tional human rights law in the American justice system. The gathering drew an overflow crowd of lawyers and community activists from 30 states. Workshops featured practicing lawyers, judges and organizers from the U.S., Britain and South Africa.

"Our goal," announced Ann Beeson, associate legal director of the national ACLU and the conference organizer, "is nothing less than to forge a new era of social justice where the principles of the United Nation's Universal Declaration of Human Rights are recognized and enforced in the United States."

Expanding this movement is crucial now to stem the backlash against rights in the name of national security. A global human rights framework holds the U.S. government accountable for its actions abroad as well as at home. For example, in October 2003, the ACLU and other groups filed a Freedom of Information Act request demanding government documents in response to reports that it is intentionally sending detainees to countries known to engage in torture and other illegal interrogation techniques. If successful, this action will help us determine whether the U.S. has violated the Convention Against Torture, one of the few human rights treaties that the U.S. has actually signed and ratificd.

A global lens can also illuminate the ripple effect that rights violations in the U.S. have in other countries. The USA PATRIOT Act, now being challenged from across the political spectrum, has already spawned copycat

An ACLU Report

"PATRIOT Acts" throughout the free and notso-free world that in many cases are even less respectful of human rights than the homegrown law.

In addition, a human rights framework is motivating a new generation of activists because it integrates a wide range of related rights issues - such as poverty, discrimination, immigration and workers' rights - and fosters closer collaboration between lawyers, grassroots organizers and educators.

Finally, putting the "human" back into "human rights" extends protections to every human being. The concept sounds simple but is increasingly ignored by our own government. In the name of "national security," the U.S. has begun to detain a growing number of people in legal limbo in Guantanamo and elsewhere, arguing that they have no rights under our Constitution and no enforceable rights under international humanitarian or human rights laws. Framing rights in terms of human rights stops this legal shell game.

After leading efforts to internationalize protections for human rights, the United States has spent the last several decades exempting itself from a growing body of international human rights conventions. Especially given the current climate for rights protections within the United States, it is vital that civil rights and human rights activists in the U.S. come together to fight this growing exceptionalism. As the nation's premier civil liberties organization, the ACLU is perfectly positioned to take a leading role in this movement.