cal rights for women is not a proper subject for an international agreement. The Preamble provides that this nation and all others which subscribe to the Charter "reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person, in the equal rights of men and women and of nations. large and small. . . ."-provisions that are carried forward in Articles 1, 55 and 56. To insist that domestic legislation must be the sole guardian of the principle of nondiscrimination between the sexes is to deny that international affirmation of fundamental principles of human rights can have a salutary and indeed legal effect on international relations. Yet the United States did not shy from such an affirmation in adopting the Charter of the U.N. Nor, in ratifying the Supplementary Convention on Slavery in 1967, did the Senate conceive that a multilateral statement of intent to abolish serfdom, debt bondage, and other institutions of slavery through domestic enactment and sanction lacked significance for this country's foreign relations. Rather the Senate saw in that document, as it should perceive in this one, a meaningful statement of a common will to abolish affronts to fundamental human rights wherever they may exist. If a binding expression of our own intent to insure equal political rights lends support to our desire that other governments extend a broad and nondiscriminatory franchise, then clearly an important international interest is served. We conclude that there can be no valid claim that actions taken to promote and expand human rights abroad, which are embraced by the U.N. Charter, transcend the proper scope of the treaty power.

. . The ABA has suggested, as an ancillary point of contention, that a treaty with the force of Federal law governing the rights to vote and to hold public office may infringe on State interests and powers. Former Justice [Arthur] Goldberg responded succinctly that absolutely no prerogative would be lost to the States by such a Federal law. The point was reiterated ... that the U.N. Convention guarantees women an equal right to seek and hold only national office. The OAS Convention similarly speaks only of an equal right to be elected to national office. And the equal right of women to vote is already protected in both Federal and State spheres by the Nineteenth Amendment to the Federal Constitution. Breedlove v. Suttles, 303 U.S. 277, 283 (1937). Any question which might otherwise arise as to whether primary elections are covered by the treaties is rendered moot by the fact that all States allow women to vote in such elections on equal terms with men..

Finally, from the fact that all of the substantive rights guaranteed by the conventions are already accorded women under domestic law, the ABA has extrapolated the argument that further congressional action to reinforce political rights for women would be gratuitous. In fact, the contrary conclusion is as warranted: because ratification of the conventions creates no new rights and requires no public debate, but merely confirms and reaffirms the existence of current political entitlements, this country may lend its support to these international agreements at no domestic cost and for a certain international benefit. . . .

The potential gains from ratification, and the damage to our stature in humanitarian affairs caused by failure to ratify, while not profound, argue not only that these conventions involve a proper international concern, but also that their reaffirmation of a fundamental principle is anything but gratuitous.

Mr. Schwebel also stated that support for ratification was predicated on the understanding, expressed by Eleanor Roosevelt at the United Nations in 1952, that military service was not intended to be comprehended in the term "public office."

The Senate, by a vote of 88-0, approved the two conventions on Jan. 22, 1976. The Foreign Relations Committee Report on the two conventions is S. Ex. Rept. No. 94-20, 94th Cong., 1st Sess., Dec. 18, 1975. The Committee's 1967 hearings on the [U.N.] Convention on Political Rights of Women are found in Hearings, Human Rights Conventions, before a Subcommittee of the Committee on Foreign Relations, U.S. Senate, 90th Cong., 1st Sess., Part 1, Feb. 23 and Mar. 8, 1967, and Part 2, Sept. 13, 1967.

The Inter-American Convention on the Granting of Political Rights to Women, signed May 2, 1948, entered into force Apr. 22, 1949, and was in force for 17 states on Dec. 31, 1975. The [U.N.] Convention on Political Rights of Women, opened for signature on Mar. 31, 1953, entered into force July 7, 1954, and was in force for 81 states on Dec. 31, 1975.

Fair Trial

Charles A. Schmitz, Assistant Legal Adviser for African Affairs, wrote a memorandum dated January 29, 1975, to Arthur W. Hummel, Jr., Ambassador designate to Ethiopia, on the subject of due process for trials of political prisoners by special courtsmartial in Ethiopia. He expressed the United States Government's concern at certain serious defects in the procedural arrangements established by the Ethiopian Provisional Military Council's Proclamations Nos. 7-10 of November 16, 1974. Excerpts from the memorandum follow:

1. The U.S. Government is concerned that any trials be conducted in accordance with principles of procedural fairness and justice recognized both in customary international law and in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Certain important rights provided for in these two sources of international law are not reflected in the Proclamations setting up the courtsmartial. While we appreciate that it might be difficult to reissue the Proclamations we hope that fundamental rights will not be violated in practice during the trials. Our concern stems not only from our humanitarian wish that the principles of the Universal Declaration be realized wherever possible, but also from lan

guage contained in the Foreign Assistance Act of 1974 respecting human rights. . . .

2. The most worrisome provisions are the following: the lack of opportunity of appeal from the trial before the court-martial

; the severe retroactive penalties imposed by the Special Penal Code, and the extreme vagueness with which the retroactive crimes are defined (. . . the retroactivity of the Code is in direct violation of Article 11(2) of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights); the absence of a guarantee of public trial; and the power given to the Courts and the Minister of the Interior to detain persons indefinitely, without charge, on essentially discretionary grounds.

3. Neither the urgency of the present situation in Ethiopia nor military necessity justify the government in abrogating the minimum rights of due process. International law, as codified in the Geneva Convention Relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War of August 12, 1949 (Ethiopia is a party), requires the observance by military tribunals, even in the emergency of wartime, of the following rights of the accused: to be free from retroactive punishment, to be detained only on particular charge, to have (except in extraordinary circumstances) a public trial, and to have a right to appeal. In an internal conflict, prisoners are guaranteed rights of humane treatment and proceedings before a duly constituted court affording all indispensable judicial guarantees; these would include most of the procedural rights listed in the last sentence and omitted in the terms of the Proclamations.

Dept. of State File No. P75 0037-1258.

Arts. 10 and 11 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, included as an attachment to the memorandum, read as follows:

Article 10. Everyone is entitled in full equality to a fair and public hearing by an independent and impartial tribunal, in the determination of his rights and obligations and of any criminal charge against him.

Article 11. (1) Everyone charged with a penal offense has the right to be presumed innocent until proved guilty according to law in a public trial at which he has had all the guarantees necessary for his defense.

(2) No one shall be held guilty of any penal offense on account of any act or omission which did not constitute a penal offense, under national or international law, at the time when it was committed. Nor shall a heavier penalty be imposed than the one that was applicable at the time the penal offense was committed.

Sec. 46 of the Foreign Assistance Act of 1974 (P.L. 93-559; 88 Stat. 1815; approved Dec. 30, 1974) added a new sec. 502B Human Rights (22 U.S.C. 2304) to Ch. 1 of part II of the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961. It reads, in part, as follows:

. . . (a) It is the sense of Congress that, except in extraordinary circumstances, the President shall substantially reduce or terminate security assistance to any government which engages in a consistent pattern of gross violations of internationally recognized human rights, including torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment; prolonged detention without charges; or other flagrant denials of the right to life, liberty, and the security of person.

Treatment of Prisoners; Torture

A Department of State airgram dealing with the protection of United States nationals arrested abroad and deprived of their human rights in host countries was transmitted to United States posts in Latin American countries on February 26, 1975. It urged posts to obtain prompt access in order to safeguard the rights of those detained, provide any appropriate humanitarian assistance, ensure provision of a national's rights, and observe whether he has been mistreated. The airgram enclosed testimony of Frederick Morris, a former missionary of the Methodist Church, before the Subcommittee on International Organizations and Movement of the House Committee on International Affairs on December 11, 1974, reporting mistreatment while imprisoned by Brazilian military police. Mr. Morris stated that the United States consul in Recife, using the terms of the 1963 Vienna Convention on Consular Relations (Article 36), gained access to him on the third day of his imprisonment, thus effectively halting the physical abuse to which he stated he was subjected. Mr. Morris said that a formal protest from the United States Ambassador, alleging treaty violation, resulted in his eventual liberation. He said: ". . . there is no question but that this prompt, vigorous, and public response by the State Department on my behalf was decisive in stopping the torture and in securing my freedom, and such successful action can well serve as a model for other similar cases."

Dept. of State Airgram, A-1285, Feb. 26, 1975.

Secretary of State Kissinger, in an address to the General Assembly of the United Nations on September 22, 1975, stated:

The U.N. Human Rights Commission has taken its first steps against gross violations of human rights where serious and reliable allegations are submitted by individuals. We support these steps. The organized concern of the world community can be a potent weapon in the war against degradation of human values.

One of the most persistent and serious problems is torture, a practice which all nations should abhor. It is an absolute debasement of the function of government when its overwhelming power is used not for people's welfare but as an instrument of their suffering.

The United States urges this Assembly to adopt the declaration of the recent world congress on this issue in Geneva. In addition, we propose that this General Assembly establish a group of experts, to be appointed by the Secretary-General, to study the nature and extent of torture in the world today and to report back to the next Assembly.

See Dept. of State Bulletin, Vol. LXXIII, No. 1894, Oct. 13, 1975, p. 553.

On Dec. 9, 1975, the General Assembly adopted by consensus Res. 3452 (XXX), the operative paragraph of which adopts the Declaration “as a guideline for all states and other entities exercising effective power." The text of the Declaration follows:

Declaration on the Protection of All Persons from being subjected to Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment

Article 1

1. For the purpose of this Declaration, torture means any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted by or at the instigation of a public official on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him or a third person information or confession, punishing him for an act he has committed or is suspected of having committed, or intimidating him or other persons. It does not include pain or suffering arising only from, inherent in or incidental to lawful sanctions to the extent consistent with the Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners.

2. Torture constitutes an aggravated and deliberate form of cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.

Article 2

Any act of torture or other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment is an offense to human dignity and shall be condemned as a denial of the purposes of the Charter of the United Nations and as a violation of human rights and fundamental freedoms proclaimed in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Article 3

No state may permit or tolerate torture or other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. Exceptional circumstances such as a state of war or a threat or war, internal political instability or any other public emergency may not be invoked as a justification of torture or other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.

Article 4

Each state shall, in accordance with the provisions of this Declaration, take effective measures to prevent torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment from being practiced within its jurisdiction.

Article 5

The training of law enforcement personnel and of other public officials who may be responsible for persons deprived of their liberty shall ensure that full account is taken of the prohibition against torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. This prohibition shall also, where appropriate, be included in such general rules or instructions as are issued in regard to the duties and functions of anyone who may be involved in the custody or treatment of such persons.

Article 6

Each state shall keep under systematic review interrogation methods and practices as well as arrangements for the custody and treatment of persons deprived of their liberty in its territory, with a view to preventing any cases of torture or other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.

Article 7

Each state shall ensure that all acts of torture as defined in Article 1 are offenses under its criminal law. The same shall apply in regard to acts which constitute participation in, complicity in, incitement to or an attempt to commit torture.

Article 8

Any person who alleges he has been subjected to torture or other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment by or at the instigation of a