[Federal Register Volume 64, Number 236 (Thursday, December 9, 1999)]
[Presidential Documents]
[Pages 69161-69162]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 99-32133]
[[Page 69159]]
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Part VI
The President
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Proclamation 7258--Human Rights Day, Bill of Rights Day, and Human
Rights Week, 1999
Proclamation 7259--National Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day, 1999
Presidential Documents
Federal Register / Vol. 64, No. 236 / Thursday, December 9, 1999 /
Presidential Documents
___________________________________________________________________
Title 3--
The President
[[Page 69161]]
Proclamation 7258 of December 6, 1999
Human Rights Day, Bill of Rights Day, and Human
Rights Week, 1999
By the President of the United States of America
A Proclamation
President Carter once said, ``America did not invent
human rights. In a very real sense, it's the other way
around. Human rights invented America.'' Human rights
have been an integral part of America's history since
the birth of our Nation more than two centuries ago.
Refusing to accept tyranny and oppression, our founders
secured a better way of life with our Constitution and
Bill of Rights. These revolutionary documents have
continued to protect our cherished freedoms of
religion, speech, press, and assembly and to preserve
the principles of equality, liberty, and justice that
lie at the heart of our national identity.
As Americans, we have always strived to advance these
rights and values both at home and abroad, and just as
our founders sought a brighter future for our Nation,
we envision a better future for our world. One of our
most powerful tools in realizing that vision has been
the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which the
United Nations General Assembly approved in December of
1948. It is not surprising that this document, which
owed so much to the courage, imagination, and
leadership of Eleanor Roosevelt, reaffirms in tone,
thought, and language our own great charters of
freedom. To honor Mrs. Roosevelt's legacy, and to
acknowledge those who follow her example of commitment
to human rights around the world, last year we
established the Eleanor Roosevelt Award for Human
Rights.
In the 51 years since the adoption of the Universal
Declaration, the United Nations has developed numerous
legal instruments that specify the rights and
obligations contained in the document, and the
international community has made encouraging progress
toward improving human rights for people of all
nations. Today, more individuals than ever before are
living in representative democracies where they can
exercise their right to freely choose their own
government. The international community responded
vigorously to halt ethnic cleansing in Kosovo and is
helping the people of East Timor not only to achieve
legal recognition of their independence but also to
develop the institutions they need to thrive as an
independent and secure state. But despite this
heartening progress, there are still many regions of
the world where human rights are daily denied and
aspirations to freedom routinely crushed. Our work is
still far from complete.
Rising to these challenges, we in the United States
have strengthened our commitment to improving
international human rights. To enable the world
community to react more quickly to genocidal
conditions, we have established a genocide early
warning system. We continue to fund nongovernmental
organizations that respond rapidly to human rights
emergencies. And we have created an interagency working
group to help implement the human rights treaties we
have already ratified and to make recommendations on
treaties we have yet to ratify.
We also continue to be a world leader in the fight to
eliminate exploitative and abusive child labor. Last
week, I signed the instrument of ratification of the
International Labor Organization's Convention on the
Elimination of the Worst Forms of Child Labor,
declaring on behalf of the American
[[Page 69162]]
people that we simply will not tolerate child slavery,
the sale or trafficking of children, child prostitution
or pornography, forced or compulsory child labor, and
hazardous work that harms the health, safety, and
morals of children. Through these and other
initiatives, America continues to reaffirm both at home
and across the globe our fundamental belief in human
dignity and our unchanging reverence for human rights.
NOW, THEREFORE, I, WILLIAM J. CLINTON, President of the
United States of America, by virtue of the authority
vested in me by the Constitution and laws of the United
States, do hereby proclaim December 10, 1999, as Human
Rights Day; December 15, 1999, as Bill of Rights Day;
and the week beginning December 10, 1999, as Human
Rights Week. I call upon the people of the United
States to celebrate these observances with appropriate
activities, ceremonies, and programs that demonstrate
our national commitment to the Bill of Rights, the
Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and promotion
and protection of human rights for all people.
IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this
sixth day of December, in the year of our Lord nineteen
hundred and ninety-nine, and of the Independence of the
United States of America the two hundred and twenty-
fourth.
(Presidential Sig.)
[FR Doc. 99-32133
Filed 12-8-99; 8:45 am]
Billing code 3195-01-P