U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE

Office of the Under Secretary for Global Affairs

Testimony at a hearing entitled
"UN Human Rights Commission"
Before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee
International Operations and Terrorism Subcommittee
Paula Dobriansky, Under Secretary for Global Affairs
Washington, D.C.
May 24, 2001

Mr. Chairman, Members of the Foreign Relations Committee:

It is an honor to be here to discuss the Bush Administration's democracy promotion and human rights policy and the importance of maintaining our leadership in this field. This is my first chance to address this committee since I became the Under Secretary of State for Global Affairs. I look forward to future discussions with you on these important issues. My purpose today is to highlight the Bush Administration's commitment to democracy and human rights promotion, and the policies we intend to pursue in support of them.

U.S. commitment to human rights dates from the Declaration of Independence and our nation's founding. This reflects our nation's values and our deeply rooted belief in the importance of developing and maintaining democratic governments, subject to the rule of law, that respect and protect individual liberty. At the same time, the defense of human rights clearly serves our national interest.

As the history of the past century has shown, the strongest, most stable, tolerant, and prosperous countries are precisely those which respect universal human rights. For that reason, we have long made the promotion of human rights a focus of our foreign policy and our foreign assistance programs.

Since the end of the Second World War, the United States has been without equal in articulating a vision of international human rights and having the grit to carry it out. Whether crafting the United Nations Charter and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, championing freedom and democracy throughout the Cold War, insisting on human rights in the Helsinki Final Act, compiling the Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for the past 25 years, or helping establish the Community of Democracies in Warsaw last year, the United States has been the country that has set the agenda and has done the heavy lifting. Throughout these years, our message has not wavered. Promoting democracy and protecting the individual against the excesses of the state is the policy of the United States.

Fortunately, that effort has been successful. The U.S. vision has come to be shared by many other states, and is now a fundamental component of NATO, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, and the Organization of American States and the Summit of the Americas, and in the basic laws of many states that have emerged since the end of World War II. It is increasingly an important factor in decisions of countries in other regions, for example in Africa.

Let me turn now to a subject that has been much in the news recently: the United Nations Commission on Human Rights. I am sure you are all aware of the UN Economic and Social Council vote in New York on May 3, which resulted in the United States losing its seat for the first time since the Commission was created in 1947 under the chairmanship of Eleanor Roosevelt.

As President Bush said on Cuban Independence Day last week at the White House: "Last month, the UN Human Rights Commission called on Castro's regime to respect the basic human rights of all its people. The United States' leadership was responsible for passage of that resolution. Some say we paid a heavy price for it, but let me be clear: I'm very proud of what we did. And repressed people around the world must know this about the United States: We might not sit on some commission, but we will always be the world's leader in support of human rights."

The President was right: we did pay a price for taking forthright, principled positions at the Commission this year. Secretary of State Colin Powell spoke about this when he addressed the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Foreign Operations May 15, and stressed that the future policy of the United States toward the Commission would be the result of a review and ultimately a decision by the President. This review is now underway within the Administration.

As the President said, the United States will remain committed to human rights. It will be a crucial part of our approach to China, Cuba, Indonesia, the Balkans, Iran, Sudan, and all the other places where fundamental freedoms are at stake. We are working ever closer with our friends and allies at the UN, the OSCE, OAS, NATO, and other multilateral organizations, and the State Department remains strongly committed to its round-the-clock, round-the-year, round-the-world human rights monitoring portfolio.

We shall continue to be the world's leading advocate for democracy and human rights. We shall continue to meet foreign government officials and insist that our views on human rights be known. We shall speak up for the dissidents, the victims of persecution, the tortured, and the dispossessed. We shall continue to tell the truth when we submit our Country Reports on Human Rights Practices to Congress and to the millions who now access them via the Internet. We shall continue our reports on International Religious Freedom, now in its third cycle, and a new report on Trafficking in Persons to be released on June 1.

Is this easy? No. Is it always appreciated by our friends and allies? Unfortunately, not. But it is necessary. It is worthwhile. To quote the President again: "History tells us that forcing change upon oppressive regimes requires patience. But history also proves, from Poland to South Africa, that patience and courage and resolve can eventually cause oppressive regimes to fear and then to fall."

The vote by the member states of ECOSOC has limited our role in one highly visible forum, but it has hardly crippled us. Those states which voted against us in the hope that they would prevent us from being forceful advocates for human rights were sadly mistaken. Indeed, in the policy review to which I earlier referred, we are taking a close look at new approaches and new opportunities to pursue our human rights objectives worldwide. We may be forced, for a time, to shift our tactics, but we will never abandon our goal.

I would like to say a brief word about the proposal by some to link the payment of our arrears to the outcome of the Commission election. The Administration believes strongly that any attempt to link U.S. payments to the UN -- now or in the future -- to U.S. membership in or support for the Commission is counterproductive. Not only will withholding money or adding additional conditions on arrears payments provide ammunition to our adversaries, but it will also frustrate our efforts to further U.S. political interests and push for reform of the institution and its agencies. In the words of the President, "a deal's a deal."

While the Commission on Human Rights is far from a perfect institution, it has done much good over the years. It established Special Rapporteurs on country situations like the Former Yugoslavia or Iraq, and on crucial thematic issues such as Torture or the Independence of Judges and Lawyers. These special mechanisms of the CHR are among the activities of the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, former Irish President Mary Robinson, which also maintains field offices in trouble spots like Congo and Colombia.

We would caution against penalizing the UN, the UN human rights program, or the Office of the High Commissioner, for the vote by a small number of UN Member States in the Economic and Social Council over membership in the CHR. I strongly urge the Committee to proceed very cautiously in this regard.

Thank you.

END