Nixon Administration is Reviewing Position on Human Rights Treaties, Says Mrs. Hauser

The Nixon Administration is reviewing its stand on a series of international human rights treaties, including the United Nations Genocide Convention, which has been tabled by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee for a number of years. This was revealed in a speech today by Mrs. Rita E. Hauser, U.S. permanent representative to the UN Human Rights Commission, to the American Jewish Committee, which began its 63rd annual meeting here.

Mrs. Hauser noted that the U.S. had acceded to only two minor treaties among the many human rights convention developed by the Commission and other UN bodies and called the U.S. position “anomalous,” “most distressing” and “illustrative of a roadblock to international human rights in countries where political power is decentralized and local prerogatives treasured.”

Citing a convention on elimination of all forms of racial discrimination which, while signed by the U.S., has never been submitted to the Senate, Mrs. Hauser said there were constitutional difficulties involved because it required a signatory nation to declare illegal the dissemination of ideas based on racial superiority or hatred, and to prohibit organizations or propaganda activities that promote or incite racial discrimination.

I firmly believe and have urged within the Administration the view, shared by many, that these difficulties can be overcome by an appropriate reservation to the Convention which we are free to make when ratifying,” Mrs. Hauser said. She asserted that some Senators “including very prestigious men on the Foreign Relations Committee,” have resisted ratification and added that she believed their reasons to be “totally wrong.”