[Congressional Bills 111th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H.R. 2376 Introduced in House (IH)]

111th CONGRESS
  1st Session
                                H. R. 2376

To withhold United States funding from the United Nations Human Rights 
                                Council.


_______________________________________________________________________


                    IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                              May 12, 2009

 Mr. Stearns introduced the following bill; which was referred to the 
                      Committee on Foreign Affairs

_______________________________________________________________________

                                 A BILL


 
To withhold United States funding from 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. FINDINGS.

    (a) Findings.--Congress finds the following:
            (1) The United Nations Human Rights Council fails to 
        adequately reform the United Nations Commission on Human 
        Rights, thus preventing the Council from becoming an effective 
        monitor of human rights throughout the world.
            (2) The United Nations Commission on Human Rights was 
        created in 1946 to monitor and prevent the abuse of human 
        rights throughout the world. It failed miserably to uphold even 
        the most basic ideals enumerated in the United Nations Charter 
        and the Universal Declaration on Human Rights. It lost its 
        credibility as an instrument for the promotion and protection 
        of human rights and instead allowed repressive regimes to 
        shield themselves from criticism for their human rights 
        violations.
            (3) The membership of the United Nations Commission on 
        Human Rights constituted some of the worst abusers of human 
        rights in the world, including the tyrannies of Cuba, Sudan, 
        Libya, Belarus, the People's Republic of China, and Zimbabwe.
            (4) The United Nations Commission on Human Rights failed to 
        act or speak out against numerous cases of egregious human 
        rights abuses, including the countless atrocities committed by 
        communist regimes, the genocide in Rwanda in 1994, and the 
        ongoing genocide in Darfur caused by the Government of Sudan.
            (5) The United Nations Commission on Human Rights failed to 
        condemn countries that sponsor terrorism (a glaring affront to 
        human rights), including Iran, Syria, and North Korea.
            (6) The United Nations Commission on Human Rights had 
        repeatedly vilified Israel, the only democracy in the Middle 
        East, while overlooking horrific human rights abuses throughout 
        the Middle East. A recent study found that 30 percent of all 
        country-specific resolutions of the Commission critical of 
        human rights have been directed at Israel, but none against 
        persistent violators like China, Myanmar, Syria, or Zimbabwe.
            (7) Former United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan 
        repeatedly emphasized that meaningful reform of the United 
        Nations Commission on Human Rights is a key element for making 
        the United Nations more accountable, effective, and efficient, 
        and that ``the Commission's declining credibility has cast a 
        shadow on the reputation of the United Nations system''.
            (8) The creation of the United Nations Human Rights Council 
        on March 15, 2006, failed to address the serious shortcomings 
        of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights and fell far 
        short of creating the small standing body composed of 
        appropriate countries that was initially envisioned by Former 
        Secretary General Annan, in his March 2005 report, ``In Larger 
        Freedom: Towards Development, Security and Human Rights For 
        All''.
            (9) The United Nations Human Rights Council succeeds only 
        in making superficial changes to the structure of the United 
        Nations Commission on Human Rights, masquerading motion as 
        reform and placebo as treatment.
            (10) The United Nations Human Rights Council does not 
        embody the recommended institutional reforms necessary to 
        advance human rights.
            (11) The United Nations Human Rights Council cannot monitor 
        cases of human rights abuse throughout the world, nor even 
        prevent egregious human rights violators from being elected to 
        the council itself. The only supposed protection--that a 
        country can be suspended if two-thirds of the members of the 
        General Assembly agree to do so--is useless, since less than 
        half of the General Assembly could agree that Sudan was guilty 
        of any human rights violations.
            (12) The United Nations Human Rights Council only reduces 
        the number of seats on the council to 47 from 53, which is not 
        enough to make the Council more efficient or more effective.
            (13) The United Nations Human Rights Council also retains 
        geographical quotas that will only ensure that human rights 
        abusers will continue to have access to membership on the 
        council. Indeed, Israel, a constant target of United Nations 
        ire, had been discriminated against by being denied full 
        participatory rights in regional group meetings associated with 
        the operation of the United Nations Human Rights Commission, 
        while nonmembers of the United Nations, such as the Holy See 
        and the Palestinian observer, participated in such meetings. 
        The geographic quota system ensures a majority of membership 
        slots for the world's least democratic regions.
            (14) The United States, while voting against the resolution 
        creating the United Nations Human Rights Council, was unable to 
        ensure that the Council would be structured to best promote and 
        protect human rights around the globe.
            (15) If the United States, working with other like-minded 
        countries, is not able to adequately reform the corrupt United 
        Nations Human Rights Council, then the chances for the United 
        States and other like-minded countries to effect the broader 
        changes to the United Nations that are desired and needed to 
        make the institution more effective are much reduced.
            (16) The first group of Member States elected to the new 
        United Nations Human Rights Council includes nine countries 
        that the democracy watchdog Freedom House designates as ``not 
        free'', including the People's Republic of China, Cuba, Saudi 
        Arabia, Russia, Pakistan, Tunisia, Algeria, Cameroon, and 
        Azerbaijan.

SEC. 2. SENSE OF CONGRESS.

    It is the sense of Congress that--
            (1) the United Nations Human Rights Council--
                    (A) should be a body that upholds the ideals 
                enumerated in the United Nations Charter and the 
                Universal Declaration on Human Rights;
                    (B) should allow full participation by Israel in 
                all operations associated with the Council; and
                    (C) should be made up of countries that hold 
                regular, competitive, and democratic elections, allow 
                for freedom of expression, and have a credible civil 
                society; and
            (2) the United States should not support the United Nations 
        Human Rights Council, and should withhold any financial support 
        for the Council until meaningful reforms related to the 
        responsibilities of the United Nations for the protection of 
        human rights are carried out.

SEC. 3. WITHHOLDING FUNDING FOR THE UNITED NATIONS HUMAN RIGHTS 
              COUNCIL.

    (a) In General.--The Secretary of State shall withhold from a 
United States contribution to a regularly assessed biennial budget of 
the United Nations an amount that is equal to the percentage of such 
contribution that the Secretary determines would be allocated by the 
United Nations to support the United Nations Human Rights Council.
    (b) Effective Date.--Subsection (a) shall take effect and apply 
beginning on October 1, 2009, with respect to annual dues paid by the 
United States to the United Nations each fiscal year in connection with 
United States contributions to the regularly assessed biennial budgets 
of the United Nations.
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