* I.R.S. Authorized Abbreviation: ECDCWR--USA.

      THE EMERGENCY COMMITTEE TO DEFEND CONSTITUTIONAL WELFARE RIGHTS, U.S.A., is a not-for-profit membership organization concerned with promoting compliance by government in the United States with the requirements of the obligatory international law for provision of public charity of right to the involuntarily unemployed and their families, and with promoting adherence in the United States to the prohibition against decided forms of involuntary servitude (under the Thirteenth Amendment case law standards) and against defined forms of forced labour (as proscribed in the obligatory international law), respecting any so-called "workfare" requirement.

      The Emergency Committee is registered with the Internal Revenue Service, United States Treasury, as a not-for-profit political-judicial action committee (EIN: 16-509506).  It was orginally formed as an ad hoc political action committee in October of 1995, making written submissions and personal appearances, in opposition to the then-proposed federal and state euphemistic welfare-workfare "reform", before hearings of the state legislature and before other public hearings held in New York State.  Both prior to and subsequent to passage of the 1996 Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act, the Emergency Committee was involved in lobbying U. S. President William J. Clinton to either not approve of that proposed and finally passed federal legislation or to, following its passage, at least instruct the several states of their continuing responsibilities under the obligatory international law to provide all necessary relief to the involunarily unemployed and their families, and to refrain from any workfare imposition of the internationally proscribed forms of forced labour.

      Committed for the duration to its course of opposition to the radical rightist defiance of those requirements and prohibitions in the federal constitutional and obligatory international law in these United States today, the Emergency Committee is governed by its "Mission Statement" appearing here on our home page, as supported by its adopted "Basic Position Statement". (Click Here To Return To The Emergency Committee's HOME PAGE. For Recent Browsers, Click Here To Go To The Emergency Committee's "Basic Position Statement"; For Early Browsers, alternatively Click Here.)

      Participation is open to the representatives of any organization having a similar or accordant mission and to any legally competent adult individual accepting the basic mission of the Emergency Committee (as is further detailed on our home page).