Bill Text: CA ACR144 | 2009-2010 | Regular Session | Chaptered
Bill Title: Genocide Awareness and Prevention Month.
Spectrum: Slight Partisan Bill (Democrat 44-27)
Status: (Passed) 2010-05-05 - Chaptered by Secretary of State - Res. Chapter 15, Statutes of 2010. [ACR144 Detail]
Download: California-2009-ACR144-Chaptered.html
BILL NUMBER: ACR 144 CHAPTERED
BILL TEXT
RESOLUTION CHAPTER 15
FILED WITH SECRETARY OF STATE MAY 5, 2010
ADOPTED IN SENATE APRIL 29, 2010
ADOPTED IN ASSEMBLY APRIL 19, 2010
AMENDED IN ASSEMBLY APRIL 19, 2010
AMENDED IN ASSEMBLY APRIL 8, 2010
AMENDED IN ASSEMBLY MARCH 22, 2010
INTRODUCED BY Assembly Member Blumenfield
(Coauthors: Assembly Members Anderson, Feuer, Ruskin, Adams,
Ammiano, Arambula, Beall, Bill Berryhill, TomB Berryhill, Blakeslee,
Block, Bradford, Brownley, Buchanan, Caballero, Carter, Chesbro,
Conway, Cook, Coto, De Leon, DeVore, Emmerson, Eng, Evans, Fletcher,
Fong, Fuentes, Fuller, Furutani, Gaines, Galgiani, Garrick, Gilmore,
Hagman, Hall, Harkey, Hayashi, Hernandez, Hill, Huber, Huffman,
Jones, Knight, Lieu, Logue, Bonnie Lowenthal, Ma, Mendoza, Miller,
Monning, Nava, Nestande, Niello, Nielsen, John A. Perez, V. Manuel
Perez, Portantino, Salas, Saldana, Silva, Skinner, Smyth, Solorio,
AudraB Strickland, Swanson, Torlakson, Tran, Villines, and Yamada)
MARCH 10, 2010
Relative to Genocide Awareness and Prevention Month.
LEGISLATIVE COUNSEL'S DIGEST
ACR 144, Blumenfield. Genocide Awareness and Prevention Month.
This measure would proclaim the month of April of each year as
Genocide Awareness and Prevention Month.
WHEREAS, During the Second World War, Raphael Lemkin, a Polish
lawyer of Jewish descent, motivated by the attempted extermination of
the Armenian and Assyrian communities during the First World War,
coined the term "genocide" to describe a coordinated plan of actions
aimed at the destruction of essential foundations of the life of
national groups, with the aim of annihilating a group itself, for
example, by disintegrating a group's political and social
institutions, culture, language, national feelings, religion, and
economic existence, and destroying the personal security, liberty,
health, and dignity, and the lives of individuals belonging to the
group; and
WHEREAS, Following the Holocaust, on December 9, 1948, the United
Nations General Assembly adopted Resolution 260 (III) A, the United
Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of
Genocide, declaring genocide to be a crime under international law,
and defining genocide to include the commission of certain acts,
including killing members of the group, causing serious bodily or
mental harm to members of the group, deliberately inflicting
conditions of life calculated to bring about a group's physical
destruction in whole or in part, imposing measures intended to
prevent births within the group, and forcibly transferring children
of the group to another group, with the intent to destroy, in whole
or in part, a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group; and
WHEREAS, In 2008, the Prevention of Genocide Task Force, convened
by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, the American Academy
of Diplomacy, and the United States Institute of Peace, issued a
report finding that in order to prevent future genocides and mass
atrocities, effective prevention measures must be implemented before
a crisis has erupted, and that educating the public can help to
protect individual rights and promote a culture of lawfulness that
will help prevent future genocides; and
WHEREAS, The State of California condemns, and desires to combat,
all acts of genocide; and
WHEREAS, Educating the public about the evils of genocide and
commemorating victims of genocide, including the adoption of a
Genocide Awareness and Prevention Month, are effective tools that
will further these goals; now, therefore, be it
Resolved by the Assembly of the State of California, the Senate
thereof concurring, That the Legislature hereby proclaims the month
of April of each year as Genocide Awareness and Prevention Month; and
be it further
Resolved, That the Chief Clerk of the Assembly transmit copies of
this resolution to the author for appropriate distribution.
