1 LOCAL, STATE, AND COUNTY AGENCIES AND THEIR LOCATIONS ALABAMA: Birmingham JCC. ARIZONA: Tucson Anti-Defamation-CRC of the JCC. CALIFORNIA: Greater Long Beach and West Orange County Jewish Community Federation. Metropolitan Chicago Public Affairs Committee of Jewish United Fund. Springfield Jewish Federation. INDIANA: Indianapolis JCRC. Indianapolis JCRC of Indiana. South Bend Jewish Federation of St. Joseph Valley. IOWA: Greater Des Moines Jewish Federation. KANSAS: (Kansas City-See Missouri). KENTUCKY: Louisville Jewish Community Federation. Greater New Orleans Jewish Federation. MAINE: Portland Southern Maine Jewish Federation-Community Council MARYLAND: Baltimore JCRC. (Montgomery County, see D.C.). MASSACHUSETTS: Metropolitan Boston JCC. Marblehead North Shore Jewish Federation. Greater New Bedford Jewish Federation. Springfield Jewish Federation. Worcester Jewish Federation. 1 Community Relations Committee (CRC); Jewish Community Relations Council (JCRC); Jewish Community Council (JCC). Minneapolis Minnesota and Dakotas JCRC-Anti-Defamation League. MISSOURI: Greater Kansas City Jewish Relations Bureau. St. Louis JCRC. NEBRASKA: Omaha JCR Committee of Jewish Federation. NEW JERSEY: Atlantic County Federation of Jewish Agencies. Bergen County JCRC of United Jewish Community. Cherry Hill JCRC of Southern New Jersey Jewish Federation. East Orange Metropolitan New Jersey Jewish Community Federation. Northern Middlesex County Jewish Federation. Raritan Valley Jewish Federation. Union Central New Jersey Federation. Wayne North Jersey Jewish Federation. NEW MEXICO: Albuquerque JCC. NEW YORK: VIRGINIA: Newport News-Hampton Jewish Federation. Norfolk and Virginia Beach United Jewish Federation. WASHINGTON: Greater Seattle Jewish Federation. WISCONSIN: Madison JCC. Milwaukee Jewish Council. Senator ZORINSKY. Thank you, Mr. Liskofsky. Dr. Houck, would you please conclude the testimony of the members of the panel. STATEMENT OF DR. JOHN R. HOUCK, GENERAL SECRETARY, LUTHERAN COUNCIL IN THE U.S.A., WASHINGTON, D.C., ACCOMPANIED BY RALSTON H. DEFFENBAUGH, JR., ESQ., ON BEHALF OF THE AMERICAN LUTHERAN CHURCH, THE LUTHERAN CHURCH IN AMERICA, AND THE ASSOCIATION OF EVANGELICAL LUTHERAN CHURCHES Dr. Houck. Mr. Chairman, I am grateful for the opportunity to submit testimony this morning on the U.N. human rights covenants. I serve as General Secretary of the Lutheran Council in the U.S.A. with headquarters in New York, N.Y. Accompanying me today is Mr. Ralston H. Deffenbaugh, who practices law in Denver, Colo. Mr. Deffenbaugh also is chairman of the Standing Committee on World Community of Lutheran World Ministries, our sister agencies primarily concerned with international mission and service. The testimony which I am presenting is supported by three member church bodies of the Lutheran Council: The American Lutheran Church, headquartered in Minneapolis, Minn., composed of 4,800 congregations having approximately 2.4 million U.S. members; the Lutheran Church in America, headquartered in New York City, composed of 6,100 congregations having approximately 3.1 million members in the United States and Canada; and the Association of Evangelical Lutheran Churches, headquartered in St. Louis, Mo., composed of 260 congregations having approximately 110,000 U.S.. members. These church bodies are also members of the Lutheran World Federation [LWF], a free association of Lutheran churches around the world, whose membership now totals approximately 54 million baptized members. Speaking both on behalf of our Lutheran churches in the United States and also on behalf of the international Lutheran community, we wholeheartedly support U.S. ratification of the human rights covenants. Our support for ratification of the covenants is based not only upon the doctrines and teachings of the Lutheran church, but also upon official statements of Assemblies of the Lutheran World Federation in 1970 and 1977, and upon official statements made by individual Lutheran churches in the United States. In support of ratification, we are testifying to affirm the rights guaranteed by these international covenants, recognizing that the guarantees of the U.S. Constitution secure, and in some cases exceed, some of the rights contained in these human rights covenants. We are here out of concern for the poor, the downtrodden, and the oppressed in other countries as well as our own, for it is our belief that U.S. ratification of these covenants will strengthen the stature of the covenants and will enhance their international authority so that their provisions will become more likely to be observed by all govern ments. We urge this committee to consider the international consequences of U.S. ratification or nonratification of the covenants as much as, if not more than, the domestic consequences. Since the conclusion of World War II, Lutherans throughout the world have actively been engaged in the struggle for human rights at both the practical and the theoretical levels. In the postwar period, these churches concentrated their efforts in the areas of relief, reconstruction, and the settlement of refugees and displaced persons. More recently, these same churches have directed their efforts toward the achievement of justice and self-determination in various regions of the world, notably southern Africa. They continue to be involved in relief and resettlement efforts, especially for the thousands of Indochinese refugees. These very practical involvements have been matched by close attention to the work of articulating international standards of human rights and securing their acceptance by the members of the world community. Certainly members of religious communities throughout the world and the members of our churches in particular are concerned that religious liberties and freedom of worship be guaranteed. However, the concern for religious liberty cannot be neatly blocked off from a concern for the observance of other human rights, for religious liberty is inseparable from other human rights. Indeed, it is this inseparability that demands of Christians and persons of other religious persuasions that they attend to the championing of all human rights and not simply that of religious free exercise. At its two most recent assemblies, in Evian, France, in 1970, and in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, in 1977, the Lutheran World Federation has considered and passed resolutions on human rights. The times and contexts of both assemblies caused the delegates to focus their attention on the human rights issue in a fashion which might not otherwise have occurred. The Evian assembly had been scheduled to take place in Brazil. A decision to relocate it in France was made in response to the repressive human rights situation in Brazil at that time. The Dar es Salaam assembly meeting in Tanzania especially heard the cries of those in southern Africa who were, and are, the victims of the repression of racism, and the cries of those in neighboring Uganda who were, and in some respects still are, the victims of that country's late murderous and chaotically totalitarian regime. The Dar es Salaam assembly's 1977 Resolution on Human Rights recognized the human rights covenants as the international standard for human rights when it resolved that LWF member churches should compare the legal codifications on human rights in international law with the human rights conventions, and directed them to report thereon to the Lutheran World Federation. The Dar es Salaam resolution furthermore urged each of the memIber churches to take the steps necessary and possible in each situation for the furtherance of the comprehensive implementation of human rights. We see our presence here before this committee as one step taken by Lutherans to enhance the observance of human rights in the world today. It is easy to belittle international covenants and conventions on human rights as mere "paper barriers" without power in the face of nations choosing to ignore them. It is worth noting that a similar argument was raised against the inclusion of a formal bill of rights in the U.S. Constitution. Madison, for instance, felt that a popular majority could and would nullify the guarantees of such a bill whenever it wished. Yet, interestingly enough, Madison himself ended up as the major drafter of the Bill of Rights that has served us so well for almost 200 years. There is real, though incalculable, value in the public and solemn enunciation of legal norms regardless of the power of groups or nations to violate them. In summary, then, we would offer these principles as guides to be kept in mind as the reservations are considered: The reservations should be of such character as not to hinder U.S. participation in the international enforcement mechanisms. The reservations should be stated in as simple a way as possible and should not make U.S. ratification a mockery of the treaties. We are in sympathy with the notification of the State Department that the reservations should be stated in such a way as not to change provisions of domestic law by the nontraditional means of ratification of an international treaty document by one House of the Congress. We see these international human rights covenants as a very important step toward the worldwide enforcement and observance of human rights and human dignity. We thankfully support the administration's action in signing the human rights covenants on behalf of the United States. We strongly urge the Senate to complete the process of U.S. adherence to the human rights covenants by consenting to ratification of the covenants. We wish to thank you for this opportunity to share our views with you today, and we would request that our entire written statement be entered into the record, even though we have just presented a summary of it. Senator ZORINSKY. Thank you. Without objection, your entire statement will be entered into the record. [Dr. Houck's prepared statement follows:] PREPARED STATEMENT OF DR. JOHN R. HOUCK Mr. Chairman, I am grateful for this opportunity to submit testimony this morning on the U.N. Human Rights Covenants. My name is Dr. John R. Houck. I serve as General Secretary of the Lutheran Council in the U.S.A. with headquarters in New York City. Accompanying me today is Mr. Ralston H. Deffenbaugh, Jr., who practices law with the firm of Ireland, Stapleton, and Pryor, P.C. in Denver, Colorado. Mr. Deffenbaugh is also chairman of the Standing Committee on World Community of Lutheran World Ministries, our sister agency primarily concerned with international mission and service. The testimony which I am presenting is supported by three member church bodies of the Lutheran Council: |