United States Policy toward Human Rights: a Dossier

DEMOCRACY BAROMETERS (PART II): ATTITUDES IN THE ARAB WORLD. Amaney Jamal and Mark Tessler, Journal of Democracy, January 2008. pp. 97-110. "Findings from the Arab Barometer say little about whether there are likely to be transitions to democracy in the Arab world in the years ahead, but they do offer evidence that citizens' attitudes and values are not the reason that authoritarianism has persisted." READ MORE

‘‘THE CIVILIZATION OF CLASHES’’: MISAPPLYING THE DEMOCRATIC PEACE IN THE MIDDLE EAST. Piki Ish-Shalom. Political Science Quarterly, Winter 2007-08, pp. 533-554. The author "traces the process by which leading neoconservatives endorsed the structural theories of democratic peace, generating a grand strategy of forceful democracy promotion. He analyses the reasons for this endorsement and its impact on American foreign policy. He then goes on to explore some internal incoherencies in this neoconservative grand strategy." READ MORE

SHOULD DEMOCRACY BE PROMOTED OR DEMOTED? Francis Fukuyama and Michael McFaul, The Washington Quarterly, Winter 2007-2008, pp. 23-45. "The tragic result of the gap between declared objectives and strategies on democracy promotion is that many Americans are starting to view this goal as no longer desirable or attainable. A more effective strategy for promoting democracy and human rights is both needed and available." READ MORE

A MORAL CORE FOR U.S. FOREIGN POLICY. Derek Chollet and Tod Lindberg, Policy Review, December 2007 & January 2008, var. pages. "Is idealism dead? Should the promotion of American values of liberalism, democracy, human rights, and rule of law be a core element of U.S. foreign policy? Where to strike the balance between principles and interests is one of the most enduring debates about America ’s role in the world. But since September 11, this question has become intensely contested and deeply controversial. It has emerged as one of the central divides between the political right and left — in large part because of the history of the past seven years, the Bush administration ’s rhetoric, its strong association with the 'freedom agenda,' and its actions justified at least in part by democracy promotion (namely the war in Iraq). Yet it is also becoming a sharper division within each end of the political spectrum." READ MORE.

HUMAN RIGHTS VERSUS EMISSIONS RIGHTS: CLIMATE JUSTICE AND THE EQUITABLE DISTRIBUTION OF ECOLOGICAL SPACE. Tim Hayward, Ethics & International Affairs, Winter 2007, pp. 431-450. It is no longer seriously disputed that, in the face of climate change, carbon emissions must be reduced. There is agreement internationally that responsibility for making these reductions should be shared with equitable differentiation. In contemporary debates, however, the question of how responsibilities should be differentiated has been all but eclipsed by contestation over how emissions rights should be apportioned. The shift is significant—conceptually and practically. READ MORE.

HUMAN WRONGS. Jacqueline A. Newmyer, The American: A Magazine of Ideas, Nov/Dec 2007, var. pages. The outlook for human rights in China is bleak. This has implications for both the global economy and national security. All of the critics are on to something: Evolution in Chinese respect for human rights will be a bellwether for continued economic development and peaceful foreign policy. READ MORE.

Kasparov, Garry. BATTLING KGB, INC. Journal of Democracy, April 2007, pp. 114-119. 

Full text available from publisher's website

"After I appeared on a panel discussion on BBC television last year, on a show recorded in Moscow, a British viewer wrote in amazed at how freely we said things that, he said, would have led to our execution not long ago. This perception—that Russians are better off now and shouldn’t complain—has been very harmful to the democratic cause. The Putin regime is plunging Russia into a deepening crisis. It is time to end the fiction that today’s Russia is a democracy." Garry Kasparov, the world’s highest-ranked chess player from 1986 until his retirement in 2005, is chairman of the United Civil Front, an interregional social movement in Russia.

Gottfried, Paul. THE INVINCIBLE WILSONIAN MATRIX: UNIVERSAL HUMAN RIGHTS ONCE AGAIN. Orbis, Spring 2007, pp. 239-250.

Full text available upon request

"A conservative or realist approach has little appeal in the present debate over American foreign policy. In the twentieth century, according to George F. Kennan, the United States succumbed to “the evils of utopian enthusiasms.” In recent years, this worldview has been associated most closely with the neoconservatives, but even the Clinton administration leaned in the same direction. Crusading moralism has been the recurrent theme of America's self-image as a global power. Whether or not neoconservatives and liberals today are really dedicated to the same democratic political culture as the one that Wilson idealized, a recognizable Wilsonian manner of conceptualizing international relations has come to dominate American politics, reflected in a shared rejection of any foreign policy that is not based on the temporal salvation of humanity. Yet many Wilsonians seem unable to imagine that one can be “moral” without trying to make everyone resemble one's self." Paul Gottfried is Horace E. Raffensberger Professor of Humanities at Elizabethtown College, PA.

Dunne, Tim. 'THE RULES OF THE GAME ARE CHANGING': FUNDAMENTAL HUMAN RIGHTS IN CRISIS AFTER 9/11. International Politics, March 2007, 44, 269-286.

Full text available upon request

"Is there a crisis of legitimacy in relation to fundamental human rights commitments? At one level, the human rights regime has endured legitimacy problems from the outset, in part due to the scope and complexity of the standards but also as a result of the unwillingness of states to regard human rights norms as properly binding. I argue that September 11 and the responses this event triggered in the foreign policies of leading states in international society have taken the challenge to the regime to a new level. What makes it a crisis of legitimacy is the fact that those were crucial to the emergence of the regime, and the rights that are under siege are core 'rights of the person' and not aspirational rights. The closing discussion examines the possibility for a restoration of legitimacy. Consistent with the earlier theoretical discussion, the question of whether and how the legitimacy crisis can be resolved requires a differential response, depending on the site of the crisis, and the location of the audience. The concepts of international and world society provide analytical leverage in identifying both the causes of the crisis and the prospects for its resolution." By Tim Dunne from the Department of Politics, University of Exeter, UK.

Boggio, Andrea. THE GLOBAL ENFORCEMENT OF HUMAN RIGHTS: THE UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES OF TRANSNATIONAL LITIGATION. The International Journal of Human Rights, December 2006, pp. 325–340.

Full text available from publisher website

"In the last few years, a growing number of individuals whose basic rights are violated have filed transnational human rights claims in foreign countries. By placing the individual as a holder of basic rights at the core of the process of development, the capability approach, as put forward by Amartya Sen and Martha Nussbaum, provides a fertile theoretical framework to assess translational human rights litigation. The paper shows that transnational claims are problematic in two regards: 1) they undermine development by discouraging foreign companies from investing in countries that are sources of transnational claims and by weakening local governments and judiciaries; 2) the conflict resolution process is inadequate because financial and practical constraints prevent stakeholders from directly participating in the process, and because assessing damages and enforcing award judgments will most likely be unfair. The path to be taken involves developing a stronger rule of law, stronger local institutions and independent judiciaries in those developed countries where the violations of basic human rights take place." By Andrea Boggio, Assistant Professor, Department of History and Social Sciences, Bryant University.

AA26  Çali, Basak. BALANCING HUMAN RIGHTS? METHODOLOGICAL PROBLEMS WITH WEIGHTS, SCALES AND PROPORTIONS. Human Rights Quarterly, Feb 2007, pp. 251-271.

Full text available via ProQuest

"This article takes issue with the argument that human rights are not absolute and should be balanced in relation to competing communal aims. The balancing of qualified human rights is a key practice of the European Court of Human Rights and a great deal depends on a clear analysis of the ramifications of balancing for our understanding of human rights aims. The author does not seek to propose an alternative to balancing, but aims to show that it is not necessarily coherent with human rights principles or the kinds of functions international human rights institutions are thought to perform." Basak Çali, B.A., M.A., Ph.D., Lecturer in Human Rights, University College London. Dr. Çali's main interests are the theories of transnational adjudication of human rights, theories of international law and the international protection of human rights.