international human rights – dwkcommentaries

U.S. Non-Profit Reports that U.S. Mistreats Migrants at U.S. Base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba

The International Refugee Assistance Project, a non-profit based in New York City, states the following as its Mission: “IRAP is a global legal aid and advocacy organization working to create a world where refugees and all people seeking safety are empowered to claim their right to freedom of movement and a path to lasting refuge. Everyone should have a safe place to live and a safe way to get there.”

On September 19, the Project reported that the U.S. Government has a “practice of interdicting refugee families at sea and detaining them indefinitely in inhumane and unlawful conditions at the Guantánamo Bay naval base in Cuba.”[1]

Executive Summary of the Report[2]

“For decades, the United States has detained refugees encountered at sea in a littleknown facility, the Migrant Operations Center (the “GMOC”), in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. In this new report, the International Refugee Assistance Project (IRAP) chronicles the journey of these refugees, who are detained indefnitely in prison-like conditions without access to the outside world and trapped in a punitive system operated by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and of State (DOS), the International Organization for Migration ((ICM), and other private contractors, with little transparency or accountability.”

“Former IRAP clients, other detained refugees, and former staff at the GMOC desFriEe the dilapidated building with mold and sewage issues, where families with young children are housed alongside single adults. They are denied confidential phone calls, even with their attorneys, and punished if they dare share accounts of mistreatment. Refugees are regularly confined to their rooms for weeks at a time. And although the GMOC detains traumatized children, there are no educational services or pediatric psychiatric care provided to them.”

“These refugees are forced to endure this treatment until a third country agrees to accept them for resettlement, even if they have family in the United States. And the process can take years unless they “choose” to return to the persecution they fled. “

“IRAP calls for swift action to ensure an end to the systematic human rights violations taking place at the GMOC. Specifcally:

“The U.S. government should shut down the GMOC and discontinue its use as a longterm detention center for refugees.”
‘DHS should afford asylum seekers encuntered at sea and on land the same due same due process protections historically associated with territorial asylum.”
“DHS should parole all refugees currently incarcerated at the GMOC into the United States and provide the same option to those incarcerated there in recent years.”
“Congress and agency oversight bodies should investigate rampant human rights abuses at the GMOC.”
“IOM should cease involvement with the GMOC and end its migrant detention operations worldwide.”

“As Alberto Corzo, a formerly detained refugee, said: ‘Te hacen sentir que migrar es un delito. They make you feel as though to migrate is a crime.’ The U.S. government cannot continue to hide its diversion and mistreatment of would-be asylum seekers by exiling them to Guantánamo Bay, out of reach of their families, advocates, and the public consciousness.”

=======================

[1] International ‘Refugee Assistnace Project, New Report Exposes Cruelty of Secretive U.S. Detention of Refugee Families at Guantanamo Bay (Sept. 19, 2024); International Refugee Assistance Project, Report: Offshoring Human Rights: detention of Refugees at Guantanamo Bay(Sept. 19, 2024); Blaines, Report: Migrants held in Guantanamo Bay face difficult living conditions. U.S. denies it, Miami Herald (Sept. 21, 2024).

[2] International Refugee Assistance Project, Executive Summary of the Report (Sept. 19, 2024).

Latest U.S. Report on International Human Rights

On April 22, 2024, the U.S. State Department released its 2023 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices.[1]

Below are its Preface and Executive Summary about Cuban human rights.

Preface

The Report’s Preface by Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, stated the following:

“As mandated by Congress, every year since 1977, the State Department’s dedicated public servants in U.S. missions abroad and in Washington scrupulously examine, track, and document the state of human rights in nearly 200 countries and territories around the world. In compiling these “Country Reports on Human Rights Practices,” commonly known as the Human Rights Report (HRR), we have drawn from a variety of credible, fact-based sources, including reporting from government agencies, nongovernmental organizations, and media. The HRR helps connect U.S. diplomatic and foreign assistance efforts to the fundamental American value of protecting and promoting respect for human rights for all, while helping to inform the work of civil society, human rights defenders, scholars, multilateral institutions, and others.”

“The President’s Summit for Democracy underscores the United States’ commitment to advancing respect for human rights, and to the promotion of democracy as the most effective system of government to secure them. We are pleased the third Summit for Democracy took place this year under the Republic of Korea’s leadership. Through the Summits for Democracy, the United States and other participating governments, along with partners from civil society, youth, and other stakeholders, seek to cement progress in human rights, foster democratic reforms, expand space for independent media, advance women’s rights, combat corruption, and make technology work for democracies and their people, not misused by malign actors as a tool of repression.”

“The year covered by this HRR coincided with the 75th anniversary of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR). In commemoration of the anniversary, the United States made several new commitments, including to renew investments around the world in democracy and human rights, to help protect human rights defenders online, and to advance racial and gender justice in the United States.”

“In the words of Eleanor Roosevelt, one of the authors of the UDHR, ‘The destiny of human rights is in the hands of all our citizens in all our communities.’ We hope that this Report proves a useful contribution to that shared global effort, by chronicling both sobering developments in specific countries, as well as evidence of progress.”

“The Kremlin’s disregard and contempt for human rights are on full display in its war against Ukraine. Russian forces employ violence against civilians as a deliberate tool of warfare. The Report highlights documentation of human rights violations and abuses – some amounting to crimes against humanity – throughout the second year of Russia’s brutal, full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Civilians, including Ukrainian children, have suffered egregious abuses by Russian forces and other Russian officials. Tens of thousands of Ukrainian children have been transferred within Russia-occupied parts of Ukraine and/or deported to Russia, in many cases taken from their parents or lawful guardians and forced to take Russian names and citizenship. Russia is cracking down on its own citizens, bringing spurious criminal charges against hundreds of Russians who have spoken against Putin’s war of aggression.”

“Across Sudan, the Sudanese Armed Forces and Rapid Support Forces have unleashed horrific violence, death, and destruction, including mass killings, unjust detentions, rape, and other forms of gender-based violence. In December, I determined that members of both forces engaged in war crimes, and that members of the Rapid Support Forces and allied militia engaged in crimes against humanity and ethnic cleansing. Elsewhere in Africa, Uganda’s government took aim at the human rights of all Ugandans, enacting a broad, draconian anti-LGBTQI+ legislation, including the death penalty for ‘serial offenders.’”

“The conflict between Israel and Hamas in Gaza continues to raise deeply troubling concerns for human rights. Hamas’ brutal terrorist attacks on October 7 killed around 1,200 people, took approximately 230 Israeli and foreign hostages, and included appalling abuses, including gender-based violence and sexual violence. As Israel exercises its right to self-defense, we have made clear that it must conduct military operations in accordance with international law and take every feasible precaution to protect civilians. We continue to urgently raise concerns surrounding the deaths of and injuries to tens of thousands of Palestinian civilians in Gaza, including women, children, persons with disabilities, and other vulnerable persons. We repeatedly have pressed concerns about Palestinian civilians’ access to humanitarian assistance, displacement of the majority of the population of Gaza, and the unprecedented number of journalists killed. We have repeatedly condemned Hamas’ abhorrent misuse of civilians and civilian infrastructure as human shields and its continued refusal to release all hostages. We also continue to condemn the record levels of violence in the West Bank, including attacks by violent extremist settlers against Palestinian civilians.”

“The Report illuminates the ongoing and brutal human rights abuses in Iran, where the regime’s violent repression of its citizens occurs at home and even abroad, including through acts of transnational repression targeting the regime’s perceived dissidents and critics. Iranian women and members of marginalized communities continue to suffer disproportionately from the regime’s human rights violations and abuses. Once detained, many prisoners have been harshly punished and even executed for spurious or unjust reasons.”

“The Report illustrates the Taliban’s systemic mistreatment of and discrimination against Afghanistan’s women and girls. The Taliban have issued over 50 decrees and edicts that effectively erase women from public life. Credible sources cited in the Report describe how the military regime in Burma continues to use brutal violence against the general population to consolidate its control, killing more than 4,000 people and detaining more than 25,000.”

“The Report documents ongoing grave human rights abuses in the People’s Republic of China (PRC). For example, in Xinjiang, the PRC continues to carry out genocide, crimes against humanity, forced labor, and other human rights violations against predominantly Muslim Uyghurs and members of other ethnic and religious minority groups.”

“In Cuba, more than 1,000 political prisoners are reportedly unjustly detained and subjected to harsh treatment; their family members are targets of threats as well. In Nicaragua, the Ortega-Murillo regime closed more than 300 civil society organizations in 2023, bringing the number of shuttered organizations to more than 3,500. The regime also stripped more than 300 individuals of their citizenship and is holding more than 100 political prisoners in appalling conditions.” (Emphasis added.)

“Yet, encouraging developments also can be found in this Report. For example, although members of marginalized and minority communities continued to suffer disproportionately from human rights violations and abuses in 2023, several countries made important progress. Kenya affirmed that freedom of expression and of assembly extend to LGBTQI+ persons. Japan enacted a bill to promote understanding of LGBTQI+ issues. LGBTQI+ persons in Estonia and Slovenia now benefit from legislation recognizing marriage equality.”

“To advance the rights and freedoms of persons with disabilities, the Ministry of Education in Jordan appointed 600 individuals to implement inclusive education programming across the country to ensure children with disabilities could attend school and have the necessary support to enable their learning.”

“The Report also notes advances in implementing labor reforms in Mexico, where workers are overcoming obstacles to organizing and starting to improve working conditions. As I noted when I helped launch the Biden-Harris Administration’s Global Labor Directive at APEC in San Francisco, advancing labor rights globally boosts American workers and bolsters middle class aspirations here at home.”

“This Report could not have been compiled without the selfless work of human rights defenders, independent journalists, and other civil society leaders whose daily work to advance human rights is an inspiration to us all. I hope that the honest and public assessments of human rights abuses, as well as the reports of progress, reflected in these pages gives strength to these brave individuals across the globe who often put their lives at risk to improve conditions in their own countries, and, ultimately, make the world a freer, safer place for us all.”

Executive Summary about Cuba. [2]

“There were no significant changes in the human rights situation in Cuba during the year.”

“Significant human rights issues included credible reports of: arbitrary or unlawful killings, including extrajudicial killings; torture and cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment by the government; harsh and life-threatening prison conditions; arbitrary arrest and detention; serious problems with the independence of the judiciary; political prisoners; transnational repression against individuals in another country; arbitrary or unlawful interference with privacy; punishment of family members for alleged offenses by a relative; serious restrictions on freedom of expression and media freedom, including violence or threats of violence against journalists, unjustified arrests or prosecutions of journalists, censorship, and enforcement or threat to enforce criminal libel laws to limit expression; serious restrictions on internet freedom; substantial interference with the freedom of peaceful assembly and freedom of association, including overly restrictive laws on the organization, funding, or operation of nongovernmental and civil society organizations; restrictions of religious freedom; restrictions on freedom of movement and residence within the country and on the right to leave the country; inability of citizens to change their government peacefully through free and fair elections; serious and unreasonable restrictions on political participation; serious government corruption; extensive gender-based violence, including femicide and other forms of such violence; trafficking in persons, including a policy or pattern of state-sponsored forced labor; and prohibiting independent trade unions and significant and systematic restrictions on workers’ freedom of association.””

“The government did not take significant steps to identify and punish officials who may have committed human rights abuses.”

==========================

[1] U.S. State Dep’t, 2023 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices (Apeil 22, 2024).

[2] U.S. State Dep’t, 2023 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices: Cuba (April 22, 2024); The US State Department has ‘credible reports’ on arbitrary executions and torture in Cuba, Diario de Cuba April 22, 2024).

U.S. Report on Latest Session of U.N. Human Rights Council

The U.S. State Department on October 17 delivered its report on the just-concluded 54^th session of the U.N. Human Rights Council.[1] Here are the highlights of that report:

“Establishing an investigative mandate in Sudan . . . [The U.S.] was a member of the core group that established an international fact-finding mission to investigate human rights violations and abuses in Sudan. . . as reports of atrocities and other abuses continue, such as conflict-related sexual violence, ethnically motivated killings, and burning of villages in Darfur and elsewhere.”

Renewing the mandate of the Special Rapporteur on the human rights situation in the Russian Federation . . . [The U.S. co-sponsored this renewal as] Moscow’s campaign has worsened life for Russia’s citizens and made it dangerous for civil society organizations, media, and other independent voices to provide information or express dissent. Russia continues to hold hundreds of political prisoners, including many sentenced for their criticism of Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine. Impunity for human rights abuses in the North Caucasus region, including enforced disappearances and extrajudicial killings, also remains an urgent concern.”

“Renewing the mandate of the Special Rapporteur on the human rights situation in Afghanistan . . . [The U.S. co-sponsored this renewal] as the Taliban continues to target women and girls, government critics, former officials, and human rights activists through detentions, physical abuse, intimidation, and killings.”

“Advancing Gender Equality. . .[as the U.S.] reaffirmed its support for eliminating discriminatory laws and practices against women and girls in all their diversity, advanced the right to the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health, and underscored the importance of the right of everyone to education. We co-sponsored and helped defend resolutions that advance gender equality, including Preventing Maternal Mortality and Morbidity and Girls Education. The United States helped defeat a slate of hostile amendments seeking to weaken inclusive gender language from these and other resolutions.”

“Supporting Racial Equity and Justice . . . [the U.S.] demonstrated its deep commitment to addressing the challenges of systemic racism both at home and abroad, . . .[by joining] consensus on the renewal of the Mandate of the Working Group of Experts on People of African Descent, [and by co-sponsoring] the resolution entitled Human Rights and Indigenous Peoples, which laid the foundation for enhancing the participation of Indigenous Peoples in the work of the Council.”

“Other Priorities: . . .[The U.S.] co-sponsored resolutions to continue reporting on Burundi and provide assistance to Somalia in the field of human rights . . . [and by joining] consensus on resolutions providing human rights assistance in Cambodia, Yemen, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and the Central African Republic; [and by co-sponsoring] thematic resolutions on such topics including enforced or involuntary disappearances; centrality of care and support from a human rights perspective; the promotion of truth, justice, reparation, and guarantees of non-reoccurrence; the human rights of older persons; the World Programme for Human Rights Education; and the International Year of the Family.”

“Joint Statements: . . . [The U.S. led joint statements on [a] the heightened risks associated with surveillance technologies, including commercial spyware, and the importance of safeguards and responsible practices in the development and use of these tools to protect human rights and fundamental freedoms and [b] safeguarding the human rights of women and girls across the Americas.”. . .[In addition, the U.S.] joined joint statements on Syria, Sri Lanka, Ukraine, Ethiopia, the situation in Nagorno-Karabakh, President Nelson Mandela’s Commitment to the UDHR and VDPA, sexism in sport, antisemitism in sport, rights of intersex persons, the rights of LGBTQI+ persons, reprisals, social reintegration of prisoners, and enhancing access to assistive technologies for older persons, and vaccination, immunization, and the right to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of health.”

“Side Events: [The U.S. co-sponsored events] … on combatting antisemitism, … the Holocaust, and on human rights in Russia, Yemen, and Ukraine.”

=====================

[1] U.S. Dep’t State, Outcomes of the 54^th Session of the UN Human Rights Council (Oct. 17, 2023).

Is Trump Administration Attempting To Redefine International Human Rights?

Since the end of World War II, treaties and international institutions have defined and developed international human rights and institutions, as discussed in previous posts. [1]

Commission on Unalienable Rights [2]

Now with little fanfare the U.S. State Department recently announced the establishment of the Commission on Unalienable Rights. Here are the key provisions of its Charter:

The Commission will provide the Secretary of State with “informed advice and recommendations concerning international human rights matters . . . [and] fresh thinking about human rights and . . . reforms of human rights discourse where it has departed from our nation’s founding principles of natural law and natural rights.” (Para. 3) (emphasis added).
The Commission’s advice and recommendations will help “guide U.S. diplomatic and foreign policy decisions and actions with respect to human rights in international settings . . . [and] recover that which is enduring for the maintenance of free and open societies.” (Para. 4) (emphasis added).

The Commission will be composed of “no more than fifteen members who have distinguished backgrounds in international law, human rights, and religious liberties.” Its membership “will be a bipartisan, diverse group of men and women.”

The phrase “unalienable rights,” of course, comes from the second paragraph of the U.S. Declaration of Independence of July 4, 1776: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these, are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” (Emphasis added.)

At first glance this may sound like an unobjectionable reference to an important document and concept of U.S. history. But it may be much more than that. It may be an attempt by the Trump Administration to redefine international human rights, as suggested by Eric Posner, Professor at the University of Chicago Law School.

Reactions of Professor Eric Posner [3]

Posner so far has been the only one to have noticed this Commission. He says “the significance of . . . [this Commission] should not be overlooked. It puts the government’s imprimatur on an assault upon one of the cornerstones of modern liberalism: international human rights.”

This conclusion, Posner argues, follows from the Commission’s name, implicitly emphasizing that these rights are endowed ‘by their Creator” and come from “natural law” and “natural rights.” This interpretation, he claims, also is suggested by the Charter’s reference to “discourse,” implying that contemporary human rights is merely talk, not law. In short, this Charter is conservatives’ “declaration of intent. Its plainly stated goal is not just to wipe away the baleful foreign influence of human rights ‘discourse’ but to revive [conservative] 18th-century natural law.”

In Posner’s opinion, the reference to natural law is an indirect endorsement of contemporary Roman “Catholic conservative intellectuals, who kept alive the academic tradition of natural law long after mainstream secular intellectuals forgot what it was —[and, therefore,] . . . goodbye to reproductive rights and protections for sexual minorities.” Posner also claims that Robert George, a prominent Catholic intellectual, natural-law theorist, and opponent of abortion rights and same-sex marriage, played a role in the creation of the Commission. In other words, this new commission will provide “the ideological justification for the anti-abortion foreign policy that the Trump administration has undertaken”

Natural law, says Posner, can also be used by conservatives to argue for “expanded religious freedoms that override statutes with secular goals, and to push back against progressive government programs like universal health care. The ‘right to health,’ a centerpiece of ‘human rights law,’ is firmly rejected by natural-law theorists like George.

“But the mission of the commission may be even bolder,” in Posner’s opinion. ”If we take the idea of natural law seriously, it not only overrides statutes in foreign countries that protect abortion rights and respect same-sex marriage. It also overrides American laws that protect abortion rights and respect same-sex marriage. One can imagine a day when a Supreme Court justice, taking a page from [former Supreme Court Justice Anthony] Kennedy, invokes natural law — supposedly endorsed by the founders, after all, and embodied in the sacred Declaration — to vote to overturn Roe v. Wade and to prepare the path for an even holier grail, the abolition of state laws that grant abortion rights.”

“Liberals hoped that human rights, sanctified by the sacrifices of the victims of totalitarianism, would provide common ground in a world of competing ideologies. But what human rights actually helped produce was a liberal international order that has offended a great many people who do not share liberal values. The backlash began years ago in authoritarian countries, in developing countries that saw human rights as an affront to their traditions and as a mask for imperialist goals, and in highly religious countries. These countries advanced interpretations of human rights law that conform with their values or interests but made little headway against dominant elite opinion. What is new is that the government of the world’s most powerful nation [the U.S.], long acknowledged (if grudgingly) as the leader of the international human rights regime, has officially signed on to that backlash.”

Presumably this Posner argument is expanded in his recent book, The Twilight of Human Rights Law.[4]

Conclusion

Although noted author and commentator George Will is not a fan of President Trump, he probably is sympathetic to the recent trumpeting of “ unalienable rights” and “natural law” and “natural rights.” In the “Introduction” to his new book, The Conservative Sensibility, Will says “We [conservatives] seek to conserve the American Founding” with a “clear mission: It is to conserve, by articulating and demonstrating the continuing pertinence of, the Founders’ thinking.” Indeed, “Americans codified their Founding doctrines as a natural rights republic in an exceptional Constitution, one that does not say what government must do for them but what government may not do for them.”

Therefore, according to Mr.Will, “The doctrine of natural rights is the most solid foundation—perhaps the only firm foundation—for the idea of the political equality of all self-directing individuals..”

In retrospect, perhaps the Trump Administration has been dropping hints that something like the Commission might be coming by the State Department’s using the phrase “unalienable rights” in various statements and documents.[5]

Although this blogger has no objection to contemporary references to the language of our Declaration of Independence, he does object to the notion that this new Commission is an underhanded way to implement current political preferences of this Administration. Moreover, this blogger suggests that it is too simplistic to use notions of natural law to preempt the decisions on the previously mentioned contemporary issues.

After all, natural rights and human rights treaties can be seen as compatible allies, just as English and American common law are compatible with their respective statutes. Such multilateral treaties with provisions for implementation and amendment are drafted by committees and individual nation states are not bound by the treaties unless and until they ratify the treaties. Similarly domestic statues in the U.S. and U.K. are prepared and adopted by legislatures, often as a result of common law developments, and always are subject to subsequent amendment.

===========================================

[1] See posts listed in the following: List of Posts to dwkcommentaries—Topical: Law (INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL COURT); List of Posts to dwkcommentaries—Topical: Law (REFUGEE & ASYLUM); List of Posts to dwkcommentaries—Topical: Law (TREATIES); List of Posts to dwkcommentaries—Topical: Law: U.S. (ALIEN TORT STATUTE); List of Posts to dwkcommentaries—Topical: Law U.S. (TORTURE VICTIMS PROTECTION ACT).

[2] State Dep’t, Notice: Department of State Commission on Unalienable Rights, 84 Fed. Reg. 25109 (May 30, 2019); State Dep’t, Charter: Commission on Unalienable Rights (created: May 10, 2019); State Dep’t, Membership Balance Plan: Commission on Unalienable Rights (created: May 10, 2019).

[3] Posner, The administration’s plan to redefine ‘human rights’ along conservative lines, Wash. Post (June 14, 2019).

[4] Posner, The Twilight of Human Rights Law (Oxford Univ. Press, 2014-).

[5] State Dep’t, Secretary Tillerson’s Testimony before Senate Appropriations Committee (June 13, 2017) (“Our mission is at all times guided by our longstanding values of freedom, democracy, individual liberty, and human dignity. The conviction of our country’s founders is enduring: that all men are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights.” (Emphasis added); State Dep’t, [Secretary Tillerson’s] Remarks With Secretary General of the Community of Democracies Thomas Garrett (Sept. 17, 2017) (“In our Declaration of Independence, our founders boldly stated that all are endowed by their creator with the unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” (Emphasis added); State Dep’t, [Secretary Tillerson’s] Remarks at the “Conversation on the Value of Respect” Event (Jan. 12, 2018) (“It was the Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson who wrote that we are all endowed with certain unalienable rights – life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness”); State Dep’t, Remarks on the Release of the 2017 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices (April 20, 2018) (these annual reports “are a natural outgrowth of our values as Americans. The founding documents of our country speak to unalienable rights, fundamental freedoms, and the rule of law – revolutionary concepts at the time of our founding that are now woven into the fabric of America and its interests both at home and abroad”); State Dep’t, The State Department Role in Countering Violent Extremism (May 30, 2018) (“America is committed to individual rights, and we recognize the inherent worth and dignity of every human being. We are all, in the words of the Declaration of Independence, endowed by our Creator with certain unalienable rights, including life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness”); State Dep’t, 2018 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices (Mar. 13, 2019) ((Secretary Pompeo’s Preface :”The United States was founded on the premise that all persons “are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness. Our Constitution secures these unalienable rights . . . in the First [and Fifth] amendments.” ((emphasis added); State Dep’t, Secretary of State Michael R. Pompeo At the Celebration of Israel’s 71^st Independence Day (May 22, 2019) (both the Israel Declaration of Independence of 1948 and the U.S. Declaration of Independence of 1776 “speak of central ideas that are ‘self-evident’ – In the American case, it’s the truth that men are created equal and have rights that are unalienable”) (Emphasis added).

Why I Do Not Hope To Die at 75

Under the provocative title, “Why I Hope To Die at 75,” the 57-year-old Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, the director of the Clinical Bioethics Department at the U.S. National Institutes of Health and head of the Department of Medical Ethics & Health Policy at the University of Pennsylvania, sets forth in The Atlantic Magazine what he claims to be his firm conclusion that he hopes to die in 18 years at age 75.

As a 75 year-old-man who was graduated from high school in 1957, the year Emanuel was born, I do not hope to die in the remaining months before I turn 76 or at any other set time.

Let us explore the reasons for these different conclusions.

Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel’s Reasons

According to Dr. Emmanuel, “[L]iving too long is . . . a loss. It renders many of us, if not disabled, then faltering and declining, a state that may not be worse than death but is nonetheless deprived. It robs us of our creativity and ability to contribute to work, society, the world. It transforms how people experience us, relate to us, and, most important, remember us. We are no longer remembered as vibrant and engaged but as feeble, ineffectual, even pathetic.” He then backs up this opinion with what he asserts as facts:

“We [in the U.S.] are growing old [in terms of increased life expectancy], and our older years are not of high quality.” Studies show, he says, that “increases in longevity seem to have been accompanied by increases in disability.” Another study found an “increase in the absolute number of years lost to disability [including mental disabilities like depression and dementia] as life expectancy rises.”[1]
Another medical researcher said, “health care hasn’t slowed the aging process so much as it has slowed the dying process.”
“[O]ur mental functioning deteriorates as we grow older: mental-processing speed, working and long-term memory, problem-solving and creativity.”
The “most dreadful of all possibilities: living with dementia and other acquired mental disabilities” while our society is expected to experience a “tsunami of dementia.”
As we age, we “accommodate our physical and mental limitations. Our expectations shrink. . . . [W]e choose ever more restricted activities and projects, to ensure we can fulfill them.”

He recognizes that “there is more to life than youthful passions focused on career and creating. There is [mentoring and] posterity: children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren.”

But these benefits of aging are outweighed for him by “the very real and oppressive financial and caregiving burdens” often imposed on other family members and by the psychological burdens on children unable to escape from the shadows of living parents.

Although Emanuel does not embrace euthanasia or suicide for himself, he has executed “a do-not-resuscitate order and a complete advance directive indicating no ventilators, dialysis, surgery, antibiotics, or any other medication. . . . In short, no life-sustaining interventions.” In addition, if and when he reaches age 75, he will seek to avoid any visit to a doctor and any regular preventive tests, screenings, or interventions. He says he “will accept only palliative—not curative—treatments if he is suffering pain or other disability.”

A desire to die at age 75, he says, “forces us to think about the end of our lives and engage with the deepest existential questions and ponder what we want to leave our children and grandchildren, our community, our fellow Americans, our world.”

He concludes with this caveat. “I retain the right to change my mind and offer a vigorous defense of living as long as possible. That, after all, would mean still being creative after 75.”

Responses to Emmanuel’s Reasons

I agree with Emmanuel that as we age we lose some of our physical and mental abilities and that executing a complete advance medical directive forbidding extreme life-sustaining interventions, as he and I have done, is a reasonable thing to do.

Otherwise I vigorously disagree with Emmanuel’s conclusion that a desire to die at age 75 is a reasonable conclusion and reject his argument that what others think of us or how they may remember us after we are gone is relevant to this issue. Apparently creativity is a central virtue for him, and its predictable decline as we age appear to be the major motivation for his stated desire to die at 75. Yes, creativity is important for many of us, but it is not the only virtue.

I also wonder why he does not contemplate retirement from actively working for a living as another stage of life with certain benefits. Nor does he really grapple with the facts, he briefly concedes, that many older people are happy with new interests like “bird watching, bicycle riding, pottery, and the like” and that “there is more to life than youthful passions focused on career and creating. There is posterity: children, grand children and great-grandchildren.” He also glosses over the fact that his own father (Dr. Benjamin M. Emmanuel), now about 87 years old, had a heart attack 10 years ago and since then has slowed down appreciably, but still says he is happy.

My Reasons for Not Wanting To Die at 75

At age 62 with some trepidation, I retired from the active practice of law. I wanted to escape the pressure of being a litigator who oftentimes was forced to be in professional relationships with opposing counsel who were disagreeable people. This produced stress that I wanted to eliminate as life-threatening. I also wanted to create time to do other things beside working while I was still in good health: travel, spend time with my grandchildren, learn new things and write. After my first 10 years of retirement I assessed my retirement and concluded that these years had been productive and enjoyable. That confirmed for me the wisdom of retiring when I did. These conclusions have been reconfirmed by my subsequent three additional years of retirement.

In this period I became actively involved in my church’s global partnerships and made three mission trips to Cuba and one to Cameroon and in the process made new international friends and learned a lot about the two countries. My involvement with Cuba prompted me to become an advocate for changing U.S. policies regarding the island. I could not have done this while still practicing law.

I also have reflected on my own life and affirmatively set about determining the many people and activities for which I was grateful. Yes, this could have been done while still working, but the pressures of working, I believe, would have meant postponing such reflections to another day that would never have come. This process of reflection, aided by worship at Minneapolis’ Westminster Presbyterian Church, has also enabled me to see certain of my activities as vocations in the Christian sense.

One of my activities in this first phase of retirement was being a part-time Adjunct Professor at the University of Minnesota Law School to co-teach international human rights law. In the process I learned a lot about this field of law and enjoyed interacting with law professors and students. I could not have done this while still practicing law.

At the end of 2010 I retired from law teaching in order to create time for sharing things I already had written and for research and writing on new topics that came along. In the spring of 2011 this desire lead to my creating and writing this blog. It is exciting to come across new things, like Emmanuel’s article that prompted this post. I frequently find that such things immediately start my composing an article in my head. Often this triggers a desire to do research, frequently using “Google” searches, but sometimes going to a library or sources of original documents. I enjoy this kind of puzzle and challenge as well as the writing.

In my retirement I also have thought about mortality, especially as friends, acquaintances and others my age die. But such thoughts are not depressing, but rather reminders that I too am mortal. Therefore, try to make the most of each day you have.

I do not worry about when I will die or wish that I will die at a particular age. Nor do I worry about what happens to me after death even though Christianity has a promise of eternal life.

Be happy! Enjoy life! Love one another!

This point was raised in an article entitled “Too Young to Die, Too Old to Worry” by Jason Karlawish, a professor of medicine, just after the publication of the Emmanuel essay, but without citation to same. Karlawish said, “Age seems to be a blunt criterion to decide when to stop” and “we desire not simply to pursue life, but happiness, and . . . medicine is important, but it’s not the only means to this happiness.”

Here are some of my blog posts that relate to the previous statement of reasons why I do not desire to die at 75.

Post #	Date	Title
19	04/22/11	Retiring from Lawyering
21	04/23/11	My First Ten Years of Retirement
226	03/15/12	Gratitude I
242	04/11/12	Gratitude II
243	04/13/12	Gratitude III
276	06/13/12	Gratitude Revisited
221	03/08/12	Intimations of Mortality
489	04/08/14	Mortality
492	04/11/14	Death Certificates’ Documentation of Mortality
466	02/06/14	My General Thoughts on Vocation
475	02/23/14	My Vocations

[1] Emmanuel makes no reference to the immediately preceding article in the magazine by Greg Easterbrook, What Happens When We All Live to 100?, The Atlantic at 61 (Oct. 2014) that discusses research into further increases in vibrant life span.