Hearing--Genocide and the Rule of Law
Welcome to “Genocide and the Rule of
Law,” the inaugural hearing of the Judiciary Committee’s newly-created
Subcommittee on Human Rights and the Law.
We are honored
to welcome as well this distinguished panel of witnesses to share their
views on this important and timely issue.
After a few
opening remarks, I will recognize Senator Coburn, the Ranking Member,
for an opening statement, and then we will turn to our witnesses.
But first a word about this new Subcommittee. I want to thank
Senator Patrick Leahy, Chairman of the Judiciary Committee, for
establishing the Subcommittee, and for asking me to serve as Chairman.
Senator Leahy has championed human rights for many years, and this
Subcommittee is another indicator of his commitment to this issue.
This is the first time in Senate history that there has been a
subcommittee focused on human rights. And the timing is right. At
this moment in our history, it is vitally important to our national
interest to promote greater respect for human rights around the world.
When our leaders speak of our inherent desire for freedom and our
communal need for democracy, they are acknowledging the fundamentals of
human rights. And those who ignore and violate these fundamentals do
more than challenge some idealistic goal.
Repressive
regimes that violate human rights create fertile breeding grounds for
suffering, terrorism, war, and instability. In our time, the world is
a much smaller place, and the social ills caused by human rights abuses
know no borders. We will never be truly secure as long as fundamental
human rights are not respected.
Our Declaration of
Independence says, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all
men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with
certain unalienable rights.” Too many times in our history we have
fallen short of this ideal, but this commitment to human rights was,
and is, the promise of America.
I hope that this
Subcommittee will give the Senate an opportunity to work together to
maintain America’s leadership in protecting and promoting fundamental
human rights.
America also stands for another
revolutionary idea: the rule of law. As John Adams said, we are “a
government of laws, not of men.” We should keep in mind that human
rights are little more than empty promises if they are enforceable in
law.
That is why this is the Human Rights and the Law
Subcommittee, and that is why it is part of the Judiciary Committee.
And that is why this Subcommittee will focus on the law as a means for
making the promise of human rights a reality.
When
Chairman Leahy asked me to chair this Subcommittee, I knew that our
first hearing had to be on the subject of genocide and the rule of law.
Rafael Lemkin, a Holocaust survivor and the architect of the
Genocide Convention, placed his faith in the ability of the law to
prevent genocide. He implored the international community to adopt
laws against genocide, saying, “Only man has law… You must build the
law!”
The legal prohibition against genocide is obviously
an unfulfilled promise. We see this most clearly today in Darfur in
western Sudan. In this region of six million people, hundreds of
thousands of people have been killed and over two million people have
been driven from their homes. For them, the commitment of “never
again” rings hollow.
We must ask ourselves why. Is this a
failure of law, or of will? Or both? What are the legal obligations
of states to prevent genocide before it has begun? Do debates about
the legal definition of genocide serve as an excuse for governments not
to act? What is our responsibility to protect victims of atrocities
that do not meet the legal definition of genocide?
And we
must explore legal options for preventing genocide, or, in the worst
case scenario, stopping an ongoing genocide, like the one in Darfur.
During today’s hearing, we will explore using the law to impose
criminal and civil sanctions on individuals who are guilty of
genocide. We will discuss the status of the International Criminal
Court’s Darfur investigation, and whether the federal government is
doing everything it can to facilitate that investigation. We will also
examine the possibility of criminal and civil liability under U.S. law
for people who commit genocide anywhere in the world.
Divestment is another legal tool that has put pressure on the
government of Sudan to stop the genocide. Today’s divestment movement
is the heir to the anti-apartheid movement of the 1980’s. Apartheid
ended because of the courage and determination of people like Nelson
Mandela, but divestment was also a source of external pressure on the
apartheid system.
Today I want to announce that I plan to
introduce legislation to authorize state and local governments to
divest from Sudan. Senator Brownback, my colleague Senator Obama and
members of this Subcommittee have played leading roles in the
divestment movement and, more broadly, the fight against the Darfur
genocide. I look forward to working with the members of this
Subcommittee to enact divestment legislation and other legal measures
that will help end the genocide in Darfur.
A little over a
year ago, Senator Brownback and I visited Kigali, Rwanda. We stayed in
the Hotel Mille Collines, made famous by Don Cheadle’s movie Hotel
Rwanda. As I walked down the corridor to my room, I could not help but
think of that movie and the hundreds of frightened Rwandans who huddled
there, fearing the worst. Early one morning, I walked down the hill to
Saint Famille, a simple, red brick Catholic Church. I learned later
that Saint Famille was a sanctuary for people fleeing the
genocidaires. Sadly, this sanctuary was no refuge at all. It was
overrun and nearly one thousand people were massacred in the church I
visited that morning.
In 1994, my predecessor and friend,
Senator Paul Simon of Illinois, pleaded with the Clinton Administration
to do more to stop the genocide in Rwanda, and President Clinton later
called his inaction the worst foreign-policy mistake of his
administration. I salute the Bush Administration for calling the
situation in Darfur the genocide that it is. Now that we have
acknowledged for more than four years that this horror is happening on
our watch, we must summon the courage act to stop this carnage, this
genocide.