Janice Schakowsky: “It seems to me that additional information on human rights is necessary, because current policy provides really only one…”

“It seems to me that additional information on human rights is necessary, because current policy provides really only one remedy, and that is to deny a project on human rights grounds. But those denials are made on the basis of an assessment by the State Department of human rights for an entire country in which the project will be located, and not an assessment of the project itself. There should be more tools available to Ex-Im Bank to assess human rights. In reality, there are very few projects that would warrant cancellation or total denial of Ex-Im funding because of severe human rights impacts, but many more projects may have human rights concerns that, if adequately identified beforehand, could be mitigated during project design. Ex-Im Bank needs detailed assessments on a project-by-project basis of the potential impact proposed projects may have on human rights. Again, this is a modest amendment. It is not the total solution to what I believe to be the legitimate and serious concerns of human rights experts like Human Rights Watch and Members of Congress and numerous other human rights experts and advocates throughout the world.”