[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 154 (2008), Part 16]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page 22514]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




          REAFFIRMING THE STIMSON DOCTRINE OF NON-RECOGNITION

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                          HON. ALCEE HASTINGS

                               of florida

                    in the house of representatives

                      Thursday, September 25, 2008

  Mr. HASTINGS of Florida. Madam Speaker, I rise today to introduce a 
joint resolution regarding the Stimson Doctrine of Non-Recognition, 
which was a policy adopted in the 1930s, stating that the United States 
government will not recognize territorial changes brought about by 
force alone. The Stimson Doctrine became the foundation for sections of 
the U.N. Charter dealing with the inviolability of recognized borders 
and territorial integrity.
  This principled policy was perhaps, most famously, applied to the 
three Baltic republics that were forcibly incorporated into the Soviet 
Union in 1940. Throughout the Cold War the United States never 
recognized this violent and illegitimate incorporation.
  Following the collapse of the Soviet empire, many had hoped that a 
non-recognition policy would become a dated relic of a bygone era. 
Sadly, recent events have exposed the naivete of this view and I 
strongly believe that the Stimson Doctrine should be reaffirmed and 
reapplied and continue to be a fundamental principle of our foreign 
policy.
  As noted Russian scholar Paul Goble recently wrote in an article 
entitled, ``It's Time for a new Non-Recognition Policy'' and I quote,

       That does not mean that we must counter any such action 
     militarily or refuse to have anything to do with the 
     aggressor--until 1991, after all, we had an embassy in the 
     capital of the Soviet Union even though we did not recognize 
     the USSR's right to control the Baltic countries--but it does 
     mean that we must never recognize such actions as somehow 
     legitimate, a step that would open the floodgates of 
     aggression not only in Eurasia but around the world.
       Sometimes we cannot do more, but as the great Russian 
     memoirist Nadezhda Mandelstam reminded us, we can never 
     afford to do less.

  Madam Speaker, I urge all of my colleagues to join me in supporting 
the bedrock principle of respect for territorial integrity and 
sovereignty and support this measure.

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