Publications

As the United States ("US") approaches its rescheduled 4th Universal Periodic Review ("UPR"), individuals’ sexual and reproductive health and rights (“SRHR”) continue to deteriorate across the country. Since our previous submission, both restrictions on reproductive healthcare access, in particular abortion care, and targeted, state-sanctioned violence, intimidation, discrimination, and harassment of communities by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (“ICE”) and Customs and Border Protection (“CBP”) have increased. This submission updates this coalition’s April 2025 submission. It includes quantitative research and qualitative data gathered from abortion funds, healthcare providers, doulas, and persons detained or deported by ICE agents. Testimony is from individuals who have been directly harmed by restrictive abortion laws and/or by the recent unlawful changes in and enforcement of immigration policies or from individuals whose clients or patients have suffered such harm.

Liberia’s support for key recommendations received during its fourth UPR cycle is a significant and welcome step toward at last delivering justice for serious international crimes during the country’s civil wars. These include recommendations aimed at the establishment and effective functioning of a war and economic crimes court and full implementation of the country’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s recommendations.

The United States tracks adolescent sexual and reproductive health (SRH) indicators through the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) via the Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System (YRBSS) and the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS). Furthermore, the Office of Population Affairs, within the Department of Health and Human Services, maintains ongoing data reporting, collection, and monitoring of changes and trends relating to statistics on adolescent SRH. Large-scale health surveys, public health institutions, and academic research studies are utilized to gather data. Since 2009, teen birth rates in the United States have been declining and is 13.6 births per 1,000 females as of 2022. This rate remains higher than in other similar industrialized countries.

We are writing on behalf of the Global South Coalition for SRHR and Development Justice and a group of civil society organizations allied in support of sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR). As you know, SRHR has long been recognized by the UN and its member states as an essential prerequisite to achieving gender equality and development. As the UN80 reform process explores potential structural improvements—including a possible merger between UNFPA and UN Women—we are writing to urge you to safeguard the integrity of the UN’s SRHR mandate.

The Global Justice Center and the Leitner Center welcome the opportunity to submit comments to the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Myanmar relating to the forthcoming conference room paper on pathways to accountability for grave human rights violations in Myanmar.

We, the undersigned organizations and individuals, welcome the official start of preparatory work for a Crimes Against Humanity Convention. This is a significant opportunity to ensure an inclusive instrument that addresses long-standing gaps in the protection against gender-based crimes, particularly for women and girls. We urge states to adopt a gender-competent and intersectional negotiation process and convention, which is shaped by victims’ multidimensional experiences. We call on all states to take comprehensive action, including: Recognize all gender-based harms that meet the crimes-against-humanity threshold, by codifying crimes such as: Forced Marriage: as compelling a person into a conjugal union through force, threat, coercion or inability to consent, consistent with established jurisprudence. Reproductive Violence: as intentional acts or omissions that violate a person’s reproductive autonomy. Gender Apartheid: as inhumane acts committed within and to maintain an institutionalized regime of systemic gender-based oppression and domination. Slave Trade: as acts involved in bringing a person into, and maintaining them in, a situation of slavery, and reflecting its peremptory status. Center victims and survivors in the convention: The convention should deliver justice that people can access and trust—not a system that looks strong on paper but leaves victims behind. Victims’ perspectives, including those from marginalized groups, should shape the treaty’s content, particularly with regard to prevention, accountability, and reparations. States should conduct safe consultations with victims on the text—including the definition of victim—and provide procedural accommodations to ensure their meaningful participation throughout the negotiations, implementation and monitoring. The text should define victims to include at least all persons who suffer harm from acts that constitute crimes against humanity in line with international standards and provide for prompt, full, and effective reparations. Embed gender-competence across the convention’s content and process to promote equality and prevent discrimination, such as by ensuring: Gender-inclusive language is used throughout the text of the convention. An approach that is grounded in intersectionality and gender inclusivity guides all sections of the convention, including provisions on definitions, procedure and enforcement. A strong non-discrimination and substantive equality clause and strong provisions for monitoring to promote implementation, progressive interpretation, and compliance are included. In the text, gender is understood in line with current international human rights and criminal law. The negotiations incorporate gender expertise and robust civil society participation, intersessional meetings on gender justice, and gender parity across delegations. See list of signatories

We, the undersigned organizations and individuals, represent civil society organizations, nongovernmental organizations, victim/survivor associations, and academic institutions from around the world. We have technical expertise on the prevention and punishment of crimes against humanity, including their adjudication before national and international courts and tribunals. Many of us have also directly experienced or witnessed the commission of crimes against humanity. We welcome the opening of the Preparatory Committee for the Conference of Plenipotentiaries on the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Crimes against Humanity, a vital step towards closing a long-standing accountability gap in international law.

The Draft Addendum makes welcome contributions to recognizing a fuller scope of conflict-related sexual and gender-based violence (GBV), acknowledging that “conflict-related gender violence is no longer confined to acts purely sexual in nature” and includes many forms, including physical, moral, psychological and transgenerational forms of violence.

We the undersigned 115 reproductive health, rights, and justice organizations are dedicated to the protection and realization of human rights for all people, and we are deeply concerned about the United States Government’s decision to withdraw from the Universal Periodic Review (UPR) process, an unprecedented step that signals a worrying retreat from our human rights obligations and the global mechanisms of accountability.