On January 10, 1977, Ambassador Marshall Green, Coordinator of Population Affairs, Department of State, made a statement to the Nineteenth Session of the U.N. Population Commission in which he described some of the U.S. responses to the World Population Plan of Action adopted by the General Assembly on December 17, 1974 (Resolution 3344 (XXIX)). Excerpts from his statement follow:

We feel that an important aspect of the World Population Plan of Action was the call for increased international assistance to countries requesting it from nations able to provide it. Pursuant to this call, we undertook a detailed review of our international population assistance strategy. We concluded that there are encouraging indications that fertility control measures are increasingly effective. We see this as confirmation of the judgment in the late sixties and early seventies that we should provide substantial resources to other countries to cope with their population problems. Another result was the recommendation that we continue to provide assistance to other countries on a larger scale than heretofore, and that this assistance be increasingly focused on the national and local level as well as on creating circumstances where individuals can decide on and participate in programs that can help to control fertility.

As far as donor countries and agencies are concerned, I think it only reasonable to suggest that all of us be even more forthcoming in all types of assistance that are both needed and justified in helping nations to improve conditions of life for their people. All external assistance in the population field must take into account political and cultural sensitivities, as well as obstacles and complications inherent in the local-shortages of managerial skills as well as of doctors, nurses, and midwives, especially in rural localities where a large majority of the developing world lives.

As far as population growth in the United States is concerned, the rate of natural increase was well below one percent in 1975, due not only to economic and social development but also to the extensive availability and use of family planning methods.

It is indeed fortunate that the United Nations has already moved effectively into the population field, and it is to be hoped that the important deliberations of this Commission will provide further support and impetus to carrying out both the letter and spirit of the World Population Plan of Action.

Dept. of State File OES/CP.

Excerpts from the First Annual Report on U.S. International Population Policy, prepared by the Interagency Task Force on Population Policy in May of 1976, and declassified in 1977, follow:

NSDM [National Security Decision Memorandum]-314 of November 26, 1975, requires that the Chairman of the NSC [National Security Council] Under Secretaries Committee submit annual reports, the first to be prepared within

six months of the above date, on the implementation of U.S. international population policies. The first required annual report is herewith submitted by the Interagency Task Force on Population Policy, established by the Under Secretaries Committee for the purpose of coordinating and implementing the above policy.

The first step taken by the Task Force in implementing the new Presidentially approved policies was to ensure that all responsible officials in Washington and the field were informed of the essential content of basic NSC policy on population. It would be difficult to overstress the importance of involvement of our leaders, ambassadors, and country teams in overseas population growth issues. Our officials must know about the facts of population growth and be fully persuaded of the importance of this issue. They must then find suitable occasion and discreet means to bring the message most persuasively to the attention of LDC [less developed countries] leaders whose influence is decisive in shaping national policies and programs. Without this total involvement of our diplomacy, our efforts will fall far short of the mark.

I. The World Population Crisis: Its Dimensions and Responses by Nations Most Affected

A. Embassy evaluations of the world population crisis largely substantiate the conclusions of NSSM [National Security Staff Memorandum]—200, but with even greater emphasis on the significant impact of population growth on environment and on generating unemployment. Embassy evaluations are somewhat less concerned than NSSM-200 with regard to the availability of food to meet population growth in the immediate future. However, our ambassadors see this as a serious threat in the longer run, with the LDC's increasingly dependent upon food imports, running deeper and deeper into debt and unable to finance the considerable capital cost involved in adequately expanding food production.

D. Despite these ominous conclusions, embassy responses nevertheless point up the fact that more and more countries, including most of the big population countries, have taken counter-measures in the form of national policies and programs to control population growth, though the strength of their commitment and the efficiency of their programs vary widely. . . .

F. On the other hand, our embassies note persistent obstacles to acceptance of birth control as well as the fact that program implementation is badly handicapped in a number of countries through lack of executive talent and shortages of professional manpower. .

G. The overall conclusion to be drawn from embassy reports is that current LDC population growth poses serious problems, but this is counter-balanced to some extent by encouraging evidence of greater attention to population policies on the part of most of the LDC's, significantly including the three largest China, India, and Indonesia.

II. Overall U.S. Strategy and Development of World Commitment to

Population Stabilization

A. U.S. strategy in dealing with the world population problem proceeds from a recognition of the disastrous implications of current population growth rates (including threats to our national security), and yet a counter-balaneing recognition that the problem can be significantly eased if the nations of the world take prompt and effective counter-measures. The main task is up to nations handicapped by excessive population growth, which includes almost all the developing world. But these nations need outside help, and it must be our principal task to see that, in cooperation with other donor nations and organizations, we render effective assistance, when requested and desirable. B. Whatever promotes stability, economic development, better health, improved education, and so on, particularly as such measures broaden opportunities for women, will also create a more favorable setting for reducing current excessive population growth rates which in turn should induce countries to become committed to population stabilization. . . .

C. In the case of countries that have an announced national policy on family planning and development the U.S. should, in addition to its current

AID [Agency for International Development] programs

1. Encourage national leaders to speak out clearly and firmly in support of broad-based population programs.

2. Encourage these countries to adopt innovative approaches... designed to root family planning in the villages . . . ;

3. Train paramedics, midwives, volunteers, and others to provide general health services, including family planning in villages where these people are known and trusted.

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E. In the case of LDC countries uncommitted to population programs, our efforts must be fine-tuned to their particular sensitivities and attitudes.

F. We should lend even stronger support to worldwide efforts for the improved status of women and for their active participation in community and national life.

H. . . . It is important that the LDC's take more of a lead on population issues at international conferences and at home .

...

III. Maximizing Efforts and Contributions of Other Donors and Organizations and Improved Coordination

A. At a time when there is growing LDC concern and interest in combatting excessive population growth, it is particularly important that as many financial resources as possible are brought to bear on the problem, including assistance from other donor states as well as international organizations.

...

B. If the U.S. announces its intention to increase its funding, we will be in a better position to carry out a major effort to get other donors to increase their funding beginning later this year.

C. There is also need for improved coordination efforts amongst donors, particularly since many donors are now reexamining their overall development assistance programs in the context of population growth. . .

...

E. The United Nations Fund for Population Activities (UNFPA) and the private International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF) represent the two most important channels for assistance provided through international organizations and private intermediaries. These intermediaries can operate, though sometimes with limited efficiency, in countries where AID's bilateral assistance programs are not now acceptable. In over half of the key 13 NSSM200 countries, the total U.S. effort is limited to our indirect support for activities of these intermediaries.

(Footnotes omitted.)

Dept. of State File OES/CP.

For further information concerning the World Population Plan of Action, see the 1975 Digest, Ch. 10, § 11, pp. 689–690.

For President Carter's statement of "The Global Environment," including remarks on world population, see post, Ch. 11, § 1, pp. 841-843.

World Assembly on Aging

On October 31, 1977, Representative Clement J. Zablocki introduced into the Congressional Record and moved the adoption of House Resolution 736, expressing the sense of the House of Representatives that the U.S. delegation to the United Nations work with other U.N. member nations to call for a World Assembly on Aging and a World Year on Aging. The House of Representatives agreed to the resolution, which, together with its preamble, appears below:

Whereas the United Nations has within recent years intensified its research and information exchange activities relating to aging:

Whereas a question relating to broadening the United Nations program on aging will be considered this autumn at the thirtysecond session of the General Assembly;

Whereas the discussion of such question will offer a timely forum for discussion of a proposal for a World Year on Aging and an intergovernmental Assembly on Aging;

Whereas recent United Nations reports provide impressive evidence that aging populations worldwide will cause widespread economic and social dislocations unless extensive and informed efforts are made to take full advantage of the beneficial and far-reaching opportunities afforded by an increase in the proportion of older persons; and

Whereas there is reason to believe that widespread support for a World Assembly and World Year on Aging can be developed among member nations of the United Nations: Now, therefore, be it

Resolved, That it is the sense of the House of Representatives that the President should instruct the United States delegation to the United Nations to work with the delegations of other nations represented at the United Nations to call for a World Assembly on Aging and a World Year on Aging for not later than 1982.

SEC. 2. The Clerk of the House shall transmit a copy of this resolution to the President.

123 Cong. Rec. H 11838 (daily ed. Oct. 31, 1977). For the text of Representative Zablocki's remarks, see 123 Cong. Rec. H 11837-11839.

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Economic Sanctions

Southern Rhodesia

Byrd Amendment

On February 10, 1977, Secretary Vance testified before the Subcommittee on African Affairs of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in support of the Rhodesian sanctions bill, which would repeal the Byrd amendment permitting the importation of Rhodesian chrome:

The Administration fully supports this bill. We urge the Congress to pass it into law as rapidly as possible. To do so would, I firmly believe, strengthen the hand of the United States and others who are working to find a peaceful solution to the Rhodesian problem. Moreover, it would return the United States to conformity with its obligations under the United Nations Charter. American industry is not dependent on Rhodesian chrome and repeal will not harm

our economy.

Secretary Vance outlined the impact of passage of this bill on U.S. policy toward Africa and U.S. compliance with international law in these terms:

In his talk with Ambassador Young last weekend, President Nyerere of Tanzania laid stress on repeal of the Byrd amendment as a part of an active role by the United States in tightening United Nations economic sanctions against Rhodesia

Passage of the Byrd amendment in 1971 put the United States in violation of its international obligations. The economic sanctions imposed by the U.N. Security Council in 1966 and 1968 were based on the Council's right to determine that a threat to the peace existed in the Rhodesian situation and to invoke enforcement measures, as it did, under chapter VII of the U.N. Charter. A legal obligation for all member states was thus created. As a permanent member of the Security Council the United States could have vetoed the sanctions resolutions. It did not, but in fact supported and voted for the sanctions. As a matter of international law, we are committed, under article 25 of the Charter, to abide by them.

With the passage of the Byrd amendment, the United States, whose record in enforcing sanctions had been as good as or better than that of any nation, became one of a handful of nations which, as a matter of official policy, violate the sanctions. We thereby put ourselves at odds with the will of the international community in the only effort ever made by the United Nations to use mandatory economic sanctions. We have acted in violation of our own often proclaimed devotion to international law.

By repealing the Byrd amendment we would remove this symbol of ambivalence in American policy toward Rhodesia and toward international law. . . .

Secretary Vance rebutted the argument that the United States needs continued access to Rhodesian chrome for strategic and economic

reasons:

[When the Byrd amendment was passed,] [w]e maintained a huge supply of chrome in our strategic stockpile, and the Defense Department's requirement for metallurgical-grade chromite was relatively small. Moreover, passage of the Byrd amendment did not, as it was intended, make us less reliant on imports of Soviet chrome. Many of those who supported the Byrd amendment did so because of their understanding that the American steel industry depended on Rhodesian chrome for the production of American specialty steel. However, as one original supporter of the amendment, Congressman John Dent, has said, "Due to recent technological innovations, the United States is no longer dependent on Rhodesian chrome."

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Dept. of State Bulletin, Vol. LXXVI, No. 1966, Feb. 28, 1977, pp. 170-172. See the 1973 Digest, pp. 413-415, the 1974 Digest, p. 598, the 1975 Digest, pp. 693–696, and the 1976 Digest, p. 574.

On March 18, 1977, President Carter signed into law H.R. 1746, P.L. 95-12, which effectively reinstated an embargo against the importation of Rhodesian chrome and other minerals, as well as any steel mill product containing chromium from Southern Rhodesia. The bill, which