II 

110TH CONGRESS 

1ST SESSION S. 1698 

To provide that no funds appropriated or otherwise made available by any 

Act for contributions for international organizations may be made available to support the United Nations Human Rights Council. 

IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES 

JUNE 26, 2007 

Mr. COLEMAN introduced the following bill; which was read twice and referred 

to the Committee on Foreign Relations 

A BILL 

To provide that no funds appropriated or otherwise made 

available by any Act for contributions for international 

organizations may be made available to support the 

United Nations Human Rights Council. 

1 Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representa2 tives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, 

3 SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE. 

4 This Act may be cited as the ‘‘The Human Rights 

5 Council Funding Reform Act of 2007’’. 

6 SEC. 2. FINDINGS. 

7 The Senate makes the following findings: 

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1 (1) The severe loss of credibility of the United 

2 Nations Human Rights Commission, whose members 

3 have included Libya, Sudan, and Cuba, led United 

4 Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan to remark in 

5 2005 that the Human Rights Commission was 

6 ‘‘casting a shadow on the reputation of the United 

7 Nations system as a whole’’ and to call for the cre8 ation of a new United Nations human rights institu9 tion. 

10 (2) Calls for the reform of United Nations 

11 human rights institutions led to a proposal for a new 

12 Human Rights Council to replace the Human Rights 

13 Commission, which was adopted by the United Na14 tions General Assembly on March 15, 2006, in Gen15 eral Assembly Resolution 60/251 (2006). 

16 (3) The United States voted against General 

17 Assembly Resolution 60/251 (2006) because the pro18 posed structure of the Human Rights Council did 

19 not contain provisions designed to address the fun20 damental flaws of its predecessor body, such as a re21 quirement that members of the Council be democ22 racies that respect human rights. 

23 (4) The United States chose not to run in the 

24 elections for membership in the Human Rights 

25 Council in 2006 and 2007 for fear that the Council 

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1 would reflect the same patterns as the Human 

2 Rights Commission. 

3 (5) The stated purpose of the Human Rights 

4 Council is to objectively and non-selectively promote 

5 and protect human rights in the entire world, and 

6 therefore in all 192 Member States of the United 

7 Nations. 

8 (6) The Human Rights Council is composed of 

9 47 members, 24 of which are considered ‘‘free de10 mocracies’’ by Freedom House in its 2007 ‘‘Free11 dom in the World’’ report. 

12 (7) The current members of the Human Rights 

13 Council include countries such as Cuba, Angola, 

14 Azerbaijan, and Saudi Arabia. 

15 (8) During the first year of operation of the 

16 Human Rights Council, which included 5 regular 

17 sessions and 4 special sessions, the only country in 

18 the world that was directly condemned as a violator 

19 of human rights was Israel. 

20 (9) In its first year of operation, the Human 

21 Rights Council passed only 12 state-specific resolu22 tions: 9 resolutions that condemned the Government 

23 of Israel, and 3 resolutions on Sudan that did not 

24 condemn the Government of Sudan. 

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1 (10) Freedom House lists 19 countries in its 

2 2007 ‘‘Freedom in the World’’ report as the ‘‘Worst 

3 of the Worst’’ regimes that violate human rights, yet 

4 none of these countries has been the subject of a 

5 resolution by the Human Rights Council except for 

6 Sudan. 

7 (11) During its first year, the Human Rights 

8 Council held 4 special sessions to address the most 

9 egregious and urgent human rights issues, with 3 

10 sessions dedicated to Israel and 1 session dedicated 

11 to Sudan. 

12 (12) The Human Rights Council special session 

13 on Sudan held in December 2006 resulted in the ap14 pointment of an assessment mission to Darfur led by 

15 Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Jody Williams, and this 

16 assessment mission submitted a report (referred to 

17 in this resolution as the ‘‘Williams Report’’) to the 

18 Human Rights Council in March 2007 that con19 cluded that the Government of Sudan was respon20 sible for ‘‘large-scale international crimes in 

21 Darfur’’. 

22 (13) The Human Rights Council has not con23 demned the Government of Sudan in spite of the 

24 Williams Report and the numerous reports docu25 menting the human rights violations of the Governmstockstill on PROD1PC66 with BILLS

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1 ment of Sudan compiled by the United Nations High 

2 Commissioner for Human Rights. 

3 (14) On June 19, 2007, the Human Rights 

4 Council adopted governing rules that further dis5 credit the Council’s operations, including— 

6 (A) the establishment of only 1 country7 specific permanent agenda item for the ‘‘Pro8 gram of Work’’ on ‘‘human rights violations 

9 and implications of the Israeli occupation of 

10 Palestine and other occupied Arab territories’’; 

11 (B) the elimination of the mandates of the 

12 special investigators for human rights for Cuba 

13 and Belarus, despite extensive reporting by 

14 these investigators indicating that there are 

15 widespread, systematic violations of human 

16 rights taking place in both countries; and 

17 (C) the adoption of measures that limit the 

18 independence of operations of the Office of the 

19 United Nations High Commissioner for Human 

20 Rights and hinder the ability of independent 

21 human rights investigators to report findings on 

22 human rights abuses. 

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1 SEC. 3. PROHIBITION ON FUNDING FOR THE UNITED NA2 TIONS HUMAN RIGHTS COUNCIL. 

3 Notwithstanding any other provision of law, no funds 

4 appropriated or otherwise made available by any Act for 

5 contributions for international organizations may be made 

6 available to support the United Nations Human Rights 

7 Council. 

Æ 

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