USCIRF Elects Felice Gaer as New Chair

By Jennifer Riley, Christian Post Reporter Monday, July 03, 2006

WASHINGTON – The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) has elected as its new chair Felice D. Gaer, who served as Chair and Vice Chair of the Commission in previous years.

Gaer, director of the Jacob Blaustein Institute for the Advancement of Human Rights of the American Jewish Committee, served as chair from 2002 to 2003, and as Vice Chair from 2004 to 2006. She has served on the Commission since 2001.

“Felice Gaer is a recognized expert in the human rights field, with many years of experience behind her,” said Commissioner Michael Cromartie, the outgoing Chair of the Commission, said in a statement released by the Commission on Friday. “The work of the Commission will surely benefit from her leadership.”

In addition, Gaer serves as a member of the Committee Against Torture, an official United Nations expert body that reviews compliance by 139 countries with the Convention Against Torture, a core human rights treaty.

Gaer thanked Cromartie for his chairmanship of the Commission over the past year. “The past year was a particularly active one for the Commission, under Commissioner Cromartie’s leadership,” Gaer said. “During the past year, the Commission issued a landmark report on violations of religious freedom in North Korea and visited China, Sudan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Russia to examine conditions in those countries.”

Cromartie directs the Evangelicals in Civic Life program and the Media and Religion program at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, which was established in 1976 to clarify and reinforce the bond between the Judeo-Christian moral tradition and domestic and foreign policy issues. He is also a Senior Advisor to The Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life in Washington.

Cromartie, Elizabeth H. Prodromou and Nina Shea were elected Vice Chairs.

The other members of the Commission are Preeta D. Bansal, Archbishop Charles J. Chaput, Khaled Abou El Fadl, Dr. Richard D. Land, Bishop Ricardo Ramirez – all of whom are voting members of the Commission – and Ambassador-at-Large for International Religious Freedom John V. Hanford III, who serves in an ex-officio, non-voting capacity, and is appointed by the U.S. Department of State.

The Commission was created by the International Religious Freedom Act of 1998 (IRFA) to monitor violations of the right to freedom of thought, conscience, and religion or belief abroad, as defined in IRFA and set forth in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and related international instruments, and to give independent policy recommendations to the President, Secretary of State, and Congress. It is the first government commission in the world with the sole mission of reviewing and making policy recommendations on the facts and circumstances of violations of religious freedom globally.