The report documents how several factors, including bureaucracy, opportunism, and lack of leadership and accountability contributed to the human rights crisis that persists in the region. It also faults federal law, especially the Robert T. Stafford Disaster Relief and Emergency Assistance Act, which guides federal disaster response, for failing to guide a robust recovery and rebuilding effort. “In the absence of federal leadership, ad-hoc local efforts have further marginalized those who are least able to bear the costs of reconstruction and relocation,” Cox said. “The Stafford Act must be revised to bring it in line with international law and standards, particularly the U.N. Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement.”
The report makes specific proposals to improve federal response when a significant percent of a population is displaced, and to protect the rights of displaced people to access education, healthcare, housing, food, vocational training, and other public services.
The release of the report coincides with AIUSA’s annual general meeting, All Rights for All People, which this year is being held in New Orleans from April 9 - 11. The conference highlights AIUSA’s new global campaign against human rights abuses that keep people in poverty, Demand Dignity.
For more information on human rights in the Gulf Coast and to read the report, please visit http://www.amnestyusa.org/katrina and http://www.amnestyusa.org/dignity/pdf/Un-Natural_Disaster_report.pdf
Amnesty International is a Nobel Peace Prize-winning grassroots activist organization with more than 2.2 million supporters, activists and volunteers in more than 150 countries campaigning for human rights worldwide. The organization investigates and exposes abuses, educates and mobilizes the public, and works to protect people wherever justice, freedom, truth and dignity are denied
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Grace Chang, 909-706-5147, gchang@rabengroup.com
Gwen Fitzgerald, 240-462-9076, gfitzgerald@aiusa.org
Alicia Soto
Media Relations Intern
Amnesty International USA
Washington, DC 20003