[Congressional Record Volume 147, Number 75 (Saturday, May 26, 2001)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E996-E997]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




  THE UNITED NATIONS HUMAN RIGHTS COMMISSION: IS IT ANY LONGER WORTH 
                          SEEKING MEMBERSHIP?

                                 ______
                                 

                           HON. DOUG BEREUTER

                              of nebraska

                    in the house of representatives

                          Friday, May 25, 2001

  Mr. BEREUTER. Mr. Speaker, the editorial following from the May 23, 
2001 edition of the Omaha World-Herald raises very important and 
pertinent questions about the relevancy of the United Nations Human 
Rights Commission (UNHCR) upon which the United States recently lost 
its membership. As this member said to U.N. Secretary General Kofi 
Annan yesterday during his meeting with the House Committee on 
International Relations, the UNHCR increasingly seems to have become a 
haven for some countries with the worst human rights records in order 
to ward off criticism and further manned by other countries which are 
all too willing to table the consideration of resolutions concerning 
countries with such human rights records because their less than 
courageous vote may avoid the loss of export markets.
  Mr. Speaker, as this member said to the Secretary General and House 
colleagues perhaps the major emphasis of the Congress and the United 
States is to demand a fundamental re-orientation of the UNHCR and to 
find other

[[Page E997]]

ways to use American resources and clout in the advancement of human 
rights.

                     [From the Omaha World-Herald]

                     U.N. Entity Courts Irrelevance

       It's been interesting to note the reactions of various 
     groups of Americans to a U.N. committee's vote to remove the 
     Untied States from the United Nations Human Rights 
     Commission.
       A writer for the liberal Nation magazine used the incident 
     to go off on a riff about America the Arrogant. ``A little 
     more self-criticism and a lot less self-righteousness would 
     go a long way,'' he wrote in a passage the irony of which is 
     compounded by the fact that U.S. reelection hopes were 
     aborted by such humble, self-effacing nations as France and 
     China.
       Another columnist suggested that maybe America was being 
     punished for its Cold War practice of backing unsavory 
     dictatorships that happened to be anti-communist. If so, that 
     would be a double standard, too, considering what China was 
     up to during some of those same Cold War years.
       The New York Times editorial page said the Bush 
     Administration was caught by surprise, apparently because it 
     thought it had the votes locked up. The Times appropriately 
     recommended that the administration find out who betrayed it. 
     Knowing who broke promises of support may be useful later, 
     the Times suggested.
       The Washington Post, forthrightly torpedoing Sen. John 
     Kerry's approving claim that the action was related to U.S. 
     rejection of the Kyoto Protocols, pointed out that China has 
     been steamed because of American criticism of that country's 
     abysmal human rights record. The Post said the United States 
     was done in by China, Cuba and French diplomats who were 
     trying to curry favor with African dictators. The Arab world 
     also resents the United States for siding with Israel in a 
     number of U.N. confrontations.
       Additional action by the subcommittee a few days ago 
     provided insight into the prevailing thought process. Having 
     denied continued membership to the United States, some 
     members of the voting panel have turned their attention to 
     private organizations that maintain United Nations 
     accreditation to promote human rights. The Washington Times 
     reported that some of these groups are now in danger of 
     losing their credentials.
       They include Freedom House, founded by Eleanor Roosevelt to 
     monitor freedom around the world, and the Simon Wiesenthal 
     Center, which tracks down and exposes perpetrators of the 
     Holocaust who have tried to hide their past.
       The time is ripe, it seems to us, for the little boy to 
     stand up and say that the emperor has no clothes. If the 
     likes of Cuba and China, or haters of Israel, are setting the 
     moral tone in the dealings of this commission, there can be 
     no moral tone to speak of, and serious-minded diplomats lower 
     themselves to take its yammerings seriously.
       Generations of Americans have been raised with the notion 
     that the United States, by failing to get on board the League 
     of Nations in 1920, weakened an institution that might have 
     prevented World War II. Accordingly, active participation in 
     the United Nations, the League's successor, has been regarded 
     a sort of sacred responsibility since 1945, as well it should 
     continue to be.
       And, indeed, the U.N. has done considerable good, with its 
     peacekeeping and relief operations as well as its provision 
     of a forum for talking about things--including human rights--
     that in earlier decades might have ignited conflict.
       However, Americans shouldn't expect that their interests 
     will always coincide with those of the global organization 
     and all its various commissions, agencies and committees. We 
     and our government should be prepared to accommodate 
     divergences, using whatever means are consistent with our 
     national interest and, secondarily, the interests of the 
     world community.
       What happened on the Civil Rights Commission, though, was 
     not a divergence of interests, as that term is commonly used. 
     It was more like a wholehearted plunge into irrelevance. This 
     is not a situation that calls for American self-loathing. 
     Until the people who are driving the commission regain their 
     moral bearings, to heck with them.

     

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