III 

116TH CONGRESS 

1ST SESSION S. RES. 150 

Expressing the sense of the Senate that it is the policy of the United 

States to commemorate the Armenian Genocide through official recognition and remembrance. 

IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES 

APRIL 9, 2019 

Mr. MENENDEZ (for himself, Mr. CRUZ, Mr. VAN HOLLEN, Ms. STABENOW, 

Mr. MARKEY, Ms. WARREN, Mr. PETERS, Mrs. FEINSTEIN, Mr. WYDEN, 

Ms. DUCKWORTH, Mr. RUBIO, Mr. REED, Mr. SCHUMER, Mr. GARDNER, 

Mr. UDALL, and Ms. HARRIS) submitted the following resolution; which 

was referred to the Committee on Foreign Relations 

RESOLUTION 

Expressing the sense of the Senate that it is the policy 

of the United States to commemorate the Armenian 

Genocide through official recognition and remembrance. 

Whereas the United States has a proud history of recognizing 

and condemning the Armenian Genocide, the killing of an 

estimated 1,500,000 Armenians by the Ottoman Empire 

from 1915 to 1923, and providing relief to the survivors 

of the campaign of genocide against Armenians, Greeks, 

Assyrians, Chaldeans, Syriacs, Arameans, Maronites, and 

other Christians; 

Whereas the Honorable Henry Morgenthau, Sr., United 

States Ambassador to the Ottoman Empire from 1913 to 


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•SRES 150 IS 

1916, organized and led protests by officials of many 

countries against what he described as ‘‘a campaign of 

race extermination,’’ and, on July 16, 1915, was instructed by United States Secretary of State Robert Lansing that the ‘‘Department approves your procedure . . . 

to stop Armenian persecution’’; 

Whereas President Woodrow Wilson encouraged the formation of Near East Relief, chartered by an Act of Congress, which raised approximately $116,000,000 (more 

than $2,500,000,000 in 2019 dollars) between 1915 and 

1930, and the Senate adopted resolutions condemning 

the massacres; 

Whereas Raphael Lemkin, who coined the term ‘‘genocide’’ in 

1944 and who was the earliest proponent of the United 

Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment 

of the Crime of Genocide, invoked the Armenian case as 

a definitive example of genocide in the 20th century; 

Whereas, as displayed in the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Adolf Hitler, on ordering his military commanders to attack Poland without provocation in 1939, 

dismissed objections by saying, ‘‘Who, after all, speaks 

today of the annihilation of the Armenians?’’, setting the 

stage for the Holocaust; 

Whereas the United States has officially recognized the Armenian Genocide— 

(1) through the May 28, 1951, written statement of 

the United States Government to the International Court 

of Justice regarding the Convention on the Prevention 

and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide and Proclamation No. 4838 issued by President Ronald Reagan on 

April 22, 1981; and 


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•SRES 150 IS 

(2) by House Joint Resolution 148, 94th Congress, 

agreed to April 8, 1975, and House Joint Resolution 

247, 98th Congress, agreed to September 10, 1984; and 

Whereas the Elie Wiesel Genocide and Atrocities Prevention 

Act of 2018 (Public Law 115–441) establishes that the 

prevention of atrocities is a national interest of the 

United States and affirms that it is the policy of the 

United States to pursue a United States Governmentwide strategy to identify, prevent, and respond to the risk 

of atrocities by ‘‘strengthening diplomatic response and 

the effective use of foreign assistance to support appropriate transitional justice measures, including criminal 

accountability, for past atrocities’’: Now, therefore, be it 

1 Resolved, That it is the sense of the Senate that it 

2 is the policy of the United States— 

3 (1) to commemorate the Armenian Genocide 

4 through official recognition and remembrance; 

5 (2) to reject efforts to enlist, engage, or other6 wise associate the United States Government with 

7 denial of the Armenian Genocide or any other geno8 cide; and 

9 (3) to encourage education and public under10 standing of the facts of the Armenian Genocide, in11 cluding the role of the United States in humani12 tarian relief efforts, and the relevance of the Arme13 nian Genocide to modern-day crimes against human14 ity. 

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