Human Rights Diplomacy: Education Supplement Inside
Human Rights Diplomacy: Education Supplement Inside
Human Rights Diplomacy: Education Supplement Inside
JUNE 2020
BRINGING #AMERICANSHOME
FOCUS ON HUMAN RIGHTS
T
he United States is founded on the But these rights were not conceived as just an ideal for the
simple, radical idea of universal human good times. Before the world’s most cataclysmic war, President
rights. “We hold these truths to be Franklin Delano Roosevelt made clear that America was fighting
self-evident,” our Declaration of Inde- for the “Four Freedoms”—freedom of speech and religion, and
pendence says, that just by being born freedom from fear and want. In the war’s bloody aftermath, his
human, a person gains rights that no widow, Eleanor Roosevelt, helped draft and promulgate the Uni-
one—including her own government— versal Declaration of Human Rights, which more than 70 years
can violate without accountability. The later remains the seminal articulation of basic human rights.
Bill of Rights spells out rights to due pro- That declaration recognizes that equal and inalienable rights for
cess of law, free expression, religion, freedom of the press and “all members of the human family [are] the foundation of free-
freedom from unreasonable searches and seizures and cruel dom, justice and peace.” These universal human rights include
and unusual punishments. These freedoms made the United a wide range of rights, consistent with both the principles on
States Constitution, in its time, into the world’s leading human which our country was founded and the more equal and inclu-
rights instrument. sive rights that our Constitution has evolved to represent.
In these challenging times, at home and abroad, what should
Harold Hongju Koh is Sterling Professor of Interna- be the United States’ priorities for promoting and defending
tional Law at Yale Law School. He has served as the human rights? Historically, the United States has been a global
State Department Legal Adviser (2009-2013) and as leader in the creation and promotion of human rights. American
assistant secretary of State for the Bureau of Democ- diplomats, scholars, activists and nongovernmental organiza-
racy, Human Rights, and Labor (1998-2001). tions have all contributed to the dramatic global embrace of
to humane solutions to vexing human rights double standard, with the United States on the
lower rung. The United States’ ongoing challenge is how to pre-
modern problems. vent its impulses toward “negative exceptionalism” from weaken-
ing its “positive exceptionalism”: its global legitimacy and capacity
rights and remedies that became the international human rights to provide exceptional human rights leadership.
movement, permanently altering governmental practice and The present administration has too often chosen the lower
forging international agreements and law. rung. It has not consistently told the truth: spreading disin-
formation and prejudice, calling the truth “fake news,” and
Three Principles routinely attacking the free press, the intelligence community,
At the turn of the millennium, when I was privileged to serve the independent judiciary and what it calls the “deep state.” At
as assistant secretary of State for the Bureau of Democracy, home, the administration has set a disturbing example, relent-
Human Rights, and Labor (DRL), I argued that the United States lessly scapegoating foreigners and ordering draconian immi-
should conduct its 21st-century human rights policy accord- gration measures, some that effectively discriminate based on
ing to three simple principles that still apply: (1) Always Tell the religion. It has torn families apart and subjected refugees and
Truth; (2) Set an Example through our own domestic human immigrants—especially innocent children—to severe medical
rights practices; and (3) Act Consistently toward the Past, Pres- risk and psychological damage. Such policies are not just wrong
ent and Future. Simply put: toward past human rights abuses, in themselves; they effectively condone and encourage similar
consistently promote a policy of accountability combined with misbehavior by dictators abroad. Nor has the Trump adminis-
reconciliation; toward ongoing abuses, consistently engage bilat- tration shown consistency with regard to past, present or future
erally with foreign governments that violate human rights and human rights violations. It has declined to demand accountabil-
multilaterally with allies and private civil society partners who ity toward the past, falling silent about the human rights abuses
can work with us to promote human rights improvements; and inflicted by Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Saudi
toward the future, consistently give early warning of impending leader Mohammed bin Salman (MBS). The administration has
human rights disasters, using preventive diplomacy to prevent been strikingly inconsistent in its human rights engagement:
atrocities, and supporting democracy worldwide as a long-term selectively criticizing human rights violations in Cuba, Iran and
antidote against future human rights violations. Venezuela, while conspicuously ignoring the same violations
These three principles, I argued, should not be applied piece- when committed by such “strategically important” foreign gov-
meal or by the United States alone, but as part of an overarching ernments as Hungary, Poland and the Philippines.
human rights strategy to support the “globalization of free- President Donald Trump has rhetorically supported such
dom”—both as an end in itself and as a means to build a more leading human rights violators as MBS, Erdogan, Xi Jinping, Kim
humane process of globalization. Promoting global freedom Jong Un and Vladimir Putin. His short-term focus has hollowed
and cooperation offers the best route to humane solutions to out prior efforts to prevent future atrocities by strengthening
such vexing modern problems as cyberconflict, climate change, early warning or using preventive diplomacy, and his admin-
food insecurity, international crime and terrorism, transborder istration has done little to build strong democracies to foster
trafficking and refugee flows, income inequality and the spread global cooperation. And it has unwisely weakened multilateral
of global disease (exemplified by COVID-19, which plagues us as cooperation by exiting the United Nations Human Rights Coun-
these words are written). cil, undermining human rights in the U.N. Security Council and
During the last two decades, these global developments have attacking the International Criminal Court, the World Health
exposed the negative face of globalization. The United States’ Organization and the World Trade Organization. The U.S. with-
response has been “exceptional” in two senses. On one hand, the drawal from the Paris Climate Accord will exacerbate climate
United States has at times been an exceptional leader, pioneering change and food insecurity worldwide.
global advances in civil rights, freedom of expression and religion, Where, instead, has the Trump administration chosen to
and the rights of criminal defendants and minorities, particularly devote its human rights energies?