are members' official policy and are inconsistent with the obligations in articles 55 and 56, as is the case with the apartheid policy of the Union of South Africa.

Beyond these charter provisions, the General Assembly in 1948 adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights without a single negative vote and with the abstention only of the Soviet bloc, Saudi Arabia, and South Africa. While this document does not have the binding force of an international agreement, it does represent an historic effort to define "a common standard of achievement for all peoples and all nations" in the field of human rights and fundamental freedoms.

Following its adoption, the members of the U.N. turned to the drafting of binding legal instruments on specific human rights on which a widespread consensus existed and which appeared appropriate for embodiment in convention form.

Just over 2 weeks ago, President Kennedy sent three of these conventions-those on forced labor, slavery, and the political rights of women-to the Senate for advice and consent to ratification. Although the legal standards established by these conventions are already reflected in our Constitution and statutes, and have long been deeply rooted in our legal and moral heritage, the United States has so far not ratified them, or any other human rights convention drafted under U.N. auspices-a fact which many of our friends find hard to understand.

Just what do these conventions provide?

The supplementary convention on slavery, thus far ratified by 49 countries, supplements the 1926 slavery convention, to which the United States is a party, by dealing with conditions akin to slavery. It requires states parties to

take all practicable and necessary measures to bring about as soon as possible the complete abolition of such practices as debt bondage, serfdom, involuntary marriage or transfer of women for payment, transfer of widows as inherited property, and exploitation of children. It provides that states parties shall make participation in the slave trade a criminal offense and that any slave who takes refuge on board any vessel of a party shall ipso facto be free. It provides that the states parties shall make the mutilation, branding, or marking of a slave or person of servile status and the act of enslaving or inducing another person into slavery criminal offenses.

The convention concerning the abolition of forced labor, already ratified by 60 countries, provides that each ratifying member undertakes to suppress and not to make use of any form of forced or compulsory labor

-as a means of political coercion or education or as a punishment for holding or expressing political views or views ideologically opposed to the established political, social, or economic system;

-as a method of mobilizing and using labor for purposes of economic development; —as a means of labor discipline;

-as a punishment for having participated in strikes; or

-as a means of racial, social, national, or religious discrimination.

The convention on the political rights of women, ratified by 40 countries, provides that, on equal terms with men and without discrimination, women shall: first, be entitled to vote in all elections; second, be eligible for election to all publicly elected bodies established by national law: and third, be entitled to hold

public office and exercise all public functions established by national law.

It is worth repeating that each of these conventions deals with an important human right already guaranteed by our Federal Constitution and by existing Federal law. Consequently, no change in our domestic legislation would be required.

But what, exactly, is the practical benefit of ratifying these conventions?

Their ratification can play a modest but still significant part in building an international environment congenial to American interests. We have learned from hard experience of the intimate interdependence between human rights and our national security. Nazi Germany should have taught everyone the lesson that internal suppression is often the handmaiden of external aggression-that the destruction of freedom at home can quickly lead to the destruction of freedom abroad.

President Kennedy summed up this relationship eloquently in his speech at American University in June when he asked, "And is not peace, in the last analysis, basically a matter of human rights...?" Worldwide progress in the vindication of human rights and fundamental freedoms will also be progress toward creating a peaceful and stable world order.

Obviously, words on paper are not enough. Nobody believes that the signing of a human rights convention in and of itself brings automatic improvement in the condition of people around the world. But U.S. participation in the great effort under U.N. auspices to define and clarify basic human rights of the kind embodied in these three conventions can make a practical contribution to our national interest in promoting human rights in at least three

ways:

First, these conventions have an influence on the constitutions and laws of the countries which are parties to the conventions and thus may be implemented in practice within their societies. This is particularly true of many of the newly independent countries which consciously take the U.N. conventions as a model. United States ratification will attract wide attention and encourage similar commitments by others.

Second, the adherence of the United States to these conventions will put us in a position, as a contracting party, to blow the whistle on countries that have ratified the conventions but have failed to implement them in practice. Our failure to accept these conventions ourselves makes it more difficult for us to work for the improvement of human rights within other countries.

Third, U.S. ratification of these conventions is our entrance fee to influence in the future drafting of legal norms in the human rights field. If we continue to fail to ratify any human rights conventions, other countries may come to discount our views when such basic issues are discussed.

It is essential that the United States demonstrate its continuing adherence to fundamental concepts which have motivated our country since its birth. Our power in the world derives not just from our position as an arsenal of weapons or as a storehouse of commodities but as a society which seeks the universal realization of the dignity of man.

With a growing number of human rights issues competing for world attention, the United States is under challenge by friend and foe alike to maintain its leadership in this field. Other nations may measure our sincerity in terms of the commitments we share with them, and we should not hesitate to make those commitments which accord with our own constitutional guarantees.

Our adherence to these conventions will affirm anew our faith in basic freedoms throughout the world. It is this belief in the importance and worth of every individual, a belief which motivates our efforts for social and economic progress, that distinguishes us from the totalita ians of the left and of the right.

As the President said in his letter to the President of the Senate at the time he transmitted the conventions to the Senate:

The United States cannot afford to renounce responsibility for support of the very fundamentals which distinguish our concept of government from all forms of tyranny.

Let us assure that no nation can accuse us of extinguishing Jefferson's "fire of human rights" or of obscuring its light from the earth.

PRESIDENT'S LETTER TO SENATE

Following is a letter from President Kennedy to Lyndon B. Johnson, President of the Sate, transmitting the conventions on slavery, forced labor, and the political rights of women.

White House press release dated July 22

JULY 22, 1963

DEAR MR. PRESIDENT: I have today transmitted to the Senate three conventions with a view to receiving advice and consent to ratification. These are:

1. The Supplementary Convention to the Abolition of Slavery, the Slave Trade, and Institutions and Practices Similar to Slavery, prepared under the direction of the United Nations in 1956, to which 49 nations are now parties.

2. The Convention on the Abolition of Forced Labor, adopted by the International Labor Organization in 1957, to which 60 nations are now parties.