Senate Foreign Relations Committee Considers Ratification of International and Political Covenant

On November 21, 1991, the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations considered the case for the ratification of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. The holding of the hearing signifies the rekindling of interest in another fundamental international human rights convention by the United States. Ratification is likely in the new year. If ratified, the Civil and Political Rights Covenant would become the broadest multiple-purpose human rights treaty to which the U.S. is a party. It would also provide an important international treaty to which criminal defendants in the U.S. could point for a source of procedural rights.