A resolution condemning Soviet harassment of Jews and all other Soviet citizens who “attempt to exercise their basic human rights as guaranteed by international accords and Soviet law” was adopted unanimously yesterday by some 1000 delegates attending the annual Assembly of the American Bar Association (ABA) at the Hiltan Hotel. The resolution also called upon the ABA to establish a committee on human rights, together with its legal counterparts in the Soviet Union.
The resolution was introduced by Robert Mc-Kay, director of the Program on Justice, Society and the Individual at the Aspen Institute of Humanistic Studies. Sponsors of the resolution, in addition to McKay, were Orville Schell and Adrian DeWind, past presidents of the Association of the Bar of New York; Michael Sovern, Dean of the Columbia Law School; Narman Redlich, Dean of New York University Law School; Donald Shapiro, head of the New York Law School; Morris Abram, past president of Brandeis University; and Rita Hauser, former U.S. representative to the United Nations Human Rights Commission.
The resolution, which is to be voted on tomorrow by the ABA’s House of Delegates to make it binding, was introduced in coordination with the New York Legal Coalition for Soviet Jewry, an affiliate of the Greater New York Conference on Soviet Jewry. McKay is a member of the Coalition. The convention tomorrow will also hold a seminar on human rights in the Soviet Union, co-sponsored by the New York Legal Coalition.
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