interpret our constitution and to determine our policies. mr. koh has gone so far as to refer to the u.s. as part of an axis of disobedience in reference to america's alleged violations of international law. during a 2003 speech at the university of california at berkeley, mr. koh said -- and i quote -- "when i came to government, the first conclusion i reached was that the rule of law should be on the u.s.'s side. that's a system of law" -- he's speaking of international law -- "that we helped to create. that's why we support various systems of international adjudication. that's why we support the u.n. system. we need these institutions even if they cut our own sovereignty a little bit." mr. koh's views on the first amendment again portray a desire to make american law subservient to international law. in his stanford law review

article, the title which was on american exceptionalism, koh stated that our first amendment gives -- and i'm quoting now -- protections for speech and religion far greater emphasis and judicial protection in america than in europe or asia. and he opined -- and again i'm quoting -- that america's "exceptional free speech from tradition can cause problems abroad." furthermore, he stated that the way for the sphrok moderate these conflicts -- and i'm quoting -- is by applying more consistently the transnationallist approach to judicial interpretation. this is breathtaking. is it even consistent with an oath to protect and defend the constitution? should we now begin to dismantle a founding principle of our democracy in order to appease

the so-called international community, as mr. koh advocates? if the founding fathers have h followed this add vierks this country would not be the leading example of freedom it is in the world today, and the leader in gettingers to protect free speech, assembly and other freedoms, such as are being asserted in iran today. confirming our views to the norm, which mr. koh acknowledges provide less protection than our constitution would, therefore works adversely affect the very international community which mr. koh seeks to emulate. let me put it another way. people in iran today are taking to the streets to try to exercise some degree of free speech and assembly and petition their government. mr. koh acknowledges that in our constitution, we provide much more protection for those rights than anywhere else, or i think as he put it, than the

mainstream of international law provides. that's true. i think that's something that we should not only adhere to for our own benefit but for the benefit that is provides to others throughout the world as an example of what they should seek to achieve and because of the moral status that it gives the united states to be able to say to the leaders of a country like iran, you need to provide free speech and assembly and the right to petition your government and the fact you're not doing it is wrong. because if we believe that we are all created equal by our creator, that means we have moral equality as individuals, everybody in iran we believe would have the same right as anyone else to exercise these god-given rights. and if that's true, it makes no sense to diminish those rights

as they have been interpreted by our courts in the united states interpreting our united states constitution in order for to us conform to an international no norm. rather, it makes sense for us to continue to adhere to those high standards and try to bring other countries along with us. in fact, i would postulate, mr. president, that because of our high standard of rights and the example that our constitution provides, many countries of the world have actually advanced the cause of free speech and assembly and petitioning their government more than they otherwise would have because they have the example of the united states to look at. and if i think of countries, you know, the revolutions, the orange revolution and the changes in governments in places like poland back when it broke from the soviet union and ukraine and georgia and all of the other places in the world where people finally broke free from the shackles of a government that would not permit free speech, what were they

seeking to do? to exercise free speech in order to petition their government for more individual freedom. so the united states should jealously guard those rights in our constitution rather than, as mr. koh says, have the united states interpret its constitution more in line with the mainstream of thinking in the rest of the world. if you sort of try apply a mathematical formula here and you average what the rest of the world thinks about free speech, the right of religion, the right to assemble, the right to petition the government, the average is far below what we provide. we're pretty much at the top of the pile in terms of what we protect, but if we were to follow mr. koh's advice in order to be more accepted in the world, we would draw our standards of protection of individual rights down to the leveled areas area of the mainstream around the world.

and if you look around the world today, there are so many countries, dictatorships to totalitarian systems, britocracies, even countries like china, which provide very little in the way of freedom for their people, if you just took the average based on the population of the world, i know what the mainstream would be. it wouldn't be very much in the way of individual rights. so we should jealously protect what we have here in the united states, which is a sthawtio, whn which at least thus far has been protecting those rights jealously, not for our benefit, though that should be, i submit, the sole purpose of a sp supreme court judge, for example, deciding supreme court cases, what does the constitution say for the people of america. but if one is going to consider the international implications,

i would think it would be exactly the opposite of what mr. koh is saying, namely, that we should be concerned that any diminishment of the interpretation of our rights would negatively affect other people around the world. i don't care if the average is a lower standard. i wish that those countries would bring their standards up to ours but i certainly don't want to conform to some idea of international acceptance or international popularity by bringing ourselves down to their level. this is not what american exceptionalism is all about. the title of the niece mr. koh -- the title of the piece that mr. koh wrote. he has argued in other context as well that unique american constitutional provisions should conform to the international view of things. i've been speaking of free speech, assembly, the right to petition your government, to practice religion -- i think

those are absolutely basic. but there are some other rights in our constitution. one of them is the second amendment. it's controversial. other countries don't have a protection like the second amendment to the u.s. constitution. if we want to amend the constitution, questio, we can d. but as it stands right now, the second amendment has been upheld by the supreme court to apply to have individual in the united states free from federal undue interference with respect to the ownership of guns. but if we adopt mr. koh's argument about conforming to international norms, including stricter gun control, it may bring us more in line with some other countries but it certainly would not be in keeping with the interpretation of the u.s. supreme court with respect to that second amendment. in an april 2002 speech at the fordham university school of law, mr. koh advocated a u.n.-governed regime to force

the united states -- and i'm quoting now -- to submit information about their small arms production. he believes that the united states should -- and i quote again - -- "establish a national firearms control system and a register of manufacturers, traders, importers and exporters of guns" to comply with international obligations. this would allow u.n. members such as cuba and venezuela and north korea and iran to have a say in what type of gun regulations are imposed on american citizens. as dean of the yale law school, mr. koh was a leader in another effort that i think is troublesome. it was an effort to deprive students of the freedom to listen to military recruiters who wanted to explain on campus the benefits of a career in our military services. we all, every one of us in this body, frequently express our

gratitude to the people in the united states military services who protect us, who put themselves in danger in order to protect the very freedoms we're talking about here. and yet as dean of the law school, he would not allow the recruiters for these military institutions to come on to campus, and yet he would protect students' freedom to listen to antiwar speakers on campus. but yale closed its doors to military recruiters primarily because it disagreed with the military's policy on gays. which, by the way, is a policy of the president and the congress, not just the military. in court, mr. koh and others in yale's administration challenged the constitutionality of the solomon amendment. now, the solomon amendment is a statute that denies federal funds to educational institutions that block military recruiters. the supreme court unanimously ruled against mr. koh's positi

position. mr. koh also led a lawsuit against department of justice lawyer john yu for doing what any government lawyer is expected to do: provide his legal opinions to the people that he worked for, to the policy-makers of the u.s. government. the supreme court has said in no uncertain terms that government lawyers need immunity from suit in order to avoid -- and i quote here -- "the deterrence of able citizens from acceptance of public office and the danger that fear of being sued will dampen the arter of public officials in the inflinching discharge of their duties." in other words, by encouraging this lawsuit, many koh was -- mr. koh was effectively deterring his students from doing precisely what yale otherwise recommends that they do: enter public service. elections have consequences. i understand and generally support the prerogative of the president to nominate

individuals for his administration that he deems appropriate as long as they're within the spectrum of responsible views. however, because of the importance of his position in representing the united states in the international community with respect to treaties and other agreements, his own words and actions demonstrate to me that he is farrous the mainstream -- that he is far outside the mainstream in such a way that his appointment as state department legal advisor could damage u.s. sovereignty. so i oppose his nomination and i urge my colleagues, you will ofs who take an oath to support and defend the constitution, and who wreesappreciate that there are s challenges to american sovereignty, to closely examine mr. koh's record and determine

whether or not he would be a representative not only that they could be proud of but that they could rely upon in representing the american public interest. at the end of the day, our sovereignty depends upon the american people. we govern with the consent of the governed. our government doesn't start with rights. we had a group of people here in america who gave their government certain limited rights in order for their common good. so the american people are our bosses. they pay our salary. we need to listen to them. when i talk to my constituents, at least in recent months, i notice a theme that is recurring and it is troublesome to me. first of all, because it's the kind of thing that sometimes is

influenced by people who have less character than those of us in this body and others who may disagree with each other but seriously approach these issues. it's the idea that little by little the people are losing sovereignty and that the country of america is giving up its sovereignty to others. who are the others? i'm not a conspiratorial person and that's why i say some of the people who promote this idea i think don't do so for the right expreens i don't like to -- reasons and i don't like to see them paid attention to by our constituents. but every time we add they're a union resolution or a-- adhere to a u.n. resolution or sign a treaty with another country or agree to abide by the terms of a trade agreement or something of that sort, to some extent we're giving up a little bit of our sovereignty. as long as we do all of those things with the consent of the governed and as long as we do it

through the representative process, where we a law or we -- we pass a law or reconfirm a treaty, ratify a treaty, it's done in the right way. we may make a mistake, we may go too far sometimes but that's the decision that we make. we have the right to make mistakes too. but when we go outside the legal framework of the country to creed a little bit of our sovereignty as mr. koh says is okay then we have abused the confidence the american people have placed in us and we have gone beyond our legal ability as representatives of the people to give up this little degree of sovereignty. what i'm concerned about, because of his position, which is the direct link between the united states and all of these international organizations and countries with whom our country necessarily deals with, is that he cares less about the protection of american sovereignty than the vast

majority of the american citizens. and, in fact, he has a point of view which regards that as less important than conforming to international norms and even being in line with popular opinion internationally. as i said before, it's nice to be liked but at the end of the day the united states should not be about popular opinion. we could probably be more popular with 100 countries in the united nations if we stopped harping on things like "clean" elections and free speech and the right to assembly and so on because my guess is there are probably 50 to 100 countries in the united nations that don't respect their citizens' rights as nearly as much as we do. the number is probably larger than that and they're uncomfortable with the example of a country like the united states that sits on such a high

pedestal our american citizens' right we not only protect those rights for our citizens but hold them out as something beneficial for their citizens as well. and this makes them uncomfortable because sometimes as we see in iran today, people decide it's a good thing to be able to exercise those rights and they feel the denial of that ability by their governments is wrong and they're willing to risk their lives as our forefathers did, to assert those rights. that's pow important they are. how oddity is, therefore, to come across such an intelligent, and he certainly is intelligent, an intelligent manlike mr. koh who has a very different point of view about these important american rights; who believes it is more important for us to be in the mainstream of international thinking even though that represents a view of rights far less than the united

states' right and it is far more important for us to be well viewed in the international community than it is to strictly adhere to those rights that are embodied in our constitution. that is extraordinarily troubling to me. some of his views are breath taking as they've been asserted. i know he has met with some of our colleagues. that he is apparently, in addition to being very intelligent, very charming, and that his essential position is, well, that's what i said this a speech but i'll recognize my obligations as a member of the administration. i think that we are all informed by our views and if we care enough about them to speak out in a way that he has as frequently and as forcely as mr. koh has done, it is difficult to believe that all of a sudden in a moment of his confirmation he will forget about everything he said and what he believes is conform his

representation of the american people to what is a far more mainstream point of view. namely, we should defend our constitution to the absolute maximum step that we can irrespective of the views of other countries around the world. that's why at the end of the day, as i said, mr. president, i hope my colleagues will review his record very carefully and will judge and eventually base their vote on his quim haitian on what he -- confirmation on what he has said. he is an intelligent man who knows very well what he has said. and, what therefore can flow from his words as actions as our representative in the united states state department as its legal advis advisor. mr. president, i note the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll.

quorum call: