Gale Encyclopedia Of American Law 3Rd Edition Volume 9 P36 doc

All states have a professional state court administrator, who administers and supervises all facets of the state court system, in consultation with the trial, appellate, and supreme cour

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appointed to the court of appeals During his six-year tenure, Starr consistently displayed his conservative ideology, but inspired respect from both conservatives and liberals for his judicial integrity

Starr accepted the position of solicitor general offered him by President GEORGE H.W

BUSH in 1989 His duties as solicitor general included arguing cases on behalf of the United States in the Supreme Court and deciding which government cases merited appeal He returned

to private practice when President Clinton took office On August 5, 1994, a three-judge panel selected Starr to replace Robert B Fiske Jr as independent counsel for the inquiry into the Whitewater affair clouding the Clinton admin-istration

Although Fiske had already done so, Starr investigated Bill and Hillary Clinton’s connec-tion to the failure of the Madison Guaranty Savings & Loan, a bank in Little Rock, Arkansas, owned by James and Susan McDougal, business partners of the Clintons Susan McDougal refused to testify before Starr’sGRAND JURY, and consequently served about 18 months in prison

investigation into the 1993 death of White House counsel Vincent W Foster Jr Fiske had concluded that Foster had committed suicide,

had been murdered Starr’s July 1997 report concluded that the death was a suicide At the request of Attorney General JANET RENO, Starr also investigated the 1993 firing of White House travel employees at a time when friends of the Clintons were getting into the travel business, and the misappropriation of FBI files on Re-publicans by White House staffers

Starr took an unprecedented step when he called HILLARY CLINTON to testify before a grand jury in 1996 Starr had earlier subpoenaed from Hillary Clinton’s Little Rock law firm billing records relating to her work for the failed Madison Guaranty Some of the records were missing until early 1996, when they were dis-covered in the Clintons’ private living quarters of the White House Starr sought the First Lady’s testimony to determine whether the Clintons or others in the administration had hidden evidence

or otherwise tried to obstruct justice

Starr faced significant criticism from the beginning of his tenure for the perceived partisan nature of his investigation, as well as

for the cost of the investigation, estimated

at $40 million through 1998 Starr was also criticized for a paucity of results Former Arkansas governor Jim Guy Tucker was con-victed of conspiracy for actions in aREAL ESTATE

scheme from his days as a lawyer in public practice, and Susan and Jim McDougal were found guilty of criminal charges Webster Hubbell, Hillary Clinton’s former law partner and high-ranking Justice Department official, pleaded guilty in 1994 to two counts of TAX

municipal judge and businessman, was convicted

that he was pressured by Clinton to make an illegal loan, but these charges are unsubstanti-ated Starr failed to obtain convictions in a 1996 trial involving bank officers accused of misap-propriating funds, which he tried to link to Clinton’s 1986 campaign for governor

In early 1998, revelations involving Presi-dent Clinton and White House intern Monica Lewinsky began to surface, and Starr’s office was immediately in the midst of controversy Starr sanctioned the wiring of Pentagon employee Linda R Tripp, a confidant of Lewinsky, in order

to learn more about the alleged affair between the president and Lewinsky, and to discover any attempts to conceal the affair Despite significant criticism that he had gone too far, Starr continued with his investigation, claiming there was a need to determine whether President Clinton had committed PERJURY or obstructed justice in connection with a SEXUAL HARASSMENT

case brought against Clinton by former Arkansas state employee, Paula Corbin Jones

In early January 1998, Lewinsky offered an

had a sexual relationship with the president

On January 17, 1998, Clinton made the same denial in aDEPOSITION in the Jones case Starr’s investigation was further complicated in April

1998 when Federal District JudgeSUSAN WEBBER

Dismissal of the lawsuit engendered further criticism for Starr when he refused to drop his perjury andOBSTRUCTION OF JUSTICEinvestigation

In July 1998, Starr subpoenaed President Clinton to testify before the grand jury The

agreed to testify voluntarily Clinton also volun-tarily provided to the office of independent counsel a vial of blood to determine whether a

WHATIFEAR IS AN

AGE OF

CONSTITUTIONAL

ILLITERACY

—K EN S TARR

338 STARR, KENNETH WINSTON

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dress of Lewinsky’s was stained with his semen.

The president testified via videotape to the grand

jury on August 17, 1998

Later that day, he admitted in a televised

speech that he had had an “inappropriate”

relationship with Lewinsky, but he steadfastly

maintained that he had not committed perjury

or obstructed justice In the speech, Clinton

severely castigated Starr’s investigation, a move

that angered many of the president’s supporters

However, the investigator became the

investi-gated on October 30, 1998, when a federal judge

approved a special inquiry into whether Starr’s

office had leaked secret grand jury information

In September 1998, Starr delivered his

report and 36 boxes of accompanying evidence

to Capitol Hill, detailing the president’s sexual

conduct and setting out possible grounds for

enjoy significant support from the public, the

Starr Report prompted the House Judiciary

Committee to open an investigation into

Clinton’s actions in October 1998 Starr testified

before the House Judiciary Committee for 12

hours in November 1998, and the next month

the committee sent fourARTICLES OF IMPEACHMENT

to the full House The four articles were pared to

two by the full House in December—one article

for perjury before a grand jury, and another for

obstruction of justice in the Jones lawsuit

Clinton was acquitted in February 1999

Prosecutions by the office of independent

counsel continued in the first half of 1999, but

showed signs of slowing down Susan

McDou-gal was acquitted in late April on an obstruction

of justice charge, and the jury failed to reach a

verdict on two counts of criminal contempt In

May 1999, aMISTRIALwas declared when the jury

failed to reach a verdict in the case of Julie Hiatt

Steele, whom Starr charged had obstructed justice

and made false statements regarding the

investi-gation of alleged misconduct by the president

toward Kathleen Willey, a former White House

volunteer Starr later announced that he would

not retry either McDougal or Steele

On June 30, 1999, Webster Hubbell plead

guilty to charges that he lied to bank regulators

to conceal work by himself and Hillary Clinton

on an Arkansas land development project when

they were partners in Little Rock Hubbell was

sentenced to a year of PROBATION Finally, Starr

scored a victory when federal judge Susan

Webber Wright held President Clinton in civil

contempt for lying in his deposition in the Jones sexual harassment lawsuit

Senate hearings began in February 1999 to determine whether the Independent Counsel Act, enacted in 1974 in the wake of the

Kenneth Starr testified against extension of the law Congress allowed the Independent Counsel Act to expire in June 1999 Starr resigned his post in October 1999 and was succeeded

by senior LITIGATION counsel Robert W Ray

In September 2000 Ray announced that he was closing the Whitewater inquiry based on insufficient evidence The total cost of the investigation was estimated to be $70 million dollars in public funds

After he resigned, Starr returned to private practice at the Washington, D.C.-based firm of Kirkland & Ellis In the first decade of the 2000s,

he continued to practice law, lecture, and write

He also served as an adjunct professor at New York University, and a distinguished visiting professor atGEORGE MASONUniversity School of Law in Virginia In 2002, Starr published First Among Equals: The Supreme Court in American Life As of 2009, Starr was on the faculty at Pepperdine University’s School of Law

FURTHER READINGS Posner, Richard A 1999 An Affair of State: The Investigation, Impeachment, and Trial of President Clinton Cam-bridge, Mass.: Harvard Univ Press.

Schmidt, Susan, and Michael Weisskopf 2000 Truth at Any Cost: Ken Starr and the Unmaking of Bill Clinton New York: HarperCollins.

Starr, Kenneth W 2002 First among Equals: The Supreme Court in American Life New York: Warner Books.

Wittes, Benjamin 2002 Starr: A Reassessment New Haven, Conn.: Yale Univ Press.

CROSS REFERENCES Clinton, Hillary Rodham; Clinton, William Jefferson;

Executive Privilege; Whitewater.

START TREATIES The Strategic Arms Reduction Talks (START) Treaties, START I (1991) and START II (1993), provided for large cuts in the nuclear arms possessed by the United States and the Soviet Union (later the Russian Federation) START I was the first arms-control treaty to reduce, rather than merely limit, the strategic offensive nuclear arsenals of the United States and the Soviet Union, while START II required even deeper cuts in nuclear forces The United States

START TREATIES 339

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and Russia have also negotiated additional treaties, including START III (1997) and the Strategic Offensive Reduction Treaty (SORT) (2002), the latter of which became effective on June 1, 2003

START I

The Soviet Union and the United States began the START negotiations in 1982, following the disappointing results of the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT), which had not led to significant reductions in the number of nuclear arms possessed by the superpowers Nine years later, on July 31, 1991, presidentsGEORGE H.W

BUSH of the United States and Mikhail Gorba-chev of the Soviet Union signed the 700-page START Treaty (START I), formally designated

as the Treaty Between the United States of America and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics on the Reduction and Limitation of Strategic Offensive Arms

START I provided for the reduction of U.S

nuclear capacity by roughly 15 percent, and Soviet capacity by 25 percent, within seven years afterRATIFICATION The treaty contained a number

of verification procedures, including on-site inspections with spot checks, monitoring of missile-production plants, and the exchange of data tapes from missile tests

Although START I reductions appeared formidable, critics noted that they simply returned both countries to the levels of nuclear arms that they had possessed in 1982, when negotiations had begun Both superpowers still maintained the capacity to destroy each other several times over

Others claimed that because START I allowed for the modernization and expansion of certain weapon categories by both parties, it would lead

to a continuation of the arms race

START II

Changes in the political climate between the superpowers, particularly theDISSOLUTION of the Soviet Union in the summer of 1991, inspired further START negotiations In September 1991 President George H.W Bush declared that the superpowers had an historic opportunity to negotiate significant reductions inNUCLEAR WEAP-ONS He made a significant gesture toward this goal by calling U.S long-range bombers off 24-hour alert and discontinuing development of the

MX missile

New Russian president Boris Yeltsin recip-rocated Bush’s conciliatory gestures when he

announced on January 25, 1992, that Russia

“no longer consider[ed] the United States our potential adversary” and declared that his country would no longer target U.S cities with nuclear missiles Four days later, President Bush announced further arms cuts in his State of the Union address, including cancellation of the B-2 bomber, the mobile Midgetman missile, and advanced cruise missiles Yeltsin later responded with an even more ambitious proposal to reduce nuclear arsenals to an amount between 2,000 and 2,500 warheads each and to eliminate strategic nuclear weapons entirely by the year 2000 Although the latter goal proved too radical to implement, the former would be nearly achieved Yeltsin and Bush fulfilled their historic announcements in June 1992 by signing an accord, the Joint Understanding on the Elimi-nation of MIRVed ICBMs (multiple warhead intercontinental ballistic missiles) and Further Reductions in Strategic Offensive Arms, that promised to reduce their combined nuclear arsenals from about 15,000 warheads to 6,000

or 7,000 by the year 2003 According to Bush,

“With this agreement, the nuclear nightmare recedes more and more for ourselves, for our children, and for our grandchildren.”

The June 1992 accord led to the develop-ment of START II, formally called the Treaty Between the United States of America and the Russian FEDERATION on the Further Reduction and Limitation of Strategic Offensive Arms It was signed by Bush and Yeltsin on January 3,

1993 Under its provisions, the United States and Russia would each have between 3,000 and 3,500 warheads by 2003, an amount roughly two-thirds that of pre-START levels Warheads

on submarine-launched ballistic missiles would

be limited to no more than 1,750 for each country The treaty also required the elimination of all land-based heavy ICBMs and multiple warhead missiles As a result, ICBMs may carry only one nuclear warhead, a development that many agreed would lead to improved strategic stability

In December 1994, President BILL CLINTON

and the leaders of the nations of Belarus, Kazakhstan, Russia, and the Ukraine—the former Soviet republics still possessing nuclear arms—formally ratified the START I treaty into force, clearing the way for further consideration

of START II by the U.S Senate On January 26,

1996, the U.S Senate ratified the START II Treaty on a vote of 87-4

340 START TREATIES

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The START II treaty was originally

sched-uled to be implemented by January 2003

However, a 1997 protocol extended the deadline

until December 2007 due to concerns by

Russian leaders about their ability to meet the

earlier date Because the U.S Senate has failed

to ratify the 1997 protocol, START II has not

yet entered into force

START III and SORT

Clinton and Yeltsin negotiated for a START III

treaty, which would have reduced the number

of deployed strategic warheads to between 2,000

and 2,500 The two leaders agreed to a

frame-work in March 1997, and the negotiations were

scheduled to begin after the START II treaty

entered into force However, because START II

never became effective, the START III treaty was

never negotiated The most significant aspects of

the START III treaty were proposed provisions

regarding the destruction of warheads

Five years after the START III negotiations

stalled, President GEORGE W BUSH and Russian

President Vladimir Putin signed the SORT

treaty, in which the United States and Russia

agreed to reduce their strategic nuclear arsenals

to an amount between 1,700 and 2,200

war-heads each These limitations are similar to the

proposed START III treaty, but the new SORT

treaty does not contain provisions regarding the

destruction of warheads or the destruction of

delivery vehicles for nuclear weapons

Pursuant to the SORT treaty, Bush directed

the military to reduce its nuclear stockpile By

2007 the United States had reduced its number

of warheads to just over half of its 2001 total

FURTHER READINGS

Arms Control Association 2002 “Arms Control Today.”

Available online at www.armscontrol.org/act/2002_06/

factfilejune02.asp (accessed March 15, 2010).

Bennett, Paul R 1997 Russian Negotiating Strategy: Analytic

Case Studies from SALT to START Commack, N.Y.:

Nova Science.

Blank, Stephen J., ed 2009 Prospects for U.S.-Russian Security

Cooperation Strategic Studies Institute: U.S Army War

College.

Kartchner, Kerry M 1992 Negotiating START: Strategic

Arms Reduction Talks and the Quest for Strategic

Stability New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction.

Mazarr, Michael J 1991 START and the Future of Deterrence.

New York: St Martin ’s.

CROSS REFERENCES

Arms Control and Disarmament; Cold War.

STATE

As a noun, a people permanently occupying a fixed territory bound together by common habits and custom into one body politic exercising, through the medium of an organized government, independent sovereignty and control over all persons and things within its boundaries, capable of making war and peace and of entering into international relations with other states The section of territory occupied

by one of the United States The people of a state, in their collective capacity, considered as the party wronged by a criminal deed; the public; as in the title

of a case, “The State v A B.” The circumstances or condition of a being or thing at a given time

As a verb, to express the particulars of a thing in writing or in words; to set down or set forth in detail;

to aver, allege, or declare To set down in gross; to mention in general terms, or by way of reference;

to refer

CROSS REFERENCES Pleading; Testimony; Witnesses.

STATE ACTION State action refers to a requirement for claims that arise under the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment and civil rights legislation, for which

a private citizen seeks relief in the form of damages

or redress based on an improper intrusion by the government into his or her private life

The U.S.SUPREME COURThas established that the protections offered by the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments to the U.S Constitution apply only to actions authorized or sanctioned

by state law The state action requirement means that private acts of racialDISCRIMINATIONcannot

be addressed under these amendments or the federal CIVIL RIGHTS laws authorized by the amendments

from denying any personDUE PROCESS OF LAWand

on a person’s right to vote Both amendments were passed after the Civil War to guarantee these constitutional rights to newly freed slaves

DuringRECONSTRUCTION, Congress enacted many laws that it claimed were based on these amendments Armed with this constitutional authority, Congress, in the Civil Rights Act of

1875, sought to prohibit racial discrimination

by private parties in the provision of public accommodations, such as hotels, restaurants, theaters, and public transportation

STATE ACTION 341

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The Supreme Court struck down the 1875 act

in the Civil Rights cases (109 U.S 3, 3 S Ct 18, 27 L

Ed 835[1883]) It held that under the Fourteenth Amendment, “it is state action of a particular character that is prohibited Individual invasion of individual rights is not the subject-matter of the amendment.” The Court relied on language of the amendment that provides that “no state” shall engage in certain specified conduct

This restrictive reading of the state-action requirement permitted racial discrimination to flourish in the South For example, the Supreme Court upheld the“white primary,” a device usedto circumvent the Fifteenth Amendment, in Grovey v

Townsend (295 U.S 45, 55 S Ct 622, 79 L Ed 1292 [1935]) The Court reasoned that because political parties were private organizations, their primary elections did not constitute state action

The Supreme Court began to move away from a strict state-action requirement in the 1940s In Smith v Allwright (321 U.S 649, 64

S Ct 757, 88 L Ed 987 [1944]), the Court struck down theWHITE PRIMARYas violative of the Fifteenth Amendment, thus overruling Grovey

The Court now found that primary elections played an important part in the democratic process and must be considered as officially sanctioned by the state

The Court extended this type of analysis in Shelley v Kraemer (334 U.S 1, 68 S Ct 836, 92

L Ed 1161[1948]), ruling that racially discrim-inatory restrictive covenants affectingREAL ESTATE

were unenforceable inSTATE COURTS, because any such enforcement would amount to state action

in contravention of the Fourteenth Amendment

Groups of homeowners used restrictive cove-nants to prevent the sale or rental of their homes

to African Americans, Jews, and other minorities

A restriction was included in their real estate deeds forbidding such sale or rental Until 1948 this form of private discrimination was thought

to be legal because the state was not involved

By the 1960s the Supreme Court was applying

a more sophisticated analysis to determine if the state-action requirement had been met In Burton

v Wilmington Parking Authority (365 U.S 715, 81

S Ct 856, 6 L Ed 2d 45[1961]), the Court found state action when a state agency leased property to

a restaurant that refused to serve African Americans It stated that state action in support

of discrimination exists when there is a “close nexus” between the functions of the state and the private discrimination This public functions test

allows courts on a case-by-case basis to determine whether a private actor provides services that are analogous to those provided by state government Another example would be company towns, where a private company exerts the equivalent of government rule over the residents

Nevertheless, the Court has not abandoned the state-action requirement In Moose Lodge v Irvis (407 U.S 163, 92 S Ct 1965, 32 L Ed 2d

627 [1972]), a racially restrictive private club refused to serve the African American guest of

a white member The Court determined that the mere grant of a liquor license did not convert the private club’s discriminatory policy into state action under the Fourteenth Amendment This decision illustrates the other exception

to the state action requirement: the excessive entanglement test The grant of a liquor license did not meet this test but a corporate creditor who acted jointly with a local court using unconstitutional, state-assisted procedures was sufficiently entangled to be judged a state actor (Lugar v Edmonson Oil Co., 457 U.S 922, 102 S

Ct 2744, 73 L Ed 2d 482[1982])

FURTHER READINGS Currie, David 1999 Federal Jurisdiction in a Nutshell.

St Paul, Minn.: West Group.

Lewis, Harold Jr., and Elizabeth Norman 2004 Civil Rights Law and Practice St Paul, Minn.: West Group Vieira, Norman 1998 Constitutional Civil Rights in a Nutshell 3rd ed St Paul, Minn.: West Group.

CROSS REFERENCES Civil Rights Cases; Integration.

STATE COURTS Judicial tribunals established by each of the fifty states

Each of the fifty state court systems in the United States operates independently under the constitution and the laws of the particular state The character and names of the courts vary from state to state, but they have common structural elements

State governments create state courts through the enactment of statutes or by constitutional provisions for the purpose of enforcing state law Like the federal court system, the judicial branch

of each state is an independent entity, often called

“the third branch” of government (the other two being the executive and legislative branches) Though independent, state courts are dependent

on the state legislatures for the appropriation of

342 STATE COURTS

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money to run the judicial system Legislatures

also authorize court systems to establish rules of

procedure and sometimes direct the courts to

investigate problems in the legal system

Most states have a multilevel court

struc-ture, including a trial court, an intermediate

court of appeals, and a supreme court Only

eight states have a two-tiered system consisting

of a trial court and a supreme court Apart from

this general structure, the organization of state

courts and their personnel are determined by

the laws that created the court system and by

the court’s own rules

State courts are designed to adjudicate civil

and criminal cases At the trial level, there are

courts of limited and general jurisdiction

Limited jurisdiction courts, sometimes called

inferior courts, handle minor civil cases, such as

small claims or conciliation matters, and lesser

crimes that are classified as misdemeanors The

persons who judge these cases may be part-time

judges, and some states still allow persons not

trained in the law to hear these cases AJUSTICE OF

typically minor matters such as traffic violations

Courts of general jurisdiction, also known as

superior courts, handle major civil matters and

more serious crimes, called felonies

Some states have a large number of trial

courts They can include small claims,

munici-pal, county, and district courts Since the 1980s,

some states have simplified their systems,

creat-ing a unified trial court that hears all matters of

limited and general jurisdiction

Intermediate courts of appeal consider

rou-tine appeals brought by losing parties in the

trial courts below These are “error correcting”

courts, which review the trial court proceedings

to determine if the trial made errors in procedure

or law that resulted in an incorrect decision If

the court determines that an error was made

(and it was not aHARMLESS ERROR), it reverses the

decision and sends it back to the trial court for

another proceeding Intermediate courts of

appeal are supposed to interpret the precedents

of the state’s supreme court However, in every

state there are many areas of law in which its

supreme court has not ruled, leaving the

appellate courts free to make decisions on what

the law should be These courts process

thou-sands of cases a year, and losing parties generally

have a right to appeal to these courts, no matter

how dubious the merits of the appeal

The supreme court of a state fulfills a role similar to the U.S Supreme Court A state supreme court interprets the state constitution, the statutes enacted by the state legislature, and the body of stateCOMMON LAW A supreme court

is a precedential court: its rulings govern the interpretation of the law by the trial and appellate courts A supreme court also administers the entire state court system, and the chief justice

of the court is the spokesperson for the judiciary

In New York and Maryland, the highest court

is called the court of appeals In New York, the trial court is called the supreme court These and other names for courts are based on his-torical circumstances but do not alter the substance of the work these courts perform

The supreme court also establishes rules of procedure for all state courts These rules govern civil, criminal, and juvenile court procedure, as well as the admission of evidence State supreme courts also promulgate codes of professional responsibility for lawyers

State courts have become highly organized systems Beginning in the late 1960s, federal money helped states rethink how they deliver services All states have a professional state court administrator, who administers and supervises all facets of the state court system, in consultation with the trial, appellate, and supreme courts

Research and planning functions are now com-mon, and state courts rely heavily on computers for record keeping and statistical analysis

At the county level, court administrators, previously known as clerks of court, oversee the operations of the trial courts Court clerks, officers, bailiffs, and other personnel are called upon to make the system work Judges have court reporters, who record trial proceedings either stenographically or electronically, using audio or video recording devices

State court judges, unlike federal judges, are not appointed for life Most states require judges

to stand for election every six to ten years An election may be a contest between rival candi-dates, or it may be a“retention election,” which asks the voters whether or not a judge should

be retained

STATE DEPARTMENT The Department of State, the senior executive department of the U.S government, was established

by an act of July 27, 1789, as the Department of

STATE DEPARTMENT 343

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United States Permanent Representative to the United Nations (USUN)

United States Agency for

International Development

(USAID) Administrator

Under Secretary for

Political Affairs (P)

Under Secretary for Management (M)

Counselor and Chief

of Staff (S/COS)

African Affairs (AF)

Assistant Secretary

European and Eurasian

Affairs (EUR) Assistant

Secretary

East Asian and Pacific

Affairs (EAP) Assistant

Secretary

Near Eastern Affairs

(NEA) Assistant

Secretary

International Organizations (IO) Assistant Secretary

International Narcotics and Law Enforcement (INL) Assistant Secretary

Western Hemisphere Affairs (WHA) Assistant Secretary

South and Central Asian Affairs (SCA) Assistant Secretary

Administration (A) Assistant Secretary

Consular Affairs (CA) Assistant Secretary

Diplomatic Security and Foreign Missions (DS) Assistant Secretary

Foreign Service Institute (FSI) Director

Information Resource Management (IRM) Chief Information Officer

Medical Services (M/MED) Director

Overseas Buildings Operations (OBO) Director

Resource Management (RM) Chief Financial Officer

Human Resources (HR) Director General of the Foreign Service and Director of Human Resources

Population, Refugees and Migration (PRM) Assistant Secretary

Oceans and Int'l Environmental and Scientific Affairs (OES) Assistant Secretary

Democracy, Human Rights and Labor (DRL) Assistant Secretary

Under Secretary for Democracy and Global Affairs (G)

Department of State

Deputy Secretary

of State D(L)

Deputy Secretary

of State D(S)

Executive Secretariat (S/ES) Executive Secretary

Secretary of State (S)

Under Secretary for Arms Control and International Security Affairs (T)

International Security and Nonproliferation (ISN) Assistant Secretary

Political-Military Affairs (PM) Assistant Secretary

Verification, Compliance and Implementation (VCI) Assistant Secretary

Under Secretary for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs (R)

Education and Cultural Affairs (ECA) Assistant Secretary

International Information Programs (IIP) Coordinator

Public Affairs (PA) Assistant Secretary

Under Secretary for Economic, Energy and Agricultural Affairs (E)

Economic, Energy &

Business Affairs (EEB) Assistant Secretary

Intelligence and

Research (INR)

Assistant Secretary

Legislative Affairs (H)

Assistant Secretary

Office of the Chief of Protocol (S/CPR) Ambassador

Office of Civil Rights (S/OCR) Director

Office for Counterterrorism (S/CT) Coordinator and Ambassador at Large

Office of U.S Foreign Assistance (F) Director

Office of Global AIDS Coordinator (S/GAC) Ambassador at Large

Office of Global Women's Issues (S/GWI) Ambassador

at Large

Office of Inspector General (OIG) Inspector General

Office of International Energy Coordinator (S/IEC) Coordinator

Office of Legal Adviser (L) Legal Adviser

Office of Policy Planning (S/P) Director

Office of Reconstruction and Stabilization (S/CRS) Coordinator

Office of War Crimes Issues (S/WCI) Ambassador at Large

Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking

in Persons (G/TIP) Ambassador at Large

ILLUSTRATION BY GGS CREATIVE RESOURCES REPRODUCED BY PERMISSION OF GALE, A PART OF CENGAGE LEARNING.

344 STATE DEPARTMENT

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Foreign Affairs and was renamed Department of

State by an act of September 15, 1789

The U.S.DEPARTMENT OF STATE is part of the

executive branch of government and is

princi-pally responsible for foreign affairs and foreign

trade It advises the president on the

formula-tion and execuformula-tion of foreign policy As chief

executive, the president has overall

responsibil-ity for the foreign policy of the United States

The Department of State’s primary objective in

the conduct of foreign relations is to promote

the long-range security and well-being of the

United States The department determines and

analyzes facts relating to U.S overseas interests,

makes recommendations on policy and future

action, and takes the necessary steps to carry out

established policy In so doing, the department

engages in continuous consultations with the

Congress, other U.S departments and agencies,

and foreign governments; negotiates treaties

and agreements with foreign nations; speaks for

the United States in the UNITED NATIONS and in

more than 50 major international organizations

in which the United States participates; and

represents the United States at more than 800

international conferences annually

Office of the Secretary

Secretary of State The SECRETARY OF STATE, the

principal foreign policy adviser to the president,

is responsible for the overall direction,

coordi-nation, and supervision of U.S foreign relations

and for the interdepartmental activities of the

U.S government overseas The secretary is the

first-ranking member of the cabinet, is a member

of the NATIONAL SECURITY COUNCIL (NSC), and is

in charge of the operations of the department,

including the Foreign Service The office of

the secretary includes the offices of the deputy

secretary, under secretaries, assistant secretaries,

counselor, legal adviser, and inspector general

Economic and Agricultural Affairs The under

secretary for economic and agricultural affairs is

principal adviser to the secretary and deputy

secretary of state on the formulation and conduct

of foreign economic policy Specific areas for

which the under secretary is responsible include

international trade, agriculture, energy, finance,

transportation, and relations with developing

countries

International Security Affairs The under

secretary for international security affairs is

responsible for ensuring the integration of all

elements of the Foreign Assistance Program as

an effective instrument of U.S foreign policy and serves as chair of the Arms Transfer Mana-gement Group Other areas of responsibility include international scientific and technolog-ical issues, communications and information policy, and technology transfers

Regional Bureaus Six geographic bureaus, each directed by an assistant secretary, are responsible for U.S foreign affairs activities throughout the world These bureaus are organized by region as the bureaus of African Affairs, European and Canadian Affairs, East Asian and Pacific Affairs, Inter-American Affairs, Near Eastern Affairs, and South Asian Affairs The regional assistant secretaries also serve as chairs of interdepartmen-tal groups in the NSC system These groups discuss and decide issues that can be settled at the assistant secretary level, including those arising out of the implementation of NSC decisions

They prepare policy papers for consideration by the council and contingency papers on potential crisis areas for council review

Functional Areas

Diplomatic Security The Bureau of Diplo-matic Security, established under the Omnibus Diplomatic Security and Antiterrorism Act of

1986, as amended (22 U.S.C.A § 4803 et seq.), provides a secure environment for conducting U.S diplomacy and promoting U.S interests worldwide The assistant secretary of state for diplomatic security is responsible for security and protective operations abroad and in the United States, counter-terrorism planning and coordination, security technology development, foreign government security training, and per-sonnel training

The Security Awareness Staff directs the development and execution of bureau-wide security and information awareness policies and programs, press and media relations, and public awareness The Security Awareness Pro-gram provides information on diplomatic secu-rity concerns and is a focal point for responding

to public inquiries and maintaining media relations on diplomatic security issues and events

The Training Support Division provides pub-lications and training videotapes on diplomatic security concerns

The Private Sector Liaison Staff maintains daily contact with and actively supports the U.S

private sector by disseminating timely,

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unclassified security information concerning the safety of U.S private-sector personnel, facilities, and operations abroad The staff operates the Electronic Bulletin Board, a computerized, unclas-sified security information database accessible to U.S private-sector enterprises It also provides direct consultation services to the private sector concerning security threats abroad

The Overseas Security Advisory Council promotes cooperation on security-related issues between U.S private-sector interests worldwide and the Department of State, as provided in

22 U.S.C.A § 2656 and the Federal Advisory Committee Act, as amended (5 U.S.C.A app.) The council serves as a continuing liaison and provides for operational security cooperation

The State Department’s Country

Reports on Human Rights Practices

O

B

ne of the U.S State Department’s most

important tasks is to submit to Congress

annual reports on the state of human rights in

countries throughout the world The Country

Reports on Human Rights Practices, as the book

containing these reports is titled, contains extensive

and detailed information that allows Congress and

the State Department to make better decisions

regarding U.S policy toward foreign nations

The State Department has submitted country

reports to Congress each year since 1977 In the

first year, the reports covered 82 countries, and by

1995 that number had grown to 194

U.S embassy staff members in each country write

the preliminary report about the country They obtain

information from government and military officials,

journalists, academics, and human rights activists

Embassy staff members often put themselves at great

risk in collecting human rights information in countries

with extensive rights violations State Department

staff members then edit the reports They attempt to

gather still more evidence from international human

rights groups, international bodies such as the United

Nations, and other sources

The country reports are prefaced by an overview

of human rights developments around the world,

written by the assistant secretary of the Democracy,

Human Rights, and Labor Division of the State

Department This overview summarizes the

interna-tional human rights situation, identifies those nations

with serious rights violations, and comments on the

state of democracy around the world

Each report begins with basic information

regarding the government and economy of a nation,

followed by detailed information on the status of human rights in the country

The 1995 report about Brazil serves as an example of the extensive detail in the country reports

The Brazil report chronicles significant human rights abuses in that country, including killings by police and military death squads, the murder of street children in Rio de Janeiro, and numerous instances of torture The report also describes the social, political, and legal factors in Brazil that contribute to human rights violations These include overloaded courts and prisons, corruption of public officials and police, widespread poverty, and ineffective investigation into police and military brutality

Each report also analyzes the human rights situation for women, racial and ethnic minorities, and workers in the country The report about Brazil indicates a high incidence of physical abuse of women, while noting that the country has increased the number of special police stations assigned the task of preventing crimes against women Serious violations against the rights of indigenous peoples are also recorded, including atrocities committed by the military and private parties during land disputes

On the subject of workers’ rights, the Brazil report details unsafe working conditions, use of child labor

in sugar and charcoal production, and use of forced labor in mining and agriculture

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