[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 35, Number 49 (Monday, December 13, 1999)]
[Pages 2526-2527]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
Proclamation 7258--Human Rights Day, Bill of Rights Day, and Human 
Rights Week, 1999

December 6, 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 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

[[Page 2527]]

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.
                                            William J. Clinton

[Filed with the Office of the Federal Register, 8:45 a.m., December 8, 
1999]

Note: This proclamation was published in the Federal Register on 
December 9.