Northeastern Law’s Center for Global Law and Justice Contributes to UN Human Rights Review

04.11.2025 – Northeastern University School of Law’s Center for Global Law and Justice (CGLJ) has submitted two stakeholder reports for the upcoming Universal Periodic Review (UPR) of the United States by the United Nations Human Rights Council, set to take place in November. The UPR is a peer-review process through which every UN member state evaluates the human rights practices of fellow nations every 4.5 years.

Under the guidance of Professor Martha Davis, faculty director of CGLJ, third-year student Jennifer Aisha Loveland-Rose ’25 led the preparation of a coalition submission titled “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.

“This process of collaborating on a joint submission was an important exercise in listening and balancing the feedback and goals of a broad coalition,” said Loveland-Rose, who plans to pursue a public interest career in environmental justice law and policy advocacy upon graduation. “It was my hope that the report would highlight a broad range of ways that water and sanitation issues manifest as well as uplift the experiences of a diverse array of communities disproportionately burdened by this injustice due to environmental racism. Our submission is all the more powerful because of its scope, and I am grateful that this coalition of powerful advocates trusted me to frame the report and encapsulate the legacy and context of advocacy in this sphere.”

Contributors to the coalition submission include Sofía Verónica Montez (Project South), Maryum Jordan (EarthRights International), Black Hills Clean Water Alliance, Centreville Citizens for Change, Stephanie R. Amiotte (Oglala Lakota), Michelle Leighton (former director, Labour Migration Branch, ILO), Nadia Ben-Youssef, Maya Finoh and Dominic Renfrey (Center for Constitutional Rights), Makani Themba (Jackson, Mississippi), and members of the Human Rights at Home Litigation Clinic at St. Louis University School of Law. Additional support came from Joy and Jo Banner (The Descendants Project) and Professor Sarah Paoletti (University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School).

In a separate report, Haili S. Nelson ’25 collaborated with the National Homelessness Law Center to co-author a submission titled “Housing Insecurity and the Criminalization of Homelessness.”

The report highlights the growing criminalization of unhoused populations in New York and its incompatibility with international human rights standards, serving as a complementary piece to a separate national submission on the issue across the United States.

“Siya Hegde and the National Homelessness Law Center were powerful collaborators in drafting this joint submission and I learned a lot from this experience,” said Nelson, who will join the New York office of Davis Polk & Wardwell as an associate upon graduation. “Our narrative is rooted in the lived experiences of individuals directly harmed by the criminalization of poverty and homelessness in New York City. In building the report, we emphasized the stories of vulnerable groups across various intersecting identities of race, gender, disability, age and sexual orientation. I am profoundly thankful for the immense trust and faith placed in me by Professor Martha Davis, Siya Hedge and everyone at NHLC and CGLJ as I supported this project,”

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

Both reports will help inform recommendations from other UN Member States during the review process, providing critical input on US performance and progress in upholding its human rights obligations.