Mr. President, I oppose the Helms amendment. In my view, an appropriately structured International Criminal Court is a logical next step in efforts to strengthen international institutions for upholding the norms of civil society. I would note that this amendment expresses the sense of the Congress in support of such a Court, but certainly does mandate its establishment. If such a Court were established, Senate advice and consent would be required before the United States could participate. This guarantees the Senate the opportunity to review and accept or reject U.S. participation in the Court based on the particulars of the agreement establishing the Court. The tragedy unfolding in the former Yugoslavia; the deliberate, genocidal policies carried out against the Kurds; and the countless other instances where governments, or so-called liberation movements, have committed gross violations of human rights, point to the need for the establishment of a permanent forum in which these crimes can be adjudicated and criminals brought to justice. Would such a Court guarantee that such abuses do not happen? Of course not. But it would be a deterrent and it would be a start toward bringing to justice those individuals who are responsible for the crimes we have seen all too frequently. Mr. President, the Court could also prove valuable in instances where governments are reluctant, or forbidden by their own law, to extradite their citizens to another country. We have seen this happen with narcotics traffickers and terrorists. An International Criminal Court would be a valuable additional tool in bringing these people to justice. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that a statement by the Honorable Conrad K. Harper, legal adviser at the Department of State on the International Criminal Court be included in the Record following my remarks. The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered. (See exhibit 1.) This statement makes clear that the Department is examining closely many of the issues raised by my colleague from North Carolina. I hope it will reassure him that the administration is not trying to rush willy-nilly into establishment of an International Criminal Court. Mr. President, I urge my colleagues to oppose this amendment. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum. The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded. The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered. Mr. President, I rise today in support of the amendment offered by my good friend from South Dakota with regard to watchdogging the funds that are funneled into the United Nations. The cold war has faded away, and now the world is turning to the United Nations for their leadership in solving many of the problems that are plaguing our world. Peacekeeping missions find the blue helmets of the United Nations in many hot spots across the world. However, these missions are not cheap in terms of money and, of course, manpower. The United Nations is going to look to the United States for troops and equipment and expertise and intelligence, and they are also going to look for our money. If they do that, there just has to be more accountability on their part. The United States is the single largest contributor to the United Nations, counting 25 percent of the assessed contributions and 31 percent of the total contributions for peacekeeping. As the United Nations takes on more and more responsibility, one glaring problem keeps coming up: The lack of any organized accounting system. The United Nations is an organization that is known for mismanagement and poor budgeting skills and, in a lot of places, very poor judgment. The United States keeps funneling money into the United Nations and, in return, the United Nations cannot even give a straight answer to where and how our money was spent. In fact, when asked how many people there are on the payroll, they cannot even give us that number. Like a friend of mine up in Montana says when asked, "How many people work at your outfit?" He says, "Well, about half of them." If a Montanan asked how many people were on my staff and I did not have the answer, I would be in serious trouble. We are a constituent of the United Nations, so to speak, and as the largest contributor to their fund, I believe we have the right to at least ask the questions on where and how our money is spent. Our dollars are tight. I do not know of a State in this Union that does not have budget problems, most of them driven, by the way, by unfunded mandates of the Federal Government. I hear from many people in my State who want Congress to get spending under control and the Federal Government to control, or curb at least, wasteful programs. Giving scarce funds to the United Nations to use and abuse is not the answer to curbing waste. We cannot afford to bankroll an organization that spends money without accountability. An inspector general would go a long way in checking the waste, fraud and abuse taking place now in the United Nations. So I support this amendment because it gives us, the Members of Congress, a chance to put our calls for administrative reform on the United Nations. I think the reason that you see a little cynicism in Government is because we are not tough enough on oversight. There needs to be some accountability by us whenever we give our money to other organizations to use in the best interest of peace and welfare in the world. By getting this situation in hand, the efficiency of the United Nations would be increased, stretching our money and making those dollars go further, especially when those dollars, right now, are hard to come by. So I support the Pressler amendment. I thank the Chair and I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum. The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded. The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered. Mr. President, the language in section 170A of the Foreign Relations Authorization Act now before the Senate expresses the sense of Congress that the United States should encourage the establishment of an international criminal court within the United Nations system. I support the proposal by my friend from Connecticut, because I share his belief that the establishment of a mechanism for the enforcement of the international rule of law would be a positive development. But let us be clear about what this resolution does not do. It does not put the Congress on record in favor of any particular proposal. It says only that the Congress encourages the process to move forward. A question has arisen as to whether the Judiciary Committee should review this resolution. The establishment of an international criminal court would obviously have profound implications were the United States to join it. I agree, therefore, that the Judiciary Committee has an interest in this subject -- and will continue to closely monitor developments in the International Law Commission and the United Nations. But formal Judiciary Committee review of this resolution is, at this time, not necessary. There have been many proposals put forth by various organizations and members of the academic community, but there is as yet no final draft of a statute for an international criminal court. Should this matter come before the Senate in the form of a treaty or in any other form binding upon the United States, the Senate can be assured that I would insist that the Judiciary Committee undertake a thorough review at that time. The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the question is on the motion to table amendment 1254. On this question, the yeas and nays have been ordered. The clerk will call the roll. The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Feingold). Are there any other Senators in the Chamber desiring to vote? Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote. I move to lay that motion on the table. The motion to lay on the table was agreed to. The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the question is on the adoption of amendment 1253, as modified. The yeas and nays have been ordered. The clerk will call the roll. I announce that the Senator from Georgia [Mr. Nunn] is necessarily absent. Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote. I move to lay that motion on the table. The motion to lay on the table was agreed to. Mr. HELMS addressed the Chair. The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from North Carolina. Mr. President, I have no more treasured friend in the Senate than Senator Dodd of Connecticut. He and I are sometimes on the same side, sometimes on the opposite side. But when we disagree, we agree to disagree agreeably. I admire him and I enjoy working with him. I must use this opportunity, however, to analyze a few statements as I understand them to have been made by Senator Dodd in my absence. I had to leave the floor at about a quarter of 12 to meet with about 400 constituents from North Carolina. Now, if my information is correct, Senator Dodd apparently made some statements that appeared to indicate that this section of the bill is simply an endorsement of what the State Department is already doing. Now, I believe if enough Senators understood that to be the case, my amendment would not have been tabled by, what, five votes or something in that neighborhood. But let me say to Senator Dodd and any other Senator who voted to table my amendment, that the State Department does not endorse Senator Dodd's language as stated in section 170A. Let me say again -- the State Department does not endorse it. The State Department has reservations, in fact, about Congress endorsing an international criminal court whose particulars we have not even seen. Just to prove my point, let me quote from page 13 of the committee report that accompanied Senate Joint Resolution 32 and followed the one hearing on this matter of whether the United States should participate in an international court by whatever name. Here is the language from the committee report: So the question still is, as I tried to emphasize at the outset, does the Senate really want to endorse even a vague concept of an international criminal court that could put a General Westmoreland on trial for alleged war crimes, particularly when you have judges from, say, North Korea and Cuba and Libya, the PLO, et cetera? The point I tried to make earlier this morning, and I am trying to make it again -- and I am going to do it with an amendment in just a moment -- is that we better take our time and we better know what we are doing before we even appear to be in favor of having the United States participate in an international court. I, for one, do not want to water down the sovereignty of the United States of America even one drop. I do not want to take even the slightest liberty with the sovereign rights of any American citizen. Mr. President, will my colleague from North Carolina yield to permit me to respond to just the first part of the statement regarding the position of the administration? I would like to respond to that. Let us proceed with the amendment. Mr. President, I send an amendment to the desk and ask for its immediate consideration. The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that reading of the amendment be dispensed with. The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered. Mr. President, will my colleague yield at this particular point? No. If the Senator will forbear, let me make a brief statement with respect to the amendment. Then we will, as I say, go to hammering and tonging around and see where we come out. This amendment is quite simple. It states that the Senate will not ratify a treaty establishing an international criminal court if representatives of terrorist organizations such as the PLO or citizens of terrorist countries are permitted to sit in judgment on American citizens. I want to see who will vote against this. This is a real problem. This is not a hypothetical problem. In his report to the Security Council on March 3 relative to the establishment of a war crimes tribunal on Bosnia, the Secretary General stated, article 13, paragraph 2(a), that he intends to seek judges from member states of the United Nations and permanent observer groups. I ask my colleagues to keep in mind the fact that all of the countries on the United States terrorist list -- Iran, Iraq, Syria, Libya, Cuba, and North Korea -- are member states of the United Nations, and the Palestine Office is a permanent observer group. All of this is confirmed by Professor Bassiouni, the leading academic proponent of the international criminal court. At the sole subcommittee hearing on May 12, I asked the professor if the PLO, Iran, Syria, Libya, and so forth could send judges to this court. He said, quite accurately, that there is no guarantee against that happening. If you doubt that, look on page 69 of the committee report. So this amendment simply provides a guarantee against terrorists sitting in judgment on American citizens. As I said this morning, and I say again, Iran, Iraq, Syria, Libya, Cuba, and North Korea are all on the terrorist list. Not one of them has any recent history of respect for simple justice or due process. Why should we expose American citizens to judges from those countries? Likewise, the Palestinian Office is an official observer group as stipulated by the Secretary General of the United Nations. Is this not the PLO? Let us not forget that there is no agreed-upon list of international crimes, and as some have suggested, that is pretty scary. As I said this morning, the court defines as a crime "colonialism," whatever that is. "Environmental crimes" is another. And probably every Member of the Senate has been guilty at one time or another of "insulting a foreign state," which is another crime being discussed in the academic literature. If a foreign state happens to be Iraq, the best I can plead is nolo contendere -- no, I will plead guilty to that. So the point I am making, Mr. President, is this -- it is not farfetched to anticipate an American businessman defending himself against a charge of environmental crimes before a three-judge tribunal composed of judges from North Korea, Cuba, the PLO, et cetera. So that is the brief explanation of the amendment. I ask for the yeas and nays on the amendment. Will the Senator withhold for a moment on the yeas and nays? Will my colleague yield for a second? My name was raised. I am going to yield the floor. If I can ask the Senator to perhaps withhold, because I do not think it will be necessary to have a vote. But I ask him to withhold for a moment, if he would, on the yeas and nays. I yield the floor. I appreciate that. Mr. DODD addressed the Chair. The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Connecticut. Mr. President, first of all, let me suggest before we go for a vote that I do not see why we need a vote on this amendment. I cannot imagine anyone being against this amendment. There was nothing said earlier today to indicate that anyone ought to possibly be against this amendment. Just for the purposes of time, this is one that can be accepted. Let us move on. I do not know of anyone who believes we want terrorist organizations sitting in judgment anywhere, let alone, least of all, on our own citizens. That is not the issue. Let me step back a minute because my friend -- he is my good friend. We have had differences; we have had them over the years; we remain friends. This morning, so there is no doubt in anyone's mind here about where the administration stands with regard to the sense-of-the-Senate resolution on the subject of the earlier recorded vote, I made reference to a prepared statement the administration made on October 26, 1993, which I ask unanimous consent, Mr. President, be included in its entirety at this particular juncture. I want to specifically read the paragraph that I referred to this morning during this debate. This is a statement by Mr. Harper, Conrad Harper, legal adviser, U.S. Department of State. I gave the date, October 26. In one of the last paragraphs, he says: The resolution that was part of this bill that the Senator from North Carolina sought to strike has as its paragraph 3: The U.S. delegation should make every effort to advance this proposal at the United Nations. Then, of course, we called upon a report to be issued by February 1 of this year detailing the problems. So I want to make it clear. I did not in any way suggest that the administration had taken an absolute endorsement, but rather was pursuing it, looking at it; the best statement of their position we have was made last in October on this particular issue. I suggest to my colleagues the statement of the administration is no different from what the sense-of-the-Senate resolution is to advance this particular cause. As regarding this particular amendment, I know of no reason why it should not be accepted and adopted and moved on, because clearly this states strongly that the idea of an international court ought to be pursued. But I certainly would not want any international court to have as its judging tribunal terrorist members of terrorist organizations. So this amendment to me is perfectly satisfactory. I urge its adoption. Mr. President, I could not agree more with my colleague. We are prepared to accept this amendment. It is a good amendment and it embodies common sense, I think, and a basic understanding of what we would or would not accept in this country in terms of behavior. I congratulate the Senator. If he is amenable, I think we can proceed with a voice vote. In just one moment. The distinguished Senator from Connecticut was reading selectively from the minutes of the U.N.'s Sixth Committee, which met on October 26, 1993, I believe; am I correct on that? I submitted the entire statement by Conrad Harper as part of the Record. It is about three pages long. I read the paragraph I thought was most important, from which we drew the language of the resolution. That is just the point. I believe I still have the floor. I will yield to the Senator at a later point, if I make a misstatement he wants to correct. What he did not read was the report as contained in the minutes of the U.N. Sixth Committee on October 26, 1993, in which Conrad K. Harper of the United States testified to a very interesting extent about the perils of moving into this world court arena. The minutes say, referring to Conrad K. Harper, "on the jurisdiction of the Court," he said he was not convinced that the category of crimes under general international law was sufficiently defined or accepted by the world community, that it could in its current state form a basis for jurisdiction of the criminal court. "It must be ensured that cases which could be properly and adequately handled in national courts are not removed unnecessarily to the International Court." He also voiced concern about the manner in which international jurisdiction would relate to existing status of forces agreements -- the prosecution of war crimes and other military matters, which is precisely, Mr. President, the point I tried to make this morning. Let me reiterate for the Record that what I am doing here this afternoon, and what I was doing this morning, and what I have done in the Foreign Relations Committee so many times, is that I picked up the work of the late Senator Sam J. Ervin, who sat right over there during the 2 years that I was privileged to be the junior Senator to that great American. He had great heartburn about any mention of invading the sovereignty of the United States of America, let alone diminishing the constitutional rights of any American citizen. Senator Dodd knows how I feel about this. I do not want us to take one step until we have had adequate hearings and we know what we are talking about. We have had one hearing and one hearing alone. This is too important an issue to cavalierly say, well, we will cover that as we get down the road. I do not want to go down the road until we know what bumps and potholes are in that road. I am perfectly willing to have this amendment accepted on a voice vote. I reserve the right to offer a further amendment or amendments to give Senators who voted, I think, in error, on my amendment which was tabled by 5 votes. I want to give them a chance to straighten themselves out and recant because, in my judgment, they made a serious mistake when they voted to table the amendment. If my colleague will yield for a moment, I want to respond to the issue of the statement by Mr. Harper. I do not disagree at all. That was not the point of contention over what the specifics are. It is a little difficult to hold a series of hearings when you do not have anything to hold a hearing about except the general proposition. We held a hearing on the general proposition of whether or not an International Criminal Court was worth pursuing. My colleague from North Carolina, to his credit, states very candidly that he has a fundamental underlying problem with the notion of an International Court. That is a very legitimate position to take, and I do not argue with that. I disagree with it, but I do not argue with it. I think we ought to pursue the issue of determining whether or not an International Court of Justice makes sense. May I ask the Senator why? If I may conclude my comments first. I think it makes more sense to try individuals when we have a chance. The Achille Lauro case was a classic case. The Egyptians would not try Abu Abbas, the terrorist. We intercepted a flight and landed him in Italy. The Italians let him go. We had an international crisis. Trinidad and Tobago cannot try drug traffickers because of the threat imposed on its government. It is a small country that has raised this issue. It wants another forum, because of the pressures, to go after drug traffickers and drug kingpins. The International Criminal Court could provide such a forum. There is a great deal of interest internationally in establishing such a forum. Let me tell my colleague and friends here that I am not committing myself to vote for any treaty on an international criminal court of justice until I see the details. Where my colleague and I disagree is that he fundamentally disagrees with the establishment of any such court. I think we ought to pursue it, and that is the difference here. The position of the administration is that they think it ought to be pursued at this point, and it has been very careful not to endorse one until they see the fine print. But to say absolutely not, under any circumstance are we even going to consider such a court, I think that goes too far. I think we at least ought to consider it. That was the position of the Bush administration and it is the position, I think, of the Clinton administration, and I think it ought to be our position. But there is a fundamental difference over the general proposition of whether or not there ought to be any international Criminal Court. We have a disagreement on that point. But I do not think it is fair to take that position and expand it to the point where we are endorsing specifics of a treaty that has not been presented to anybody at this juncture. I yield to my colleague. (Mr. LIEBERMAN assumed the Chair.) I remember a Congressman from North Carolina, who served as chairman of the Ways and Means Committee and was hard of hearing. Somebody gave him an argument one time for about 5 minutes and Bob Douten, known as farmer Bob, looked at him and smiled and said, "How's that?" But the Senator did say this morning that nobody should be opposed to the concept of this issue. The trouble is we do not know what the concept is. The executive branch of the U.S. Government has been looking at this thing for years and years, and that is just the problem. We do not know anything about it. I do not want to take that first step. I am not going to debate it any further. If my colleague wants to take this amendment on a voice vote, I am perfectly willing to do that. The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Massachusetts [Mr. Kerry], is recognized. Mr. President, thank you. We are delighted to take this amendment, as I said earlier, and we will do so without further debate. The PRESIDING OFFICER. Hearing no further debate, the question occurs on amendment No. 1258 offered by the Senator from North Carolina [Mr. Helms]. Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote. I move to lay that motion on the table. The motion to lay on the table was agreed to. The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Connecticut. Mr. President, I have two amendments that can be accepted in 30 seconds. I will just submit them. The chairman managing the bill and my colleague from North Carolina have had a chance to look at these. Mr. President, I send an amendment to the desk on behalf of myself and Senator Coverdell regarding the Peace Corps which I am told has been cleared on both sides. The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report the amendment. May I ask the Senator if these are the two amendments we previously considered? The Senator is correct. I am not opposed at all. The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report the amendment. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that reading of the amendment be dispensed with. The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered. Mr. President, this amendment would very modestly increase the authorized funding level for the Peace Corps for fiscal year 1995 by $15 million. It would bring the fiscal year 1995 authorization level in the bill from $219.745 million to $234.745 million. In a real sense, this is simply a steady state budget to enable Peace Corps to continue its fiscal year 1994 programs into fiscal year 1995. Why do I say it is a steady state budget? Because, while Congress appropriated $219 million specifically for the Peace Corps for fiscal year 1994 it also urged and the Clinton administration concurred to the transfer of an additional $15 million in fiscal year 1994 funds to Peace Corps to pay in part for its new program initiatives in the former Soviet Union. I think we would all agree that with the political situation at such a critical point in Russia and in many of the other NIS countries that programs like those undertaken by Peace Corps are crucial to getting out the message about what democracy really translates into at the grassroots level. We should and must continue the Peace Corps initiatives in the NIS countries in fiscal year 1995. The additional $15 million in the Peace Corps budget will permit this to happen without jeopardizing Peace Corps programs in other parts of the world. Obviously when it comes time to appropriate the fiscal year 1995 moneys, the Peace Corps will have to stand in line with other foreign assistance programs, and justify its funding request, but at least at this juncture we are signaling that we believe that Peace Corps programs are making a contribution to the long-term foreign policy goal of the United States, namely of fostering democracy and democratic institutions at the most basic community levels. I would hope that my colleagues could support this modest amendment. Mr. President, the Peace Corps of the United States has, over the past several years, responded with great energy and commitment to the historical transformations that are occurring in the societies of Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Republics. The Berlin Wall had scarcely fallen when Peace Corps responded to the request of Poland, Hungary, and Czechoslovakia for critical technical assistance from Peace Corps volunteers. The call for Peace Corps services did not end in these initial Eastern European countries. Soon, virtually every other European country which formerly fell under the domination of the former Soviet Union requested Peace Corps volunteers to help them make the transformation to democracy and market economies. Peace Corps was the first United States agency to provide significant numbers of development workers to the Eastern European countries following their freedom from the Soviet Union. Peace Corps volunteers arrived to instruct these countries in private business development, organizational systems, and the training of teachers of the English language. Since its expansion into Eastern Europe, the Peace Corps has continued to answer the call for assistance from the former Soviet Republics. Peace Corps continues to be called upon to provide assistance to help carry out the far-sweeping reforms and transformations taking place in these countries. While Peace Corps stretches its resources perhaps farther than any other Federal agency, there is a limit to what it can achieve without meaningful increases in its budget. We are now faced with the need for such an increase in the Peace Corps budget, an increase which can have a major impact on the ability of the Peace Corps to respond to the calls for its assistance. Accordingly, I am pleased to endorse and cosponsor this amendment with Senator Dodd which would provide a modest increase in the authorization level for Peace Corps and insure that the agency can continue to send volunteers into areas of great need and of great importance to world peace. Mr. President, I urge adoption of the amendment. The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection? Without objection, the amendment is agreed to. So the amendment (No. 1259) was agreed to. Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote. I move to lay that motion on the table. The motion to lay on the table was agreed to. Mr. President, I send another amendment to the desk on behalf of myself and ask for its immediate consideration. The amendment has been cleared by both sides. The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report the amendment. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that reading of the amendment be dispensed with. The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered. Mr. President, the peacekeeping responsibilities of the United Nations have increased enormously in recent years. The United Nations staff is clearly unable to provide all of the goods and services required to carry out ongoing peacekeeping operations. In order to fill the gap, the United Nations has contracted out for engineering services, supply management, communications services and communications management, trucking and transportation management, security and other such services mandated by these growing peacekeeping operations. These contracting efforts now entail large sums of money with the funds coming primarily from regular peacekeeping contributions, with the United States being a substantial contributor to the peacekeeping budget. It would seem only fair that U.S. contractors be given a fair opportunity to compete with other foreign contractors for these lucrative U.N. contracts. All that this amendment is intended to do is to urge the United States Permanent Representative to the United Nations to give some attention to this matter and to begin to compile some data to enable the Congress to make some judgment on how well U.S. contractors are faring in obtaining a reasonable proportion of such U.N. contracts. Mr. President, I urge adoption of the amendment. The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection? Hearing none, the amendment is agreed to. So the amendment (No. 1260) was agreed to. Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote. I move to lay that motion on the table. The motion to lay on the table was agreed to. I thank the colleague from Massachusetts and colleague from North Carolina. I thank the Senator for helping us move those amendments along.