[Congressional Bills 110th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H.R. 225 Introduced in House (IH)]
110th CONGRESS
1st Session
H. R. 225
To withhold United States funding from the United Nations Human Rights
Council.
_______________________________________________________________________
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
January 4, 2007
Mr. Stearns (for himself, Ms. Westmoreland, and Mrs. Blackburn)
introduced the following bill; which was referred to the Committee on
Foreign Affairs
_______________________________________________________________________
A BILL
To withhold United States funding from the United Nations Human Rights
Council.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the
United States of America in Congress assembled,
SECTION 1. FINDINGS.
(a) Findings.--Congress finds the following:
(1) The new United Nations Human Rights Council fails to
adequately reform the United Nations Commission on Human
Rights, thus preventing the Council from becoming an effective
monitor of human rights throughout the world.
(2) The United Nations Commission on Human Rights was
created in 1946 to monitor and prevent the abuse of human
rights throughout the world. It failed miserably to uphold even
the most basic ideals enumerated in the United Nations Charter
and the Universal Declaration on Human Rights. It lost its
credibility as an instrument for the promotion and protection
of human rights and instead allowed repressive regimes to
shield themselves from criticism for their human rights
violations.
(3) The membership of the United Nations Commission on
Human Rights constituted some of the worst abusers of human
rights in the world, including the tyrannies of Cuba, Sudan,
Libya, Belarus, the People's Republic of China, and Zimbabwe.
(4) The United Nations Commission on Human Rights failed to
act or speak out against numerous cases of egregious human
rights abuses, including the countless atrocities committed by
communist regimes, the genocide in Rwanda in 1994, and the
ongoing genocide in Darfur caused by the Government of Sudan.
(5) The United Nations Commission on Human Rights failed to
condemn countries that sponsor terrorism (a glaring affront to
human rights), including Iran, Syria, and North Korea.
(6) The United Nations Commission on Human Rights had
repeatedly vilified Israel, the only democracy in the Middle
East, while overlooking horrific human rights abuses throughout
the Middle East. A recent study found that 30 percent of all
country-specific resolutions of the Commission critical of
human rights have been directed at Israel, but none against
persistent violators like China, Myanmar, Syria, or Zimbabwe.
(7) Former United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan
repeatedly emphasized that meaningful reform of the United
Nations Commission on Human Rights is a key element for making
the United Nations more accountable, effective, and efficient,
and that ``the Commission's declining credibility has cast a
shadow on the reputation of the United Nations system''.
(8) The creation of the United Nations Human Rights Council
on March 15, 2006, failed to address the serious shortcomings
of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights and fell far
short of creating the small standing body composed of
appropriate countries that was initially envisioned by Former
Secretary General Annan, in his March 2005 report, ``In Larger
Freedom: Towards Development, Security and Human Rights For
All''.
(9) The United Nations Human Rights Council succeeds only
in making superficial changes to the structure of the United
Nations Commission on Human Rights, masquerading motion as
reform and placebo as treatment.
(10) The United Nations Human Rights Council does not
embody the recommended institutional reforms necessary to
advance human rights.
(11) The United Nations Human Rights Council cannot monitor
cases of human rights abuse throughout the world, nor even
prevent egregious human rights violators from being elected to
the council itself. The only supposed protection--that a
country can be suspended if two-thirds of the members of the
General Assembly agree to do so--is useless, since less than
half of the General Assembly could agree that Sudan was guilty
of any human rights violations.
(12) The United Nations Human Rights Council only reduces
the number of seats on the council to 47 from 53, which is not
enough to make the Council more efficient or more effective.
(13) The United Nations Human Rights Council also retains
geographical quotas that will only ensure that human rights
abusers will continue to have access to membership on the
council. Indeed, Israel, a constant target of United Nations
ire, had been discriminated against by being denied full
participatory rights in regional group meetings associated with
the operation of the United Nations Human Rights Commission,
while non-members of the United Nations, such as the Holy See
and the Palestinian observer, participated in such meetings.
The geographic quota system ensures a majority of membership
slots for the world's least democratic regions.
(14) The United States, while voting against the resolution
creating the United Nations Human Rights Council, was unable to
ensure that the Council would be structured to best promote and
protect human rights around the globe.
(15) If the United States, working with other like-minded
countries, is not able to adequately reform the corrupt United
Nations Human Rights Council, then the chances for the United
States and other like-minded countries to effect the broader
changes to the United Nations that are desired and needed to
make the institution more effective are much reduced.
(16) The first group of Member States elected to the new
United Nations Human Rights Council includes nine countries
that the democracy watchdog Freedom House designates as ``not
free'', including the People's Republic of China, Cuba, Saudi
Arabia, Russia, Pakistan, Tunisia, Algeria, Cameroon, and
Azerbaijan.
SEC. 2. SENSE OF CONGRESS.
It is the sense of Congress that--
(1) the United Nations Human Rights Council--
(A) should be a body that upholds the ideals
enumerated in the United Nations Charter and the
Universal Declaration on Human Rights;
(B) should allow full participation by Israel in
all operations associated with the Council; and
(C) should be made up of countries that hold
regular, competitive, and democratic elections, allow
for freedom of expression, and have a credible civil
society; and
(2) the United States should not support the United Nations
Human Rights Council, and should withhold any financial support
for the Council until meaningful reforms related to the
responsibilities of the United Nations for the protection of
human rights are carried out.
SEC. 3. WITHHOLDING FUNDING FOR THE UNITED NATIONS HUMAN RIGHTS
COUNCIL.
(a) In General.--The Secretary of State shall withhold from a
United States contribution to a regularly assessed biennial budget of
the United Nations an amount that is equal to the percentage of such
contribution that the Secretary determines would be allocated by the
United Nations to support the United Nations Human Rights Council.
(b) Effective Date.--Subsection (a) shall take effect and apply
beginning on October 1, 2007, with respect to annual dues paid by the
United States to the United Nations each fiscal year in connection with
United States contributions to the regularly assessed biennial budgets
of the United Nations.
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