Description:
While the devastating impact of the global COVID-19 pandemic continues to threaten the health and rights of millions, it is important that we stay vigilant in monitoring and addressing the Trump administration’s attacks on the global human rights agenda. This Zoom webinar will discuss the work of the Commission on Unalienable Rights, announced by Secretary of State Pompeo last year, a panel he said was aimed at providing “fresh thinking about human rights discourse where such discourse has departed from our nation’s founding principles of natural law and natural rights.”  The Commission is mostly made up of individuals who have taken extreme anti- LGBTQ-rights, anti-reproductive rights positions, and is set up to narrow the scope of U.S. human rights advocacy, with religious freedom prioritized over other rights, potentially undermining human rights protections for some of the most vulnerable people across the globe. Its compliance with the federal law governing such outside advisory committees has also been called into question in a lawsuit brought by Democracy Forward on behalf of Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights, CHANGE, the Council for Global Equality, and Global Justice Center.

Speakers:
Kerry Kennedy, President, Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights
Rob Berschinski, Senior Vice President, Policy, Human Rights First
Mark Bromley, Council Chair, Council for Global Equality
Serra Sippel, President, CHANGE
Molly Bangs, Research Associate, Equity Forward 
Ben Seel, Counsel and Legal Analyst, Democracy Forward
Rabbi Michael Rothbaum, Congregation Beth Elohim, Acton, Massachusetts

Moderator:  
Akila Radhakrishnan, President, Global Justice Center