APPENDIX THE WHITE HOUSE, Hon. FRANK CHURCH, Chairman, Committee on Foreign Relations, Washington, D.C., November 30, 1979. DEAR MR. CHAIRMAN: Since I transmitted four human rights treaties for the Senate's consideration in February, 1978, world events like the unfolding tragedy in Kampuchea have underscored their importance. We clearly need to strengthen the international means available for dealing with human rights violations. Each of the treaties I transmitted-the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and the American Convention on Human Rights-will serve that end. I am therefore most pleased that the Committee on Foreign Relations has held hearings, chaired by Senator Pell, to consider these agreements. Promotion of human rights has been a key element of the foreign policy of this Administration, building upon a strong legislative framework developed by the Congress in recent years. Progress has been encouraging in many parts of the world, and the United States has enhanced its international position as a recognized champion of human dignity. Ratification of these treaties will sustain that momentum by opening up new forums for United States human rights efforts. It will also remove a troubling complication from our dipolmacy. Regimes with whom we raise human rights concerns will no longer be able to blunt the force of our approaches or question the seriousness of our commitment by pointing to our failure to ratify. Indeed, there is no single action this government could take that would contribute more to continued success of United States human rights diplomacy than prompt ratification of these treaties. The implementation mechanisms established by the treaties have begun functioning without United States involvement. Through each mechanism, the standards of the treaties are being applied to concrete cases in a process that determines, in large measure, the evolution of the international law of human rights. The United States, until it becomes a party, is unable to participate in this process. Our absence increases the likelihood of interpretations with which we might disagree. More importantly, this nation, with its rich heritage of struggle to realize human rights more fully for all its people and with an unmatched record of accomplishments, has a great deal to contribute to that process of interpretation and application. I welcome the fact that hearings have been held and I urge the Senate's earliest possible advice and consent to ratification of all four treaties. Sincerely, JIMMY CARTER, PREPARED STATEMENT OF EDWARD F. SNYDER ON BEHALF OF THE FRIENDS COMMITTEE ON NATIONAL LEGISLATION, WASHINGTON, D.C. My name is Edward F. Snyder. I submit this statement as Executive Secretary of the Friends Committee on National Legislation, a Quaker group whose policies are made by representatives appointed from twenty-four Friends' Yearly Meetings and twelve other Friends' organizations, but which does not purport to speak for all Friends. We appreciate the opportunity to make this statement for the record on the four treaties under consideration by the Committee: The International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights; The International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination; and The American Convention on Human Rights. Friends have for many years been deeply concerned with the subject of human rights. The Friends Committee on National Legislation has welcomed the actions by which President Carter has made human rights an element of United States foreign policy. He has shown long-awaited leadership in signing the two Covenants implementing the United Nations Declaration on Human Rights and the American Convention on Human Rights, and in submitting them to the Senate, along with the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, for advice and consent. They should be quickly ratified. The treaties under consideration are not a global Bill of Rights. Their implementation is hindered by all the constraints affecting international law. But they are vitally important instruments for setting standards and goals, consciously and with international sanction, for the humane treatment of human beings. This process itself promotes worldwide awareness of our shared humanity, shared needs and aspirations-a consciousness now increasingly crucial, as the means of abusing that shared humanity reach a level of effectiveness which threatens civilization itself. Taking human rights seriously is the first and indispensable step toward building a world of peace and justice. Recent world history has demonstrated the power of the concept of human rights. It has survived the most brutal despotisms and crossed the most tightly guarded frontiers. Governments with little concern for the welfare of their citizens have been called to account for their disregard of internationally accepted patterns of behavior. At a time when this country is being tragically shown the consequences of the anarchy among nations, the tribunal of world opinion may seem a weak tool. But it is well for Americans in particular to respect the historical power of ideas; and we should recall the testimony of prominent dissidents from the Soviet bloc countries and elsewhere, who ascribe their survival to informed and articulate opinion outside their countries. Ratification of the treaties under consideration, and of other documents implementing human rights standards, would ensure United States participation in the review procedures they establish: some of the most important forums for human rights issues. It would also place representatives of this country in a better position to challenge states with questionable records. American delegates abroad have often complained that they are embarrassed and impeded in their work by United States failure to ratify basic human rights documents, and the representatives of our allies have often expressed confusion about our reasons. The United States cannot expect to be taken as seriously as all of us would wish in its efforts on behalf of human rights around the world until it becomes an active participant in the various human rights treaties. Our role as a world leader in this field is too open to misunderstanding and to the charge of hypocrisy while these documents remain unratified by the Senate. Article VII of the Declaration of Principles of the Helsinki Accords, a document signed and frequently cited by the United States, ends as follows: "In the field of human rights and fundamental freedoms, the participating states will act in conformity with the purposes and principles of the Charter of the United Nations and with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. They will also fulfill their obligations as set forth in the international declarations and agreements in this field, including, inter alia, the International Covenants on Human Rights, by which they may be bound." Thus the human rights standards to which we would hold other Helsinki signatories are drawn in large part from the United Nations Covenants. DESCRIPTION AND SPECIFIC RECOMMENDATIONS The two Human Rights Covenants are the implementing documents for the most widely accepted statement of the rights of the individual in the world, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Both the Declaration and the Covenants set forth ideas developed within the Western intellectual and legal tradition, and are consonant with American ideals. The Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, ratified by sixty states, expresses an intent to meet the same fundamental human needs which drew our immigrant populations from their homelands to America. It includes a recognition that the means to these goals are limited. The Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, also ratified by sixty states, is a more definitive statement limiting the power of governments. A Human Rights Committee is established by the Covenant to monitor its implementation. A State Party may make a declaration under Article 41 recognizing the competence of the Committee to consider communications from another State Party (on the basis of reciprocity), to the effect that it is not fulfilling its obligations under the Covenant. We applaud the initiative of the ten countries which have made declarations pursuant to Article 41,1 and comment President Carter's intention to make such a declaration, should the Senate advise and consent to the Treaty. On the other hand, we regret that the United States has not yet signed the optional Protocol to the Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, now ratified or acceded to by twenty-two states.2 Parties to the Protocol recognize the competence of the Human Rights Committee to receive and consider communications from individual victims of human rights violations, after domestic remedies have been exhausted. This provision is even more important than Article 41, as individual complaints are not constrained by foreign policy considerations. The United States should be a participant in such an important implementation measure. The International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, ratified by a hundred and two countries, puts those governments on record as opposing racial discrimination and undertaking policies to eradicate it. Its most important provisions forbid the parties from engaging in or sponsoring racial discrimination; the list or rights contained in Article 5 is designed not to establish the substance of those rights, but to ensure that they are not prejudicially restricted or granted. Article 14 provides for a voluntary declaration recognizing the competence of the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination to consider communications from individuals who have exhaused domestic remedies. We hope that the Senate will advise and consent to such a declaration. The American Convention on Human Rights, ratified by fifteen of the twentyseven members of the Organization of American States, is a vital supplement to the United Nations Covenants, specifically geared to the experience of governments in the Western Hemisphere. It creates certain important mechanisms for implementation. An Inter-American Commission on Human Rights is empowered to hear individual complaints of violations after domestic remedies have been exhausted. In addition, States Parties may recognize, pursuant to Article 45, the right of state-to-state complaint. Again, we commend President Carter's intention to do so. We believe the United States should go further and, pursuant to Article 62, accept unconditionally the jurisdiction of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights. The record of the European Court of Human Rights shows clearly the value of such a body. Finally, we hope that the Senate will not accept the Administration's recommendation that the United States declare that the substantive provisions of the Treaties are "not self-executing." Such a declaration would mock the precept that international human rights agreements are binding. Recognition of that precept is fundamental to the United States position as a leader in human rights matters and to any meaningful progress toward an international order based on the rule of law. Such an emasculating reservation undercuts the entire effort to increase the relevance and importance of international human rights. We believe the two United Nations Human Rights Covenants should be considered and approved as a unit by the Senate. Despite their division they cover one indivisible body of rights, set forth in the Universal Declaration. Traditionally the United States has concentrated on civil and political rights, chiding the Soviet Union and its allies for their treatment of political and religious dissidents. The socialist countries have emphasized economic and social rights, and criticized the United States for its high unemployment and inadequate social services. Individuals, wherever they reside, need the protection of all these rights in order to fulfill their potential on this earth. Ratification of the Covenants is an opportunity for the United States to reaffirm its commitment to political rights, while adopting a strengthened recognition of the importance of social and economic rights, which are the first priority for the majority of the world's people. It is also an opportunity for a new recognition of the interdependence of the rights set forth in these Covenants. Economic rights have been recognized in this country at least since the time of Franklin Roosevelt's "Four Freedoms"-but it was the civil rights movement which established once and for all that formal political rights are not equally enjoyed by those laboring under social and economic handicaps. 1 Austria, Denmark, Finland, Federal Republic of Germany, Italy, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Sweden, United Kingdom. Ratified: Colombia, Costa Rica, Denmark, Ecuador, Finland, Italy, Jamaica, Madagascar, Norway, Panama, Senegal, Sweden, Uruguay, Venezuela. Acceded: Barbados, Canada, Dominican Republic, Iceland, Mauritius, Netherlands, Surinam, Zaire. CASE STUDY: CZECHOSLOVAKIA In 1977 a handful of dissident Czechoslovaks issued-and over two hundred intellectuals, artists, and workers signed a human rights manifesto which became known as Charter 77. It focussed on Czechoslovakia's duties and its citizens' rights under the United Nations Human Rights Covenants, now before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. It has become the basic creed of the democratic movement in Czechoslovakia. That movement, now also known as Charter 77, has continued to use the Covenants as the standard against which to measure and criticize human rights performance in Czechoslovakia. For instance, a comprehensive document on prison practices issued in the fall of 1978 detailed the government's violations of Articles 9 and 10 of the Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. The first recommendation of that document was that the Czechoslovak Code of Criminal Procedure be amended to bring it into line with the Covenant. When 10 members of Charter 77's Committee for the Defense of the Unjustly Persecuted were arrested in June 1979, a group of Chartists who had been forced into exile in Austria submitted letters to Presidents Carter and Brezhnev at the Vienna Summit, urging them to use their influence for clemency, and pointing out that "The accusations of the Czechoslovak authorities are unsubstantiated, against law, and are in violation of both the International Covenants on Human Rights and the Czechoslovak laws." (Human Rights Internet, summer 1979, p. 19.) When six of those ten were convicted and sentenced in October, the response of Great Britain (a State Party to the Covenants) was phrased in similar terms. A bipartisan motion filed by sixty-eight Members of the House of Commons condemned "the indifference of the Czech government to its obligations under Article 14 of the United Nations Covenant on Civil and Political Rights." Czechoslovakia's ratification of the Covenants does not override its sovereign ability to violate the rights of its citizens. But the Covenants have provided a tool with which to keep constant pressure on the regime, to embarrass it, and its Soviet sponsor, and to subject it to the criticism of its free-thinking subjects. THE QUESTION OF UNITED STATES COMPLIANCE While the treaties under consideration represent a codification of Western values which the United States has been a leader in bringing to fruition, it should not be imagined that ratification would be a redundant act with only symbolic meaning. The United States is not now in full compliance with the standards embodied in the treaties. Specific areas of non-compliance have been documented in the recent visit to the United States of an international team of jurists, who reported their findings to the Subcommission on Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights. Further, in hearings on implementation of Basket III of the Helsinki Final Act before the Council on Security and Cooperation in Europe, various witnesses cited examples of United States non-compliance, including: Discrimination against ethnic minorities in employment and educational opportunities and in the administration of justice; Victimization of inmates through excessive incarceration, lack of rehabilitation programs, and inhumane conditions; The persistence of the death penalty; Unequal treatment of women in access to employment and education, and in laws affecting family and marital relationships; Economic, educational, and legal discrimination against Native Americans, and the arbitrary assertion of Federal trusteeship over Indian lands; Surveillance and harassment of political activists by law enforcement agencies; and Arbitrary treatment of aliens in this country temporarily and of those seeking political asylum. Charges such as these will be made whether or not the United States ratifies the Covenants now before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. They will be dealt with in the first instance by application of the United States Constitution and laws made pursuant to it. But United States ratification of the pending Covenants will reinforce efforts to build a more just society in our own country and around the world. The struggle for human rights in an open society such as ours is clearly visible to the world. Rather than making the United States more vulnerable to inter national criticism, ratification of the Treaties would help place our human rights record in its international context. Ratification should be seen as a challenge to recommit our energies to a realization of fundamental human rights for all Americans. Such a challenge ought to be welcomed by a nation which has sought to practice leadership in human rights since its foundation. Hon. FRANK CHURCH, AMERICAN HUNGARIAN FEDERATION, Russell Senate Office Building, Washington, D.C. DEAR SENATOR CHURCH: The American-Hungarian Federation urges the United States Senate to give its advice and consent for ratification of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, the Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and the American Convention on Human Rights. The more than 300 church and civic member organizations, as well as the individual members of the Federation, have a keen interest in the continued development and vigorous promotion of the respect for and observance of fundamental human rights. This developed awareness stems from the deprivations of human and minority rights experienced by Hungarians both within Hungary and its neighboring states such as Rumania, where the government has embarked on a policy of cultural genocide against its 2.5 million Hungarian minority. Hence, the Federation firmly supports that cornerstone of American foreign policy which lances special emphasis on human rights and announces to the world community that our relations with a particular state shall be guided and influenced, in part, by that state's record on human rights. In this regard, the United States is not only a part of the mainstream of global concern for human rights, but is also a leader contributing substantially to the ever increasing body of human rights forms and procedures. If the United States intends to maintain and strengthen its credibility in raising its voice about the observance of human rights law and practices within the international community and if the United States is to continue to provide world leadership in this area, then ratification of the treaties under consideration is essential. By refusing to accede to these treaties, the United States would not only deprive itself of the ability to fully participate in human rights related organizations and pora, but would also curtail its opportunity to effectively exercise its influence to shape the future contours of substantive human rights standards and concomitant procedures. The United States certainly would be ill-advised to relinquish its leadership to states whose policies and practices may be inconsistent with the continued advancement of fundamental human rights and the respect for the dignity of humankind. The Federation's support for the ratification of the treaties in question is only tempered by its concern for the preservation of constitutional guarantees which might clash with certain articles of the treaties. For instance, Article 4 of the Racial Discrimination Convention appears to be in conflict with the constitutional guarantee of freedom of speech. Therefore, the Federation supports the Administration's treaty understandings, reservations or declarations concerning the constitutionally guaranteed rights enjoyed by Americans. In conclusion, the Federation is of the firm belief that the United States would serve its national interest as well as enhance human rights by reaffirming its commitment to human rights by acceding to the treaties. Therefore, the Federation urges the Senate to ratify the treaties promptly. Yours sincerely, DR. LASZLO IRANYI, President. LASZLO PASZTOR, Chairman of the Executive Board, |