Northeastern University School of Law’s Center for Global Law and Justice (CGLJ) submitted two stakeholder reports for the Universal Periodic Review (UPR) of the United States by the UN Human Rights Council, which will take place in November. The UPR is a peer-review process through which each UN member state evaluates the human rights practices of fellow nations every 4.5 years.

Under the guidance of Professor Martha Davis, faculty co-director of CGLJ, Jennifer Loveland-Rose ’25 led the preparation of a coalition submission, Drinking Water and Sanitation Justice: Advancing the Human Right to Water and the Recognition of Water Injustices as Manifestations of Environmental Racism. The report addresses systemic inequities in water access and quality, drawing on the experiences of impacted communities and the expertise of a broad coalition of advocates and scholars.

In a separate report, Haili Nelson ’25 collaborated with the National Homelessness Law Center to co-author a submission, Housing Insecurity and the Criminalization of Homelessness, that highlights New York’s growing criminalization of unhoused populations and its incompatibility with international human rights standards. The report serves as a complementary piece to a separate national submission on the issue across the United States.

“The issues we’ve weighed in on for this UPR — homelessness and water/environmental justice — reflect our focus on economic, social and cultural human rights,” said Davis, an internationally recognized expert on water and human rights. “We are proud to support students in engaging directly with international mechanisms to advocate for structural change in these areas.”

 

“The issues we’ve weighed in on for this UPR — homelessness and water/environmental justice — reflect our focus on economic, social and cultural human rights.

— Professor Martha Davis