Which committee is investigative in nature

Commissions have been created with different structures and a wide variety of mandates including investigation, mediation, or administering compensation. Below is a list of all commissions established by the Security Council, with a short description prepared on the basis of the Repertoire , as well as links to the sections covering them in the Repertoire. They are organized by region, and then under relevant areas or subregions, placed chronologically starting with those established most recently.

For more information on the investigative and fact-finding powers of the Security Council, please see also the section on Article The Commission was established on 20 September in order to evaluate the damage resulting from the invasion of Angola by South African forces.

The International Commission of Inquiry concerning Burundi was established on 28 August to establish the facts relating to the assassination of the President of Burundi on 21 October , the massacres and other related serious acts of violence which had followed, and to recommend legal, political or administrative measures to bring to justice persons responsible for those acts and promote reconciliation in Burundi.

The International Commission of Inquiry concerning Rwanda was established on 7 September to investigate reports relating to the sale or supply of arms and related material to former Rwandese Government Forces in the Great Lakes region in violation of Council resolutions, and to recommend measures to end the illegal flow of arms in the region.

The Commission of Experts concerning Rwanda was established on 1 July to examine and analyse information derived from investigations, with a view to providing the Secretary-General with its conclusions on the evidence of grave violations of international humanitarian law committed in the territory of Rwanda, including the evidence of possible acts of genocide until its submission of the final report in December The Commission was established on 15 December to investigate the origin, background and financing of the mercenary aggression of 25 November against the Republic of Seychelles as well as assess and evaluate economic damages.

The Commission fulfilled its mandate in July The Ad Hoc Commission was established on 3 December to report to the Security Council on the implementation of resolution which authorized an enforcement operation by a group of Member States to establish a secure environment for humanitarian relief operations in Somalia. The International Commission of Inquiry for Darfur was established on 18 September to investigate reports of violations of international humanitarian and human rights law in Darfur by all parties, to determine whether or not acts of genocide had occurred, and to identify the perpetrators of such violations with a view to ensuring that those responsible were held accountable.

The Commission was established on 6 September by the United Nations and the Organization of American States to implement the Joint Plan for the voluntary demobilization, repatriation or relocation of the members of the Nicaraguan resistance and their families, as well as assistance for the demobilization of all those involved in armed actions in the countries of the region when such persons voluntarily requested it.

The United Nations Commission for India and Pakistan UNCIP was established on 20 January to investigate the facts on the ground regarding the outbreak of hostilities in Jammu and Kashmir and assist in mediatory functions as appropriate. Sustaining the witness, the Court emphasized that inasmuch as a witness by his refusal exposes himself to a criminal prosecution for contempt, he is entitled to be informed of the relation of the question to the subject of the investigation with the same precision as the Due Process Clause requires of statutes defining crimes.

By and large, the subsequent cases demonstrated that Watkins did not represent a determination by the Justices to restrain broadly the course of congressional investigations, though several contempt citations were reversed on narrow holdings.

But with regard to pertinency, the implications of Watkins were held in check and, without amending its rules or its authorizing resolution, the Un-American Activities Committee was successful in convincing a majority of the Court that its subsequent investigations were authorized and that the questions asked of recalcitrant witnesses were pertinent to the inquiries.

Thus, in Barenblatt v. Additionally, the opening statement of the chairman had pinpointed that subject as the nature of the inquiry that day and the opening witness had testified on the subject and had named Barenblatt as a member of the Communist Party at the University of Michigan. Similarly, in Wilkinson v. United States , the Court held that, when the witness was apprised at the hearing that the Committee was empowered to investigate Communist infiltration of the textile industry in the South, that it was gathering information with a view to ascertaining the manner of administration and need to amend various laws directed at subversive activities, that Congress hitherto had enacted many of its recommendations in this field, and that it was possessed of information about his Party membership, he was notified effectively that a question about that affiliation was relevant to a valid inquiry.

A companion case was held to be controlled by Wilkinson , and in both cases the majority rejected the contention that the Committee inquiry was invalid because both Wilkinson and Braden, when they were called, were engaged in organizing activities against the Committee. Related to the cases discussed in this section are cases requiring that congressional committees observe strictly their own rules.

Thus, in Yellin v. The Court ruled that the Committee had ignored the rule when it subpoenaed the witness for a public hearing and then in failing to consider as a Committee his request for a closed session. The Court has blown hot and cold on the issue of a quorum as a prerequisite to a valid contempt citation, and no firm statement of a rule is possible, although it seems probable that no quorum is ordinarily necessary. Protection of Witnesses; Constitutional Guarantees.

This section addresses the limitations the Bill of Rights places on the scope and nature of the congressional power to inquire. The most extensive amount of litigation in this area has involved the privilege against self-incrimination guaranteed against governmental abridgment by the Fifth Amendment.

Observance of the privilege by congressional committees has been so uniform that no court has ever held that it must be observed, though dicta are plentiful.

There is no prescribed form in which one must plead the privilege. Another witness, who was threatened with prosecution for his Communist activities, could claim the privilege even to some questions the answers to which he might have been able to explain away as unrelated to criminal conduct; if an answer might tend to be incriminatory, the witness is not deprived of the privilege merely because he might have been able to refute inferences of guilt.

The privilege against self-incrimination is not available as a defense to an organizational officer who refuses to turn over organization documents and records to an investigating committee.

In Hutcheson v. United States , the Court rejected a challenge to a Senate committee inquiry into union corruption on the part of a witness who was under indictment in state court on charges relating to the same matters about which the committee sought to interrogate him. The witness did not plead his privilege against self-incrimination but contended that, by questioning him about matters that would aid the state prosecutor, the committee had denied him due process.

Claims relating to the First Amendment have been frequently asserted and as frequently denied. It is not that the First Amendment is inapplicable to congressional investigations, it is that, under the prevailing Court interpretation, the First Amendment does not bar all legislative restrictions of the rights guaranteed by it. Where First Amendment rights are asserted to bar governmental interrogation, resolution of the issue always involves a balancing by the courts of the competing private and public interests at stake in the particular circumstances shown.

Thus, the Court has declined to rule that under the circumstances of the cases investigating committees are precluded from making inquiries simply because the subject area was education or because the witnesses at the time they were called were engaged in protected activities such as petitioning Congress to abolish the inquiring committee.

Other constitutional rights of witnesses have been asserted at various times, but without success or even substantial minority support. Explicit judicial recognition of the right of either house of Congress to commit for contempt a witness who ignores its summons or refuses to answer its inquiries dates from McGrain v.

Dunn , which stated in broad terms the right of either branch of the legislature to attach and punish a person other than a member for contempt of its authority. Gordon , although the Court there held that the implied power to deal with contempt did not extend to the arrest of a person who published matter defamatory of the House.

The cases emphasize that the power to punish for contempt rests upon the right of self-preservation. Mac-Cracken , the Court turned aside an argument that the Senate had no power to punish a witness who, having been commanded to produce papers, destroyed them after service of the subpoena.

Under the rule laid down by Anderson v. Dunn , imprisonment by one of the Houses of Congress could not extend beyond the adjournment of the body which ordered it.

Because of this limitation and because contempt trials before the bar of the House charging were time-consuming, in Congress enacted a statute providing for criminal process in the federal courts with prescribed penalties for contempt of Congress. The Supreme Court has held that the purpose of this statute is merely supplementary of the power retained by Congress, and all constitutional objections to it were overruled.

Because Congress has invoked the aid of the federal judicial system in protecting itself against contumacious conduct, the consequence, the Court has asserted numerous times, is that the duty has been conferred upon the federal courts to accord a person prosecuted for his statutory offense every safeguard that the law accords in all other federal criminal cases, and the discussion in previous sections of many reversals of contempt convictions bears witness to the assertion in practice.

What constitutional protections ordinarily necessitated by due process requirements, such as notice, right to counsel, confrontation, and the like, prevail in a contempt trial before the bar of one House or the other is an open question. It has long been settled that the courts may not intervene directly to restrain the carrying out of an investigation or the manner of an investigation, and that a witness who believes the inquiry to be illegal or otherwise invalid in order to raise the issue must place himself in contempt and raise his beliefs as affirmative defenses on his criminal prosecution.

This understanding was sharply reinforced when the Court held that the speech-or-debate clause utterly foreclosed judicial interference with the conduct of a congressional investigation, through review of the propriety of subpoenas or otherwise. Dimock, Congressional Investigating Committees ch.

Daugherty, U. United States, U. See also Eastland v. Thompson, U. The internal quotations are from Kilbourn v. Such an inquiry was made. Globe, 36th Congress, 1st sess. But see Hutcheson v. Brimson, U. Douds, U. Sweezy v. These laws include:. Citizen suits have leveled the legal playing field for all Americans and have led to significant improvements in public health, environmental quality, and natural resource management.

However, House Republicans have launched a coordinated attack to tip the scales of justice in favor of corporate interests that do not want to be held accountable for the environmental damage they cause. Search Button. Main Website Logo. Home Subcommittees. Oversight and Investigations Created in the th Congress, the Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee has jurisdiction over each agency and program overseen by the full Committee.

Investigations and Reports The following reports were developed by the Democratic staff of the House Natural Resources Committee: A Year of the Resistance January 29, - The year-end report highlights the relentless attacks Republicans in Congress and the administration have made on our country's foundational environmental policies. InteriorToo January 24, - The report focuses on the sexual harassment problems across the Department of the Interior and offers recommendations on how to instill strong anti-harassment policies.

Missing the Mark, Part II December 7, - An update to a groundbreaking report assessing the impacts of trophy hunting on efforts to conserve threatened and endangered wildlife in four African countries.

Nevertheless, the Trump administration has already shown that they are willing to trade public land protections for fossil fuel interests. Our public servants must be held accountable to the public and to the natural resources they have a duty to protect. However, House Rules do not require disclosure of private or corporate funding sources like fossil fuel companies or developers. There are clear instances in which witnesses, who had potential, perceived, or actual conflicts of interest, gave expert testimony to Congress without disclosing them — and it was perfectly legal.

Protecting the Science on Climate Change The effects of climate change—warming global temperatures, more frequent and severe extreme weather events, increased outbreaks of infectious diseases like dengue, rising rates of asthma and heat-related illness, and more—are affecting us all.

But House Republicans and the Trump administration are intent on torturing the science to try to justify their neglect of the issue of a generation.