[Congressional Record Volume 147, Number 62 (Tuesday, May 8, 2001)]
[House]
[Pages H2023-H2024]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                               AMENDMENTS

  Under clause 8 of rule XVIII, proposed amendments were submitted as 
follows:

                               H.R. 1646

                         Offered By: Mr. Terry

       Amendment No. 1. Page 124, after line 12, add the 
     following:

     SEC. 747. SENSE OF CONGRESS RELATING TO THE REMOVAL OF THE 
                   UNITED STATES FROM THE UNITED NATIONS 
                   COMMISSION ON HUMAN RIGHTS.

       (a) Findings.--Congress finds the following:
       (1) The United Nations Commission on Human Rights, located 
     in Geneva, Switzerland, provides a forum for discussing human 
     rights and expressing international support for improving 
     human rights performance.
       (2) The United States is a founding member of the United 
     Nations and a permanent member of the Security Council of the 
     United Nations.
       (3) The United States has been a member of the United 
     Nations Commission on Human Rights since it was established 
     in 1947 and has used membership on the Commission to 
     internationally condemn countless acts of inhumanity and 
     human rights violations.
       (4) The United States vigorously opposes human rights 
     violations, such as those perpetrated by the People's 
     Republic of China, Cuba, and Sudan, which have violently 
     repressed religious, spiritual, cultural, and political 
     movements and continue to ban, criminalize, and harass groups 
     they label as cults or heretical organizations and detain, 
     incarcerate, and generally violate the human rights of 
     individuals they accuse of being participants in those 
     organizations.
       (5) Nations on the United Nations Commission on Human 
     Rights that violate the

[[Page H2024]]

     human rights of their own citizens are in a position to 
     remove from the Commission nations that are vigilant for 
     violations of human rights and vocal in their opposition to 
     such violations.
       (6) The United States has an essential voice in the global 
     community on issues pertaining to the protection of 
     individual freedoms and human rights, and the United Nations 
     Commission on Human Rights provides a platform from which the 
     United States may advance these issues in the international 
     community.
       (7) The other members of the United Nations Commission on 
     Human Rights voted on May 3, 2001, to not re-elect the United 
     States to the Commission.
       (b) Sense of Congress.--Congress--
       (1) protests the removal of the United States from the 
     United Nations Commission on Human Rights, on which the 
     United States has an international obligation to participate;
       (2) urges the United Nations to redesign the format of the 
     United Nations Commission on Human Rights to include each of 
     the 5 permanent members of the Security Council of the United 
     Nations;
       (3) denounces human rights violations perpetrated by other 
     current members of the United Nations Commission on Human 
     Rights, including the People's Republic of China, Cuba, and 
     Sudan; and
       (4) strongly supports any efforts by the United States 
     Government to rejoin the United Nations Commission on Human 
     Rights and to continue to decry and work to end human rights 
     violations in nations around the world.