Title: Expressing the sense of the House of Representatives regarding many of today's greatest national security challenges and outlining a new framework for foreign policy for the 21st century.
Policy area: International Affairs

Summary:
This resolution expresses the policy of the United States for addressing and mitigating national security challenges, including the spread of infectious diseases and pandemics, the climate crisis, the proliferation and threat of the use of nuclear weapons, human rights violations, corruption, conflict, and violence, authoritarianism, gender, economic, and social inequality, and transnational White supremacist violence and racist nationalism.

[Congressional Bills 117th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H. Res. 877 Introduced in House (IH)]

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117th CONGRESS
  2d Session
H. RES. 877

Expressing the sense of the House of Representatives regarding many of 
   today's greatest national security challenges and outlining a new 
           framework for foreign policy for the 21st century.


_______________________________________________________________________


                    IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                            January 19, 2022

   Ms. Jayapal (for herself, Ms. Lee of California, Mr. Bowman, Mr. 
Carson, Mr. Grijalva, Ms. Jacobs of California, Mr. Johnson of Georgia, 
 Mr. Lowenthal, Mr. McGovern, Ms. Norton, Ms. Ocasio-Cortez, Ms. Omar, 
  Mr. Payne, Ms. Pressley, Ms. Schakowsky, Mr. Takano, Ms. Tlaib, Ms. 
Velazquez, and Mrs. Watson Coleman) submitted the following resolution; 
which was referred to the Committee on Foreign Affairs, and in addition 
  to the Committees on Armed Services, Ways and Means, and Energy and 
Commerce, for a period to be subsequently determined by the Speaker, in 
   each case for consideration of such provisions as fall within the 
                jurisdiction of the committee concerned

_______________________________________________________________________

                               RESOLUTION


 
Expressing the sense of the House of Representatives regarding many of 
   today's greatest national security challenges and outlining a new 
           framework for foreign policy for the 21st century.

Whereas the national security challenges facing people in the United States this 
        century include--

    (1) the spread of infectious diseases and global pandemics;

    (2) the climate crisis;

    (3) the proliferation and threat of use of nuclear weapons and 
materials;

    (4) human rights violations;

    (5) corruption, conflict, and violence;

    (6) authoritarianism and distrust in democratic institutions undermined 
by disinformation;

    (7) gender, economic, and social inequality; and

    (8) transnational White supremacist violence and racist nationalism;

Whereas such national security challenges are highlighted by the facts that--

    (1) a year and a half after the World Health Organization declared 
COVID-19 a global pandemic, just 3.07 percent of people in low-income 
countries had received 1 or more doses of a vaccine while 60.18 percent of 
people in wealthy countries had;

    (2) in 2020, natural disasters, worsened by climate change, displaced 
more than 30,700,000 people from their homes;

    (3) the United Nations estimates that about 10 percent of people suffer 
from hunger worldwide;

    (4) the total amount authorized to be appropriated by the National 
Defense Authorization Act for fiscal year 2021 is $740,500,000,000;

    (5) 9 countries hold more than 13,000 nuclear warheads and military 
stockpiles worldwide are on the rise; and

    (6) about 900,000 military personnel, contractors, opposition 
combatants, humanitarian aid workers, journalists, national and military 
police, and other civilians have been killed in United States wars in Iraq, 
Afghanistan, Syria, Pakistan, and other major war zones since 2001;

Whereas these challenges cannot be primarily solved through the use of military 
        force or Department of Defense budget increases; and
Whereas refocusing United States national security strategy on these issues 
        requires robust new investments in nonmilitary tools of statecraft, as 
        well as domestic and international institutions that rely on dialogue, 
        inclusivity, accountability, conflict resolution, and global cooperation 
        over competition: Now, therefore, be it
    Resolved, That--
            (1) it should be the policy of the United States--
                    (A) to prioritize mitigating and, where possible, 
                resolving the harms created by the security challenges 
                outlined in the preamble to this resolution by--
                            (i) supporting robust investments in 
                        diplomacy, development, justice, human rights, 
                        and conflict prevention;
                            (ii) putting local leadership and 
                        partnership at the center of policy design, 
                        development, and implementation; and
                            (iii) using both bilateral and multilateral 
                        relationships and United States influence to 
                        uphold human rights and human dignity;
                    (B) to acknowledge that United States national 
                interests are aligned with the well-being and rights of 
                people around the world by placing human dignity, 
                social justice, and cooperation at the center of United 
                States foreign policy;
                    (C) to implement effective, bold, and immediate 
                domestic and multilateral responses to climate change 
                in order to adapt, mitigate, prevent, and, where 
                possible, reverse the worst effects of this urgent, 
                existential crisis this decade and to provide refuge to 
                those impacted;
                    (D) to focus domestic and international investments 
                on equitable and inclusive, people-centered solutions 
                that empower individuals, workers, and communities, and 
                safeguard universal human rights to equality, 
                migration, and human security; and
                    (E) to support the United Nations, including 
                funding its programs and specialized agencies, 
                participating in its committees, and supporting reforms 
                to make international institutions more responsive to 
                the most pressing needs of the global community, 
                including the global migration crisis, the climate 
                crisis, and global health crises; and
            (2) it is the sense of the House of Representatives that to 
        address the national security priorities outlined in the 
        preamble and achieve the policy described in paragraph (1), 
        United States foreign policy must be reformed by--
                    (A) making the United States national security 
                workforce more diverse, equitable, and inclusive, both 
                in terms of representation of historically marginalized 
                groups as well as underrepresented prodiplomacy and 
                anti-interventionist perspectives;
                    (B) creating formal and informal processes to 
                ensure United States foreign policy is regularly 
                informed by, and responsive to, the expertise, 
                experiences, and needs of communities most directly 
                impacted by United States foreign policy, especially 
                marginalized groups such as poor people, racial, 
                religious and ethnic minorities, indigenous people, 
                women, people with disabilities, LGBTQ+ individuals, 
                and youth;
                    (C) democratizing issues of war and peace in the 
                United States by reasserting article I of the 
                Constitution, which puts the decision to go to war 
                solely in the hands of the legislative branch, the 
                branch of government most accountable to people in the 
                United States;
                    (D) substantially reducing and bringing 
                accountability to wasteful Department of Defense 
                spending, outdated weapons systems, security 
                assistance, and overt and covert regime change policies 
                that fuel conflict;
                    (E) engaging in diplomacy, peacebuilding, and 
                conflict prevention to address violent groups that 
                perpetrate terrorism rather than the existing framework 
                predicated on high-value assassinations, containment, 
                coercion, torture, and abuse;
                    (F) ending the use of broad-based, sectoral 
                sanctions as a punitive tool short of war, which too 
                often feeds authoritarianism and corruption while 
                disproportionately harming the most vulnerable;
                    (G) holding the United States Government and its 
                partners accountable to international law, including 
                the law of armed conflict and international arms 
                treaties, and supporting international criminal 
                justice, conducting independent investigations of 
                suspected violations, and providing reparations, 
                including ex gratia payments, to survivors when it or a 
                partner fails to do so;
                    (H) limiting United States military assistance, 
                arms sales, and security sector cooperation for 
                governments that commit grand corruption, gross 
                violations of human rights, crimes against humanity, or 
                genocide, regardless of their political relationship to 
                the United States Government;
                    (I) acceding to and supporting universal 
                implementation of international conventions and 
                treaties that uphold the rule of law, promote universal 
                human rights and human dignity, protect the most 
                vulnerable, and democratize international governance;
                    (J) recommitting United States resources and 
                capacity-building to international and bilateral 
                nonproliferation, arms control, and disarmament 
                treaties to work toward a world without planet-
                destroying nuclear weapons;
                    (K) devoting adequate resources toward, and 
                aligning United States policy with, the pursuit of 
                equitable, sustainable global development, including 
                but not limited to the achievement of the United 
                Nations Sustainable Development Goals;
                    (L) ensuring that the rules of international trade 
                and investment, in the form of multilateral and 
                bilateral trade agreements and international bodies 
                governing trade, enshrine the right to collectively 
                organize, protect labor rights and the environment, 
                promote gender equality, public health, and 
                anticorruption controls over corporate profits;
                    (M) building a more just and equitable global 
                economy by combating illicit financial flows, 
                strengthening measures for global corporate 
                accountability, and reforming multilateral economic 
                development and lending institutions so that the 
                interests of workers, women and children, as well as 
                their reproductive freedom, the environment, and poor 
                people are prioritized over private and corporate 
                interests and profits;
                    (N) adopting an aggressive plan to transform the 
                United States and global economy away from dependency 
                on militarism and fossil fuels and to create the 
                solutions needed to combat the climate crisis while 
                centering workers displaced from those industries in a 
                just transition into jobs in the climate resilience 
                workforce; and
                    (O) advancing global reproductive and gender 
                justice by ensuring United States foreign policy and 
                foreign assistance programs uphold all people's 
                reproductive rights and access to comprehensive 
                reproductive health care, and by prioritizing women's 
                meaningful participation in United States foreign 
                policy, through securing their positions within United 
                States-influenced peace processes, devoting increased 
                resources to grassroots women-led groups advancing 
                social justice, and supporting women human rights 
                defenders.
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