[Congressional Bills 110th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[S. 1698 Introduced in Senate (IS)]







110th CONGRESS
  1st Session
                                S. 1698

 To provide that no funds appropriated or otherwise made available by 
 any Act for contributions for international organizations may be made 
     available to support the United Nations Human Rights Council.


_______________________________________________________________________


                   IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES

                             June 26, 2007

  Mr. Coleman introduced the following bill; which was read twice and 
             referred to the Committee on Foreign Relations

_______________________________________________________________________

                                 A BILL


 
 To provide that no funds appropriated or otherwise made available by 
 any Act for contributions for international organizations may be made 
     available to support the United Nations Human Rights Council.

    Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the 
United States of America in Congress assembled,

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

    This Act may be cited as the ``The Human Rights Council Funding 
Reform Act of 2007''.

SEC. 2. FINDINGS.

    The Senate makes the following findings:
            (1) The severe loss of credibility of the United Nations 
        Human Rights Commission, whose members have included Libya, 
        Sudan, and Cuba, led United Nations Secretary General Kofi 
        Annan to remark in 2005 that the Human Rights Commission was 
        ``casting a shadow on the reputation of the United Nations 
        system as a whole'' and to call for the creation of a new 
        United Nations human rights institution.
            (2) Calls for the reform of United Nations human rights 
        institutions led to a proposal for a new Human Rights Council 
        to replace the Human Rights Commission, which was adopted by 
        the United Nations General Assembly on March 15, 2006, in 
        General Assembly Resolution 60/251 (2006).
            (3) The United States voted against General Assembly 
        Resolution 60/251 (2006) because the proposed structure of the 
        Human Rights Council did not contain provisions designed to 
        address the fundamental flaws of its predecessor body, such as 
        a requirement that members of the Council be democracies that 
        respect human rights.
            (4) The United States chose not to run in the elections for 
        membership in the Human Rights Council in 2006 and 2007 for 
        fear that the Council would reflect the same patterns as the 
        Human Rights Commission.
            (5) The stated purpose of the Human Rights Council is to 
        objectively and non-selectively promote and protect human 
        rights in the entire world, and therefore in all 192 Member 
        States of the United Nations.
            (6) The Human Rights Council is composed of 47 members, 24 
        of which are considered ``free democracies'' by Freedom House 
        in its 2007 ``Freedom in the World'' report.
            (7) The current members of the Human Rights Council include 
        countries such as Cuba, Angola, Azerbaijan, and Saudi Arabia.
            (8) During the first year of operation of the Human Rights 
        Council, which included 5 regular sessions and 4 special 
        sessions, the only country in the world that was directly 
        condemned as a violator of human rights was Israel.
            (9) In its first year of operation, the Human Rights 
        Council passed only 12 state-specific resolutions: 9 
        resolutions that condemned the Government of Israel, and 3 
        resolutions on Sudan that did not condemn the Government of 
        Sudan.
            (10) Freedom House lists 19 countries in its 2007 ``Freedom 
        in the World'' report as the ``Worst of the Worst'' regimes 
        that violate human rights, yet none of these countries has been 
        the subject of a resolution by the Human Rights Council except 
        for Sudan.
            (11) During its first year, the Human Rights Council held 4 
        special sessions to address the most egregious and urgent human 
        rights issues, with 3 sessions dedicated to Israel and 1 
        session dedicated to Sudan.
            (12) The Human Rights Council special session on Sudan held 
        in December 2006 resulted in the appointment of an assessment 
        mission to Darfur led by Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Jody 
        Williams, and this assessment mission submitted a report 
        (referred to in this resolution as the ``Williams Report'') to 
        the Human Rights Council in March 2007 that concluded that the 
        Government of Sudan was responsible for ``large-scale 
        international crimes in Darfur''.
            (13) The Human Rights Council has not condemned the 
        Government of Sudan in spite of the Williams Report and the 
        numerous reports documenting the human rights violations of the 
        Government of Sudan compiled by the United Nations High 
        Commissioner for Human Rights.
            (14) On June 19, 2007, the Human Rights Council adopted 
        governing rules that further discredit the Council's 
        operations, including--
                    (A) the establishment of only 1 country-specific 
                permanent agenda item for the ``Program of Work'' on 
                ``human rights violations and implications of the 
                Israeli occupation of Palestine and other occupied Arab 
                territories'';
                    (B) the elimination of the mandates of the special 
                investigators for human rights for Cuba and Belarus, 
                despite extensive reporting by these investigators 
                indicating that there are widespread, systematic 
                violations of human rights taking place in both 
                countries; and
                    (C) the adoption of measures that limit the 
                independence of operations of the Office of the United 
                Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights and hinder 
                the ability of independent human rights investigators 
                to report findings on human rights abuses.

SEC. 3. PROHIBITION ON FUNDING FOR THE UNITED NATIONS HUMAN RIGHTS 
              COUNCIL.

    Notwithstanding any other provision of law, no funds appropriated 
or otherwise made available by any Act for contributions for 
international organizations may be made available to support the United 
Nations Human Rights Council.
                                 <all>