Shadow Report to U.N. Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination

The Brennan Center participated in a shadow report to the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, arguing that the United States’ failure to provide a civil right to counsel violates the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination. In March 2008, the Committee agreed, writing that it “notes with concern the disproportionate impact that the lack of a generally recognised right to counsel in civil proceedings has on indigent persons belonging to racial, ethnic and national minorities.”