UPDATED!!! PLEASE tweet this guy! Might I suggest creating #WhatAboutUs?! https://www.taxjustice.net/2017/12/08/human-rights-costs-proposed-u-s-tax-cuts/!
In light of the complete failure of the United States government to provide tax compliance relief for the eight to nine million deemed American citizens living outside US borders, creators of the United Nations Human Rights Complaint against United States CBT, FATCA and FBAR are actively soliciting additional signatures to the document. Signatures are kept confidential and will be disclosed only to the UN Human Rights Council. They will never be seen by the United States government.
Please email calgaryfouroneone@gmail.com with your request to view the document prior to signing it. You will be sent a link and a password. PLEASE NOTE!!! Once you’ve requested the link to the document and the password, your name will NOT be added unless you email “Calgary” AGAIN with your permission AFTER you’ve read the Complaint.
The Complaint was filed on August 7, 2014 and is still awaiting assessment for acceptance into the complaints process. We are working to find someone with knowledge of the UN bureaucracy who is sympathetic to our cause and can help to draw the UN’s attention to our issues.
Our “domestic avenues” have been exhausted. We must seek justice on the international stage.
Deadline to add your signature is December 12, 2017!!
“Signatures are kept confidential and will be disclosed only to the UN Human Rights Council. They will never be seen by the United States government.”
The United States government will see my signature.
Signed!
Please re-visit this video if incentive is needed for more of us to sign the UN Human Rights Complaint…
One other possible angle of attack at the UN: the US just withdrew from the Global Compact on Migration drafting process, meaning they lose their influence over what goes into the final compact.
http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/363014-us-pulls-out-of-global-compact-on-migration
https://www.state.gov/secretary/remarks/2017/12/276190.htm (in case you can’t read it, archived link: https://web.archive.org/web/20171203190051/https://www.state.gov/secretary/remarks/2017/12/276190.htm – looks like US government websites are getting a lot more aggressive about blocking VPNs and tor these days)
Information about the compact itself:
http://refugeesmigrants.un.org/migration-compact
In the past, all of these migrants’ rights initiatives have been focused on treatment of migrants by destination countries. Perhaps we all can write to our respective foreign ministries requesting some provisions about treatment of migrants by origin countries. E.g. condemn origin country policies, such as in the field of taxation or military conscription of long-term non-residents, which prevent migrants and their children from integrating into their countries of settlement or participating fully and equally in society and the economy, and discourage or prohibit destination country cooperation with such policies.
Of course, such provisions wouldn’t bind the US (since they refuse to be a member of the compact), but it would be a nice statement of principles held by the rest of the world ex-US and Eritrea.
Great suggestion, Eric!
I suppose only US cits can sign?
Jane – Those who have renounced, as well as NRA spouses of US citizens are victims – not only US citizens. So, yes, non-citizens who have been impacted can sign.
Rand Paul’s repeal FATCA amendment was added to the Manager’s Amendment prior to the HR1 vote. The Manager’s Amendment passed, with Paul’s amendment included #1632. Here is the list of the amendments included in the MA:
https://www.congress.gov/amendment/115th-congress/senate-amendment/1618
Click on #1623 to read the text.
James,
Not all of those amendments were approved. If you click on the “Amendments to this Amendment” tab, in the left margin under “Status of Amendment” you’ll see that only three of these were actually agreed to: 1852, 1855, 1856. Unfortunately, amendment 1623 was submitted, but not proposed or approved. (confusing, isn’t it?)
Karen – “amendment 1623 was submitted, but not proposed or approved.”
Does anyone know why it was not proposed?
https://www.congress.gov/amendment/115th-congress/senate-amendment/1623/text
Which I take to mean it was submitted and promptly binned.
I hazard a guess that the amendment process is just an opportunity for senators to submit stuff they’ve promised, so they can deliver (the concessions promised in order to lock down the required number of votes) or say they tried (all the rest).
“amendment 1623 was submitted, but not proposed or approved.” ……. which would seem to mean that either they ran out of time to consider our issues (not important enough!) or they were DELIBERATELY removed from consideration.
Most of the amendments were not considered. The Repeal FATCA amendment appears to have been treated in exactly the same way as most of the others: submitted but not considered.
@Calgary411
Who is the gentleman in the Youtube video? He calls himself Jude R.
Marie,
You will find more in this Brock post — Jus de Fruit on American Expatriates FB.
http://isaacbrocksociety.ca/2017/07/11/refreshing-sophieintveld-calls-eu-answer-to-plight-of-accidentalamericans-bullshit/
Shouldn’t the 2014 complaint be updated to include the legislative and judicial efforts that have been made on our behalf since? It needs to be stressed that the damage is ongoing and there is no injunctive or suspensive relief in sight (cf Bopp case) to halt the damage whilst we present and litigate our case. Relief could be years or decades away. The notion that there is no way to halt the damage while we are being heard is synonymous to me with “denial of justice” or “denial of due process”.
This having been said, I think that 3 years with no UN action means that the effort is stalled and even 100 more signatures will not help. We have to get those receiving the complaint to understand that the US is a prison camp that nobody can leave without figuratively getting their bodily members caught up in the rusty barbed-wire fence; that our countries of residence (and often primary and dominant nationality) are –through fear and/or cowardice– participating quislings in the oppression of us, and that the issue must thus be addressed by a super-national entity such as the UN.
I would recommend that we encourage Brockers and all others in the movement to make their own separate complaints, perhaps mentioning that they are aware of the 2014 complaint. The complaints should be from the perspective of each individual in their own country, highlighting the discrimination that they have faced, the actions that they have had to take, the damages that they have suffered, and the future discrimination and damages that they expect to affect themselves and others.
Individuals who do not want to use their real name in their individual complaint could file using a pseudonym and do so without jeopardizing any of the other fully-nominative complaints. To my mind, using a pseudonym is not fully “anonymous” — especially in the sense that a pseudonym email account would allow the UN to communicate with the complainant.
It would make sense that each person who does not want to file using their real identity and contact details argue in their complaint document as to why they are remaining behind a pseudonym (fear of persecution by banks, fear of reprisals in the homeland, fear of some terror organization targeting them for their American connections, etc). The complaint should be sent simultaneously by email and by post with or without return address depending upon the individual’s preference of fully-nominative or pseudonym. The paper version sent by post should contain a page with a password list in case the complainant’s email address is blocked later on and they have to create a new one. Such a password list should be –for obvious reasons– absent in the copy sent by email.
May I ask that the representatives of the UN Complaint team (Calgary, Muzzled) who participate here at Brock critique the above recommendation using their experience with the complaint process thus far, and that we try to reach a consensus on a recommendation that we could subsequently broadcast in a new post here at IBS, at ADCT, and on all of the FB groups.
Which one of the below pages and contacts (CP or petitions) is correct? Which one did the 2014 complaint use?
http://www.ohchr.org/EN/HRBodies/HRC/ComplaintProcedure/Pages
/HRCComplaintProcedureIndex.aspx
Complaint Procedure Unit
Human Rights Council Branch
Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights
United Nations Office at Geneva
CH-1211 Geneva 10, Switzerland
Fax: (41 22) 917 90
E-mail: CP@ohchr.org
———————————————————————————————————————-
http://www.ohchr.org/EN/HRBodies/TBPetitions/Pages/IndividualCommunications.aspx
Mail
Petitions and Inquiries Section
Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights
United Nations Office at Geneva
1211 Geneva 10, Switzerland
Fax + 41 22 917 90 22
(particularly for urgent matters)
Email petitions[at]ohchr.org
Calgary411 and/or MuzzledNoMore – there’s a question over in one of the FB groups that others may have:
Jefferson:
Thank you for your valuable input. The Complaint itself cannot, to my knowledge, be updated. However, a “Support Document” with a covering letter “updating” the situation has been sent to the address below at the UN every year since the Complaint was submitted. In light of the tax reform that promised to include our issues, a letter and Support Document were NOT sent on August 7, 2017. I decided, on consultation with others, to wait until the reforms were in place (or not). Now the result is clear. It is exactly the kind of update you are describing which will be sent along with the new collection of signatures, to the UN later this month. But the Complaint itself, by necessity, needs to stand as it was submitted.
Of course, anyone who wishes to file their own Complaint is absolutely welcome to do so, but be prepared to wait six months before receipt of your Complaint is even acknowledged, and then be prepared to wait three years for it to come before the committee that decides whether the Human Rights Council is going to admit your Complaint into the process. We’re four months past three years which is why we all need to be having this welcome discussion. But, sure, maybe if the UN was inundated with a whole pile of other complaints on the same issue they might sit up and take notice. It’s certainly fine by me! Great idea!
What’s important is that we take this fight international! The US and all the countries we live in have screwed us over. You’re absolutely right when you say that “the issue must thus be addressed by a super-national entity such as the UN.” We don’t have any other choice now.
UN rules require Complaints to be filed by people using their real names. Of course, how are they to know if you aren’t. I’m just reporting what the UN stipulates.
I’ve also been asked to make it clear to everyone that while I have had, and continue to have, enormous help from people such as Calgary on every aspect of this effort, and desire greatly to give all these people the credit due them, the Complaint is entirely my responsibility. If there are problems with it I urge you to direct them solely to me. I initiated the Complaint, I wrote the first draft, I coordinated the editing group and afterwards I worked daily with LM, the Complaint’s final editor until it obtained its final form. Calgary’s role is strictly to assist with communications and she has done a fabulous job.
In short, if their are problems with the Complaint it’s my fault. I will post the update letter here when it is completed.
Below is the link to information about the UN Complaints Procedure, the address to which we sent the Complaint in 2014 and the address as it appears currently in the Complaints Procedure. The addresses are the same with a slight difference in wording of the names of the office to which the Complaint should be sent.
http://www.ohchr.org/EN/HRBodies/HRC/ComplaintProcedure/Pages/HRCComplaintProcedureIndex.aspx
Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights
Human Rights Council Branch-Complaint Procedure Unit
OHCHR- Palais Wilson
United Nations Office at Geneva
CH-1211 Geneva 10, Switzerland
Fax: (+41 22) 917 90 11
E-mail: CP@ohchr.org
Website: http://www.ohchr.org/EN/HRBodies/HRC/Pages/HRCIndex.aspx
Current address on the Complaints form:
Complaint Procedure Unit
Human Rights Council Branch
Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights
United Nations Office at Geneva
CH-1211 Geneva 10, Switzerland
Fax: (41 22) 917 90 11
E-mail: CP@ohchr.org
Thanks, Jefferson D Tomas, for your suggestions. If anyone does want to submit their own experiences to the UN Human Rights Council (as above), it would, of course, underline what we are trying to convey as a whole community to this international organization.
I appreciate, MNM, your description of our roles with this effort. I stepped forward to be a *go-between* because there, at the time, was no other that came forward to do that. My name was *out there* when I decided to come forward for an interview with CBC, those many years ago.
Jefferson and others — MNM (with LM’s help with the document submitted) has and continues to do the hard work in authoring the original Complaint and the updates sent each year, including what will be the next one. None of that recognition belongs to me, a go-between then and now with those who want to read the document to make their decision on whether or not to sign, as well as using my personal contact information on the submission and correspondence to the UN.
My thanks to MuzzledNoMore and my special thanks to all who have requested, read and given consent to add their names, their countries as Signators!
This is (or should be) another avenue we have — and we HAVE to exhaust each opportunity to stop the unjust consequences of extra-territorial US-deemed, however the US defines, US citizenship for those of us who have chosen to live in other countries, have been born to US parent(s) abroad or born in the US and returned as children to their parents’ country — US-deemed USC even if without *requisite mental capacity* and without our consent at age of consent (and full knowledge of all benefits / consequences).
Karen: I neglected to address your question about parents signing on behalf of minors. I would encourage the parents to sign on their own account but I am not so sure if minors should be involved at all. Although perhaps they could sign as follows (example): “John Doe & Jane Doe, on behalf of themselves and 3 minor children[unnamed]”. I would appreciate input from others on this, particularly anyone in the legal profession.
Calgary: thank you for your comment!
Thanks, MuzzledNoMore – I’ve passed that on to the original questioner on FB.
You all are doing a great job but facts are why UN would look into a tax matter problem dealing with citizens of a particular country. Every country has a right to write its own tax laws and this is what the US will say to UN if it even tries to say anything to US(which we all know it won’t ). Try contacting your congressman or try doing something else. I am also a US expat facing no bank account for US citizens problem but writing to UN is fruitless endeavor. Try tweeting the motherland’s beloved leader Trump to shelve this Obama law just like he wants to gut every law passed by his predecessor. Maybe he would listen to this but I doubt he would too as being out of motherland we don’t count as a force. All the Jim Bopp, Senator Rand Paul’s countless tries over the last six to seven years to get this law repealed has only made this law more stronger than before as countries after countries are bowing to the will of US govt. We have to realise one important fact that we are the citizens of the world’s powerful govt since the Roman Empire. The sooner we renounce the sooner we would be a lot happier. I should have realised this fact a long time ago as Patricia Moon the founder of this block realized. To renounce and to rejoice is the only way unfortunately.
Requested, read and signed!
Great job on the content and wording! Thank you to all involved in creating this document.
@Harrison: If the UN denounces Eritrea for basically the same thing, it would be hypocritical of them not to give the US at least a slap on the wrist when it comes to this complaint. Just some small acknowledgement on the international stage might be the impetus needed for change. Also, if I am no longer a US citizen, but still face banking discrimination based on my birthplace, which senator should I contact? You say to try doing “something else”, but what then? A UN complaint is as good an alternative as any because any attention paid to our plight only can help our cause.