MN-Based World Without Genocide: US Is Shirking Its Obligation

By Ellen J. Kennedy, Minnesota Reformer

December 8, 2025

The United States was scheduled to meet with the UN Human Rights Council as part of what’s known as a Universal Periodic Review. The review is conducted every four years with each member country of the UN. It is a critical analysis of that country’s progress in human rights.

The United States is the only country on the planet that failed to show up and did not even submit its report that was due on August 4.

What happened to us — to the “shining city upon a hill”?

What have we become?

And what message does our silence on human rights send to friends and foes alike?

The current U.S. administration has turned its back on human rights. Consider recent events: rising numbers of extra-judicial killings; unlawful deportations without due-process hearings; escalating violence against women, girls, and trans people, including outrageous numbers of murdered pregnant women; lack of equal opportunities for people of color; the wide economic chasm between the top 1% and the rest of the country; worsening access to health care, especially for poor and rural people; increasing rates of childhood mortality from preventable diseases — and much more.

Although the U.S. didn’t submit a human rights report, we at Minnesota-based World Without Genocide and allied organizations did. Civil society organizations can introduce critical issues with what’s known as a shadow report. In these reports, issues can be raised that the country under review may have omitted or presented less than fully or with bias. We organized a coalition of national nonprofit organizations and we submitted a shadow report.

In a modern-day David and Goliath story, our shadow report excoriates the United States over its human rights abuses, exposing systemic failures that undermine the rights and dignity of people across the nation. The report offers unflinching analyses and strong recommendations that would protect and uplift all who call this country home.

Our small coalition exposed the United States, an all-powerful giant of an adversary, and provided critical information to members of the Human Rights Council.

The report focused on the human right to bodily autonomy, which encompasses health choices, protection from violence, and personal control over all stages of one’s own reproduction. As a cornerstone of gender equality and a fundamental human right, bodily autonomy is safeguarded by international treaties, national laws and global human rights mechanisms. Our coalition report demonstrated that U.S. policies have eroded these protections, striking at the very heart of rights that should be universal and inviolable.

The UN has rescheduled the U.S. review for November 2026. We hope that the United States will show up. We will show up and update our report. We are ashamed that the United States was absent – ashamed because every other nation in the world participates, and this sets a terrible precedent that threatens to diminish the process of holding human rights as a global goal.

Furthermore, we are ashamed because the United States has tossed aside even a pretense of concern about human rights, here and everywhere.

The Minnesota Reformer is an independent, nonprofit news organization dedicated to keeping Minnesotans informed and unearthing stories other outlets can’t or won’t tell..