understands that women must have the economic means to purchase land in order to truly exercise their rights to land. Therefore, CHAFORD works with women in various ways to increase their income through training in various vocational skills, providing seedlings and facilitating village savings and loans associations so that the women can buy land.

Photo: Allison Tamer

During the summer, I met Alice, an active member of CHAFORD’s land rights group. She was the first and only member of the group to purchase land. When I spoke to Alice, she explained to me how the land rights group inspired her to follow through with her goal of purchasing land. CHAFORD’s staff, along with the women in her land rights group, motivated her to start a butchery business so that she could obtain the income necessary to buy land. Two years later, she purchased a piece of land under her name. She said that she hopes her two daughters will follow her example and own land one day too.

CHAFORD takes small steps to create change in the communities where they work. While there are many local NGOs working in Northern Uganda, few are working specifically on land rights for women. In addition, many NGOs including CHAFORD are quite young, and lack the resources and institutional capacity to tackle women’s land rights in a consistent and long-term way.

Women in the Acholi sub-region of Northern Uganda encounter multiple barriers in claiming their land rights. The most significant obstacles to securing women’s land rights can be found within the customary tenure land system. Women’s land rights will not improve until there are effective, long-lasting solutions to overcome the many dimensions that impede women’s access to land. Until this is done, local NGOs in Northern Uganda will continue to struggle to secure women’s land rights.

Allison Tamer is a M.A. candidate in Human Rights Studies at Columbia University. She was a participation in the Institute for the Study of Human Rights Graduate Student Volunteer Program in Gulu, Uganda this summer.

By Colleen J. Brisport, graduate of the MA in Human Rights Studies program

My thesis explores current theories on business, fair trade and human rights developed by scholars such as John Ruggie and Laura Raynolds. These academics have articulated the difficulties and the improbabilities of corporations sincerely incorporating human rights within their business operations. Several scholars of human rights and business, such as Kenneth Roth, believe that the ‘naming and shaming’ tactics of non-profit organizations, voluntary industry standards and legal suits are ways in which we can pressure businesses to consider human rights in their business operations and hold them accountable for their actions. However, my thesis supports a different approach and illustrates how the Starbucks Coffee Company and Coopetarrazu Coffee Cooperative have worked cooperatively to make economic, social and cultural rights of the Tarrazú coffee farmers an important aspect of their business relationship.

I was fourteen years old when I participated in one of the most influential service projects of my life. This event was a day of service in which a small group of students planned youth service projects, ranging from park cleanups to visits to the elderly, for over 15,000 youth volunteers.

For the four years I was involved in planning the event, Starbucks provided the after-school caffeine necessary to plan this very large and demanding day of service. They would also provide breakfast and coffee for the day of the event so that our volunteers would be ready and energized to commit to a full day of service work.  Although many different experiences and academic pursuits have lead me to write my thesis on business and human rights, I am confident that my positive experience with corporations has made me a passionate advocate and believer for integrating human rights in the private sector.

Coffee Fields in Tarrazú (tall banana trees provide the shade for the coffee plants necessary for organic farming). Photo: Colleen Brisport

The reason I chose to study Tarrazú, Costa Rica and their relationship with Starbucks Coffee Corporation is because the people of Tarrazú truly identify as a coffee community and the cultivation of coffee is integral to their social, cultural and economic rights.

The Costa Rican Coffee Institute describes the country’s relationship with coffee as such: “To truly comprehend the meaning of coffee for Costa Rica, it is important to understand that for us it is an everyday matter, but that it also represents a great value for the country’s socio-economic and environmental system.”  As a result of this relationship to coffee production, I believed that they would be very sensitive and critical of any relationship they had with private companies.

The processing plant at Coopetarrazu Coffee Cooperative. Photo: Colleen Brisport.

I traveled to Tarrazú, Costa Rica during March 2012; I expected to find the coffee farmers discontented about their relationship with Starbucks.  One of the most interesting aspects of this relationship was that the coffee farmers did not identify as poor farmers who were victims of capitalism and globalization as described in the literature on coffee farming and human rights. For example, in Guatemala coffee farmers are not paid a minimum wage and child labor is rampant.  As noted in The Ecologist, typically coffee farmers only earn about 10% of the retail price of the coffee they produce.  It was made clear to me in my discussions with farmers and the cooperative staff that they regarded themselves as professional business people who desired to make a profit from a product they love.  They perceive their challenges as normal experiences of any entrepreneur and seek positive relationships with multinational companies, buyers and distributors of coffee to overcome these challenges. Starbucks acknowledged this and works to ensure predictable coffee production quantity and quality for the company and for Coopetarrazu.

Even before Starbucks offered their assistance, the Tarrazú farmers were aware that conventional agriculture was ruining the environment. They knew that there was both an environmental need (due to polluted water sources and soil dilution of nutrients) and an economic need (increasing consumer demand for organic coffee) to switch to organic coffee. Starbucks is the first company to come to the community and discuss issues of environmentalism and sustainability. The most significant contribution that Starbucks has made to the community is the involvement of Starbucks scientists and agronomists in assisting the Tarrazú coffee farmers’ switch to organic farming. This is accomplished through farmers support centers where coffee farmers are trained in sustainable farming techniques.

Starbucks supports human rights by paying a price for coffee that is high enough to maintain the livelihoods of the farmers and uses ILO guidelines to monitor working conditions for coffee pickers. However, the most important aspect of the relationship cited by both Starbucks and Coopetarrazu is the ability to maintain an open and transparent relationship between the two organizations. I could certainly tell there was an amicable relationship between the two, when a cooperative administrator told me to say hello to his friends in the Starbucks office in San Jose Costa Rica.

Starbucks is currently conducting research on which coffee plants grow best in the various climates in the regions of Costa Rica where they source their coffee. The most significant aspect of the Starbucks-Coopetarrazu partnership is that Costa Rica is a country that is very environmentally conscious, believes in labor rights, is the most developed in comparison to its neighbors and still welcomes the suggestions and regulations of a private company. This suggests that the private sector can provide services, knowledge and a relationship to agricultural workers that is necessary for them to sustain their livelihoods, societies and cultures.

Sign outside the Costa Rican Coffee Institute in Tarrazú, Costa Rica.  Photo: Colleen Brisport.

It is very easy to become frustrated and irate about the egregious human rights violations of corporations. It is even more daunting when human rights advocates realize there are little legal tools or international agreements to protect individuals from corporate human rights abuses. As a result, I hope my thesis can inspire both businesses and advocates to seriously explore ways in which profits, business models, employees, producers and consumers can combine efforts to make human rights an important internal matter for private corporations. The case of Starbucks and Coopetarrazu is one example of this type of relationship.

By Angélica Hoyos, senior in Political Science and Human Rights at Columbia University.

On July 3^rd the Office of the High Commissioner of Human Rights organized the global panel: “Moving Away from the Death Penalty.” Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon opened the discussion by declaring his commitment to end capital punishment: “The taking of life is too absolute, too irreversible, for one human being to inflict it on another, even when backed by legal process.” The goal of the discussion, which included delegates from the states parties, panelists, and members of civil society, was to set up a debate for the upcoming General Assembly in October. In 2007, The United Nations endorsed an international moratorium on capital punishment. Ever since, six nations have abolished the practice. The High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay expressed her hope for many other states to follow this trend. She reminded retentionist states that they ought to comply with Article 6 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights to limit this kind of punishment to “the most serious crimes.” As the Secretary-General reported, there are still a chilling thirty-two countries that are sentencing people to death for crimes other than murder. He and Ms. Pillay called on member states to join the seventy-six nations that have signed the Optional Protocol of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

“The taking of life is too absolute, too irreversible, for one human being to inflict it on another, even when backed by legal process.”—Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon

The first panel included speakers from Guatemala, Burundi, the United States, and Spain. Mr. Federico Mayor, president of the International Committee Against the Death Penalty, spoke about the importance of working with the communities in order to come closer to abolition. However, as he and Mr. Cousin Zilala, Executive Director of Amnesty International in Zimbabwe, emphasized later in the day, “Human rights are independent of public opinion.” Representing the US was Mr. Barry C. Scheck, co-director of The Innocence Project. He spoke of the significance of the role of science and what it has meant to all the one hundred and forty people who have been exonerated from death row. He addressed the high risk of error inherent in the conviction and sentencing process: “DNA has demonstrated the failings of the justice system [in America].”  The problem, he pointed out, was the lack of resources for defendants to access this kind of evidence.

Moderated by Professor Christof Heyns, UN Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, the second panel focused on human right violations related to the practice of the death penalty and included representatives from Japan, Zimbabwe, the United States, Trinidad and Tobago, and Belize. The first speaker was Mr. Kirk Bloodsworth, the first person in the US to be exonerated from a capital conviction thanks to DNA testing. He spent almost a decade waiting to be executed for a crime he did not commit. “The capital punishment system in America is ineffective and it does not always get it right, I know this for a fact,” Mr. Bloodsworth told the audience. He feels blessed, as he acknowledged there have been people who have been executed regardless of the many doubts about their guilt, such as Troy Davis and Carlos DeLuna, among others. He addressed the difficulty of the access to evidence and DNA testing; only those who can afford it can access it, given that it is not part of their right to a fair trial.

The speaker from Trinidad and Tobago addressed the situation in all the countries forming the Commonwealth Caribbean, where prisoners are executed for reasons besides murder. Ms. Maiko Tagusari, Secretary-General of the Center for Prisoners’ Rights, denounced the treatment of prisoners in Japan, the lack of a mandatory appeal system, as well as the secrecy–no family members or media are informed of the executions, which occur spontaneously. Ms. Tagusari noted that although it is prohibited to execute the mentally ill, the lack of the transparency of the justice system makes advocacy very difficult for the death row prisoners.

Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and Ms. Pillay expressed their concern and called on the nations retaining the death penalty to comply with the principle of non-discrimination, since usually the individuals on death row are members of minorities and lack the resources to afford private counsel. Ms. Pillay concluded by stating that, “[it’s] important for the effectiveness and transparency of such a debate to ensure that the public is provided with all sides of the arguments and with information and accurate statistics on criminality and the various effective ways to combat it, short of the death sentence.” The global panel focused on the common global trend towards “moving away from the capital punishment.” As Mr. Heyns pointed out, in 2011 only twenty countries executed prisoners and only six nations executed more than twenty people. Although these numbers support such a trend, the violations to the human rights of those prisoners in the retentionist countries continues to be a major concerned.

Angélica Hoyos is a senior at Columbia University, double majoring in Political Science and Human Rights.  She is originally from Bogotá, Colombia, and is currently serving as the Senior Class President for the School of General Studies.