Foreign Relations of the United States, 1977–1980, Volume II, Human Rights and Humanitarian Affairs

324. Memorandum From the Assistant Secretary of State for Oceans and International Environmental and Scientific Affairs (Pickering) and the Assistant Secretary of State for Human Rights and Humanitarian Affairs (Derian) to the Under Secretary of State for Management (Read)¹

Washington, January 19, 1979

SUBJECT

• Women’s and Children’s Rights—New Position

We believe that the Department is vulnerable in not having a full-time, high-level position devoted to international issues pertaining to rights of women and children.² In much of the world, the plight of women and children comprises one of the most serious denials of basic human rights, as well as being a major impediment to social and economic development. Concern for these issues by Congress (especially in light of the Percy Amendment)³ and others, including humanitarian organizations, is certain to increase because of the International Year of the Child (1979) and the 1980 mid-term Conference of the United Nations Decade for Women. Further, the Department is in process of organizing an interagency task force on women and children, in which HA should obviously play a central role.

An OES officer, Dr. Luke T. Lee, FSR–2, possesses unique credentials in these fields. He has considerable academic and legal experience and is an international authority on rights of women and children. He has been involved in several United Nations projects and has published extensively, including one of the most authoritative works in the field, Law and the Status of Women.⁴

Dr. Lee is currently in the Office of the Coordinator of Population Affairs. Although OES has a stake in advancing the status of women, it is not appropriate for the U.S. to be arguing the case for women’s and children’s rights on grounds of their impact on fertility rates. The issues are more clearly related to concerns of HA, not OES.

We therefore recommend that a position be established in HA, to be filled by Dr. Lee, covering the international status and rights of women, children, and the elderly.

We do not believe it feasible to cut the population affairs position in order to achieve this change. The staff of the Coordinator is, in fact, being reduced from five to four officer positions. The departure of Marshall Green and his replacement by a less senior FSO has already drawn criticism from Congress and from private institutions, on grounds that this represents a down-grading of the Department’s commitment to population issues.⁵ The Chairman of the House Select Committee on Population has requested a personal meeting with Secretary Vance to press his concerns on the Department’s role and activities in this area, and the Secretary has agreed to see him. Recent reaffirmation by the Secretary of the importance of population issues in our foreign policy has somewhat mollified Congressional and other criticism, but it is obvious that the Department is being closely watched by the population community. The loss of another population position would certainly raise new questions—especially at a time when responsibilities in this area, including coordination of expanding AID and non-governmental programs, preparation and implementation of U.S. international development strategies for the Third Development Decade, and the complex interrelationships of population growth with such global issues as world hunger, the environment, unemployment, urbanization, energy and resources, etc.—are clearly growing.

Mrs. Benson agrees with these recommendations.

1. Source: National Archives, RG 59, Policy and Planning Staff—Office of the Director, Records of Anthony Lake, 1977–1981, Lot 82D298, Box 5, TL 4/16–4/30 1979. No classification marking. Drafted by Green; concurred in in substance by Blaney.
2. In an April 25 memorandum to Lake, Lee indicated that M had taken the position that HA did not require an officer for women’s issues as the Department had an Office for International Women’s Programs in IO. Lee continued, “This position is in error for a number of reasons. In the first place, socio-economic rights involve more than the rights of women; they include also the rights of the child and the elderly, as well as the rights to education, health (including family planning), employment, food and nutrition, etc., which are dealt with by IO at best on the multilateral basis. Second, even assuming the rights of women embrace the entire scope of socio-economic rights, IO’s involvement in the status of women at the multilateral level should not preclude HA’s involvement at the bilateral and other substantive levels, just as IO’s roles in multilateral population matters has not precluded OES’s role in bilateral and other substantive population issues. Third, by not linking HA to socio-economic rights, the Department’s role in human rights as a whole is apt to suffer.” (Ibid.)
3. The Percy amendment added Section 113, “Integrating Women into National Economies,” to the Foreign Assistance Act of 1973 (P.L. 93–189).
4. Presumable reference to material Lee published in conjunction with a 1976–1977 issue of the Columbia Human Rights Law Review examining the legal status of women in numerous countries.
5. See Documents 318 and 321.