E/CN.4/1995/78/Add.1 page 6 like to thank the city officials of Washington, D.C., New York and Atlanta, as well as the representatives of those non-governmental organizations who were willing to meet him and provide him with documentation. C. Overview of the United States of America 17. The United States of America is a federal Republic composed of 50 States and the District of Columbia, where the federal capital, Washington, is situated. The population, numbering approximately 250 million, is undergoing profound changes, both in terms of ethnic composition and of the age and sex pyramid. Virtually all the world’s racial, national, ethnic, cultural and religious groups are present in the United States, a situation which increasingly tends to counterbalance the preponderance of the population of European origin. The following table gives an idea of the population of the United States. The average age is estimated to be 32.9 years and women make up over half the population (51.2 per cent). English is the predominant language, but 35 million people (15 per cent) speak another language. 18. The United States has a long and firmly-established democratic tradition and is considered, according to the familiar expression, to be a melting pot, with a cultural and socio-political balance among peoples of diverse origin. However, there are those who argue that, for historical reasons deeply rooted in American culture and on account of residual racism and racial discrimination (see chap. II): "this democratic tradition and diversity have seldom been reflected in the distribution of power or control over the most basic strategic resources - land, capital, work opportunity, wage rates, legal rights and life itself". 5/ The liberal ideology and capitalism, which have secured the economic prosperity and political stability of the United States, have also created disparities between Whites and the other ethnic groups, particularly the African Americans, Indian Americans, Hispanics and Asians. Numerous measures have been adopted both locally and at the federal level to remedy this situation, but the effects fall short of expectations because of individual and structural resistance. 19. The economic and social policy conducted by the Republican Administration under President Reagan and President Bush in the 1980s helped to accentuate the imbalances in the distribution of wealth, for the benefit of the rich, while a broad sector of the population, consisting in particular of persons from ethnic minorities, was impoverished and marginalized. As President Clinton acknowledged in his State of the Union address on 25 January 1994, poverty, drugs, violence and crime are scourges which confront American society and primarily affect the most under-privileged classes, whose ranks are made up of ethnic minorities. 20. As far as human rights are concerned, the civil rights movement which developed in the 1950s helped to bring up to date in American society the principles that were recognized in the Constitution and embodied in numerous laws. However, any human rights problems in the United States were viewed solely from a domestic standpoint, as the Government believed the relevant