Henry J. Hyde United Nations Reform Act of 2005 - 2

HENRY J. HYDE UNITED NATIONS REFORM ACT OF 2005 -- (House of Representatives - June 17, 2005)

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Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Chairman, the Henry J. Hyde U.N. Reform Act of 2005 is, without a doubt, tough but necessary medicine designed to effectuate systematic and sustainable reforms at the United Nations bureaucracies, its missions, and programs. It is serious and refuses to accept business as usual. And nowhere is the need for massive reform more compelling than in the realm of human rights.

Over the years we have heard calls for reform. Time and again they have fallen on deaf ears. In a bizarre rendition of George Orwell's Animal Farm, countries which severely violate human rights of their own citizens are members in good standing at the U.N. Human Rights Commission and as such sit as judge and jury of human rights conditions around the world. ECOSOC, the United Nations body which appoints states to the Human Rights Commission, facilitates this cruel hoax, which guarantees dysfunction at the human rights body, and allows violators and violating countries to continue to be placed on the Commission with no accountability whatsoever because of its secret voting procedures.

Even U.N. officials have admitted the Commission is not doing its job. A U.N. high-level panel in December of 2004 concluded that the UNCHR's credibility and professionalism has been undermined due to the active undermining of the work of the Commission by members with poor human rights records.

In March, U.N. Secretary Kofi Annan told the Commission, and I quote him, "unless we remake our human rights machinery, we may be unable to renew public confidence in the United Nations."

Indeed, Mr. Chairman, in March I was in Geneva for the Human Rights Commission for the umpteenth time. I first started going back when Armando Valladares, that great human rights leader in Cuba, was appointed as our ambassador by Ronald Reagan. And I had seen over these many years that that body has gone from bad to worse. There was no resolution, for example, this year on Zimbabwe, called an outpost of tyranny by Secretary Rice. There was no resolution on Turkmenistan, the most repressive of the 55 countries of the OSCE, whose government bulldozes mosques, tortures Christians and closes rural hospitals. And there is no resolution on the People's Republic of China, despite the fact that they have an egregious human rights record and routinely torture and maim, especially those who are political dissidents, and those who practice their faith, whether it be Christian, Jewish, Tibet or the Muslims. China persecutes all of those individuals, by the tens of thousands, including the Falun Gong, and yet there was no resolution on China.

Resolutions, I am happy to say, against Belarus and Cuba were approved, but that was because President Bush himself and Rudy Boschwitz, who led our delegation, and Ambassador Moley and others did a Herculean job of getting countries that were likely not to support them to do so, but it took their personal lobbying. It was not about their human rights records, it was about trying to motivate these countries to do the work that they should have done otherwise.

Even the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, Louise Arbour, a former Supreme Court Justice from Canada, told me in a conversation I had in Geneva just a few weeks ago that she believes the atmosphere at the Commission on Human Rights is surreal, her word, and that there is, quote, no intellectual engagement or serious consideration on the issues.

The current model is ill-suited to the task, she noted, in which the Commission is both the adjudicator and the implementor of human rights. She said, and I quote her again, the process needs to reinvent itself, and that is precisely what Congressman HYDE is trying to do with this, very strong language, very strong piece of legislation; to finally say, time to put away the games and speak truth to power, especially to these dictatorships.

I would just point out to my colleagues anecdotally that the Commission on Human Rights so often turns human rights on its head.

Bob Fu, the president of China Aid Association, and a victim of the Chinese gulag himself, who testified before my subcommittee in April, is just one more example of the hypocrisy of that body. Mr. Fu was physically expelled from the Commission when the Chinese delegation objected and said they felt threatened by the electric shock device that Mr. Fu was showing at a demonstration on how China mistreats and tortures its prisoners. His credentials were taken away, and he was given the boot.

But it is not just the Commission on Human Rights that is broken; other human rights bodies that deal with human rights have also strayed from their core mandates and have failed to act against severe human rights violators.

Mr. Chairman, despite almost universal acknowledgment of the problems which exist at the U.N. human rights system, there has been little reform; lots of lip service, lots of we will do it next week, we will do it next year; nothing tangible. In fact, it has actually gotten worse over these many years.

It is clear more pressure is needed, and the Henry J. Hyde U.N. Reform Act of 2005 is intended to end this deplorable state of affairs.

The legislation mandates that the U.N. adopt criteria for membership on any human rights body. It should be a no-brainer, but this legislation stipulates that countries which fail to uphold the Universal Declaration of Human Rights should be ineligible for membership. You would think that would be a given. Well, it is not. This legislation tries to ensure that it is a given.

Likewise, countries that are subject to sanction by the Security Council, countries that are subjected to country-specific human rights resolutions, or countries that violate the principles of the human rights bodies they aspire to join would be ineligible for membership.

In addition to the other criteria, the bill mandates that no human rights body has a standing agenda item that relates only to one country or region. We all know what that is all about. Every time I have been over in Geneva, and I know the gentleman from California (Mr. Lantos) and others have been concerned about this as well, there is a whole agenda item that focuses on Israel. And the Israel bashing is unconscionable, while China and other countries get by scott-free.

We had to fight to ensure that Sudan, as the killing and maiming was occurring in Darfur, was even on the agenda. Then there was this attempt made by a number of countries including Sudan and Cuba to water down the language.

Genocide is being committed, and they are worrying about upsetting the apple cart and using language that might cause somebody in Khartoum to be upset.

H.R. 2745 also mandates that the Economic and Social Council, ECOSOC, abolish secret voting, which is an outrage. That is one of the things that ensures that these violator states, these rogue states, get on to the Commission on Human Rights.

Finally, Mr. Chairman, I do believe that in the Hyde bill there is very strong support for the work of the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights and the need to strengthen and expand its authority to go into regions where human rights monitors are most needed, such as Darfur and eastern Congo.

I strongly urge my colleagues to support this bill and to enact the human rights reform contained in this legislation. We need a United Nations which speaks strongly and clearly for the universal respect for and observance of fundamental human rights and the dignity and worth of each and every human person, and equal rights of men and women as a foundation for freedom and justice and peace in the world.

More high-sounding words will not help the U.N. reform itself. We need the strength of this legislation to do it, and we have a responsibility to do it as the largest donor and as a world leader in the realm of human rights.

Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

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Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. LANTOS. I yield to the gentleman from New Jersey.

Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. Mr. Chairman, I thank my friend for yielding.

I want to thank the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Chabot) and the gentleman from California (Mr. Lantos) for offering this very important amendment, which would hopefully lead to the creation of a code of conduct to ensure that U.N. employees and officials, as well as U.N. member states, reduce, hopefully eliminate absolutely, anti-Semitic language and anti-Semitic resolutions.

I point out to my colleagues, we have had an ongoing series of hearings in my subcommittee, as well as in the Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe, concerning this spike in anti-Semitism that we have seen.

The first hearing we held was back in 1995, and then in 2002 we saw a particularly alarming spike in countries that make up the OSCE region, particularly in France and the Netherlands and some of these other countries.

Part of it is some of the hatred is being carried by emigres into their new home, that is to say, France and places like that; and as was pointed out by my colleague, some of the absolute, some of the most despicable, slanders against Jewish people are being carried uncontested.

We now, in the OSCE, have had three major summits. Last week in Spain in Cordova at a summit, nations sent ambassadors and heads of states and foreign ministers to Spain, as we did in Vienna and as we did in Berlin last year, to look at what the best practices ought to be to try to end this scourge of anti-Semitism; and very good action plans have been adopted.

The U.N. needs to take a page out of the OSCE and develop the kind of action plans and sensitivity to this terrible prejudice because, if left unchecked, it will fester and lay the seeds for acts of violence against Jews as well as desecration of cemeteries, as well as synagogues.

So let me finally say that last year, the gentleman from California (Mr. Lantos), the gentleman from Illinois (Chairman Hyde), Senator Voinovich, and I all crafted the Global Anti-Semitism Review Act, which created an office within the State Department and also mandated that global reports be done. I urge Members to read those reports, one of which just came out earlier this year. It is a very, very disturbing read about this growing menace of anti-Semitism; and the U.N., rather than being a part of the solution, has for too often been part of the problem.

I thank the gentleman for yielding.

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