[Federal Register Volume 64, Number 236 (Thursday, December 9, 1999)]
[Presidential Documents]
[Pages 69161-69162]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 99-32133]



[[Page 69159]]

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Part VI





The President





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Proclamation 7258--Human Rights Day, Bill of Rights Day, and Human 
Rights Week, 1999



Proclamation 7259--National Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day, 1999
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  Federal Register / Vol. 64, No. 236 / Thursday, December 9, 1999 / 
Presidential Documents  

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 Title 3--
 The President

[[Page 69161]]

                Proclamation 7258 of December 6, 1999

                
Human Rights Day, Bill of Rights Day, and Human 
                Rights Week, 1999

                By the President of the United States of America

                A Proclamation

                President Carter once said, ``America did not invent 
                human rights. In a very real sense, it's the other way 
                around. Human rights invented America.'' Human rights 
                have been an integral part of America's history since 
                the birth of our Nation more than two centuries ago. 
                Refusing to accept tyranny and oppression, our founders 
                secured a better way of life with our Constitution and 
                Bill of Rights. These revolutionary documents have 
                continued to protect our cherished freedoms of 
                religion, speech, press, and assembly and to preserve 
                the principles of equality, liberty, and justice that 
                lie at the heart of our national identity.

                As Americans, we have always strived to advance these 
                rights and values both at home and abroad, and just as 
                our founders sought a brighter future for our Nation, 
                we envision a better future for our world. One of our 
                most powerful tools in realizing that vision has been 
                the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which the 
                United Nations General Assembly approved in December of 
                1948. It is not surprising that this document, which 
                owed so much to the courage, imagination, and 
                leadership of Eleanor Roosevelt, reaffirms in tone, 
                thought, and language our own great charters of 
                freedom. To honor Mrs. Roosevelt's legacy, and to 
                acknowledge those who follow her example of commitment 
                to human rights around the world, last year we 
                established the Eleanor Roosevelt Award for Human 
                Rights.

                In the 51 years since the adoption of the Universal 
                Declaration, the United Nations has developed numerous 
                legal instruments that specify the rights and 
                obligations contained in the document, and the 
                international community has made encouraging progress 
                toward improving human rights for people of all 
                nations. Today, more individuals than ever before are 
                living in representative democracies where they can 
                exercise their right to freely choose their own 
                government. The international community responded 
                vigorously to halt ethnic cleansing in Kosovo and is 
                helping the people of East Timor not only to achieve 
                legal recognition of their independence but also to 
                develop the institutions they need to thrive as an 
                independent and secure state. But despite this 
                heartening progress, there are still many regions of 
                the world where human rights are daily denied and 
                aspirations to freedom routinely crushed. Our work is 
                still far from complete.

                Rising to these challenges, we in the United States 
                have strengthened our commitment to improving 
                international human rights. To enable the world 
                community to react more quickly to genocidal 
                conditions, we have established a genocide early 
                warning system. We continue to fund nongovernmental 
                organizations that respond rapidly to human rights 
                emergencies. And we have created an interagency working 
                group to help implement the human rights treaties we 
                have already ratified and to make recommendations on 
                treaties we have yet to ratify.

                We also continue to be a world leader in the fight to 
                eliminate exploitative and abusive child labor. Last 
                week, I signed the instrument of ratification of the 
                International Labor Organization's Convention on the 
                Elimination of the Worst Forms of Child Labor, 
                declaring on behalf of the American

[[Page 69162]]

                people that we simply will not tolerate child slavery, 
                the sale or trafficking of children, child prostitution 
                or pornography, forced or compulsory child labor, and 
                hazardous work that harms the health, safety, and 
                morals of children. Through these and other 
                initiatives, America continues to reaffirm both at home 
                and across the globe our fundamental belief in human 
                dignity and our unchanging reverence for human rights.

                NOW, THEREFORE, I, WILLIAM J. CLINTON, President of the 
                United States of America, by virtue of the authority 
                vested in me by the Constitution and laws of the United 
                States, do hereby proclaim December 10, 1999, as Human 
                Rights Day; December 15, 1999, as Bill of Rights Day; 
                and the week beginning December 10, 1999, as Human 
                Rights Week. I call upon the people of the United 
                States to celebrate these observances with appropriate 
                activities, ceremonies, and programs that demonstrate 
                our national commitment to the Bill of Rights, the 
                Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and promotion 
                and protection of human rights for all people.

                IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this 
                sixth day of December, in the year of our Lord nineteen 
                hundred and ninety-nine, and of the Independence of the 
                United States of America the two hundred and twenty-
                fourth.

                    (Presidential Sig.)

[FR Doc. 99-32133
Filed 12-8-99; 8:45 am]
Billing code 3195-01-P