The Helsinki Commission has not yet responded to Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton's (D-D.C.) request for a trial on District voting rights, according to the commission's spokesman.
Norton sent a letter to members of the Helsinki Commission April 11 in response to the Organization of American States (OAS) Inter-American Commission on Human Rights finding that D.C. residents are being denied their human rights because they do not have congressional voting rights.
The Helsinki Commission is an independent government body formed in 1976 to mandate or monitor human rights in countries that have signed the Helsinki Act. It is co-chaired by Congressman Chris Smith (R-N.J.) and Sen. Ben Nighthorse Campbell (R-Colo.).
The commission watches over 55 countries, including the United States, but it usually does not handle domestic issues.
"Our primary coverage has been human rights in places like Central Asia, where there are numerous civil rights violations," said Helsinki Commission spokesman Ben Anderson.
Anderson said the usual cases have been in places like Croatia and Belarus, and deal with situations such as a journalist's mysterious murder in Ukraine.
Norton is hopeful that the council will have a hearing on the city's behalf and possibly move the District closer to equal representation.
"If they rule in our favor it'll just be another decision in our favor, and as the nation learns more what is going on here it will change the minds of members of Congress, and they will create voting rights for D.C.," Norton's Communications Director Doxie McCoy said.
Norton's request asked that the U.S. government insist on democracy and equal representation in its own country as well as abroad.
"Consistent with your hearings on violations in other countries, we ask you to hold a hearing considering the OAS Human Rights Commission ruling and to provide a recommendation concerning this violation in our own country," Norton wrote in her letter to the commission.
