Scientists and Human Rights in Syria

Appendix A
The Committee on Human Rights

     The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) is a private, self-perpetuating society of distinguished scholars in scientific and engineering research, dedicated to the furtherance of science and its use for the general welfare. Th e Academy's charter was approved by the U.S. Congress and signed by Abraham Lincoln in 1863. Election to membership in the Academy is an honor that comes to less than one-half of 1 percent of American scientists. The current membership of the NAS is mor e than 1,651. The Academy also elects scientists who are not U.S. citizens as foreign associates; there are currently approximately 289 foreign associates.

     The NAS Committee on Human Rights was created in 1976 in response to increased concern by Academy members over repression of scientists in many areas of the world. The committee is composed of 14 members, 10 from the NAS, 2 from the National Academy of Engineering (NAE), and 2 from the Institute of Medicine (IOM).

     The committee's inquiries and appeals are based on principles set forth in the U.N. Universal Declaration of Human Rights, a declaration that has been adopted by the member states of the United Nations. It proclaims certain common standards of human rights for all peoples—standards that include the right to life, liberty, and security of person; to freedom from torture and arbitrary detention; to a fair and public hearing by an independent and impartial tribunal; and to freedom of speech, conscience, and religion. Although the committee's concern is for all victims of abuses of human rights, the focus of its work is on scientists, engineers, and health professionals who are believed to be victims of severe repression. The committee only undertakes cases of colleagues who, to the best of its knowledge, have not used or advocated violence.

     The committee undertakes cases of scientific colleagues anywhere in the world. In the past it has worked on cases in several dozen countries, including Argentina, Chile, China, Cuba, Czechoslovakia, Guatemala, Iraq, Israel a nd the Occupied Territories, Kenya, Malaysia, Morocco, the Philippines, Somalia, South Africa, the former Soviet Union, Sudan, Syria, Vietnam, and Zaire. Close to 500 of the more than 790 cases formally undertaken by the committee have been resolved.

     The work of the Committee on Human Rights is generally carried out through private inquiries from the committee and individual appeals from members of the NAS, NAE, IOM, and foreign associates who act as committee corresponde nts. The total number of committee correspondents is more than 1,400. Over the years, the committee's private approaches have often been effective. Occasionally, however, the committee decides that a public statement should be made in behalf of an indi vidual or that a delegation should be sent to a country for more information and to express more directly the committee's concerns. It has undertaken missions of inquiry to Argentina and Uruguay in 1978, to Chile in 1985, to Somalia in 1987, and to Guatemala in 1992.