Natalie Kaufman Hevener - The Dynamics of Human Rights in United States Foreign Policy

Edited by

First published 1981 by Transaction Publishers

Published 2017 by Routledge
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Copyright 1981 by Taylor & Francis

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Library of Congress Catalog Number: 79-66435

Main entry under title:

Human rights in United States foreign policy.
Includes index.
1. Civil rights Addresses, essays, lectures.
2. United States Foreign relations 1977 Addresses, essays, lectures.
3. Civil rights United States Addresses, essays, lectures. I. Hevener, Natalie Kaufman.
K3240.6.U54 341.48 1 7966435
ISBN 0-87855-347-9

ISBN 13: 978-0-87855-956-5 (pbk)

Paul M. Kattenburg

Richard A. Falk

Robert L. Borosage

Louis B. Sohn

Bruno V. Bitker

Walker F. Connor

Peter Weiss

Marcus G. Raskin and Ann Wilcox

Robert G. Wirsing

C. Clyde Ferguson

Martin Weinstein

David Weissbrodt

Robert B. Boettcher

Richard B. Lillich

This volume grew out of a colloquia series held in the Department of Government and International Studies of the University of South Carolina. The series was made possible through grants from the United States Department of State, Bureau of External Research, the University's Faculty and Productive Scholarship Fund, and the Office of the Dean of the University's College of Humanities and Social Sciences. I am grateful for this financial support which enabled me to bring a number of outstanding scholars and practitioners to the campus to discuss their work on human rights. I owe a special debt to authors Richard Falk, Louis Sohn, Robert Borosage, Peter Weiss, and Robert Boettcher for taking the time to come to South Carolina and for sharing their ideas and experience with us; I am also grateful to the faculty and graduate student participants from the department whose informed, provocative, and constructive comments were invaluable to the editor and to the visiting contributors. To Dean Chester Bain, and the department chairmen, James Holland and James Kuhlman, I wish to express my thanks for their help and support during the colloquia series.

My task of transforming the colloquia papers into a finished volume was greatly aided by the extensive review, suggested revisions, and persistent optimism of Robert G. Wirsing and Paul M. Kattenburg. Also my two graduate assistants, Steven Mosher and Carl Young, worked well beyond their normal hours diligently and cheerfully helping me with the entire process of manuscript preparation.

Finally, I wish to thank my family, especially Suzy and Sam, and my friends, William P. Kreml, Carolyn Matalene, William Matalene, and Mary Bryan for our many enlightening and enjoyable discussions and for their abiding confidence in me and my work.

In recent years human rights has become one of the most used phrases in the American political lexicon. Its popularitynot only in the United States but also abroadhad been increasingly visible throughout the 1970s. But the turnover in Washington in 1976 from Republican to Democratic administrations gave it vastly more official sponsorship and undoubtedly quickened the tempo of its public acceptance.

In sharp contrast to its Republican predecessors, the Carter administration advanced human rights as an explicit and prominent part of its announced foreign policy agenda. Largely unanticipated, and by no means fully understood or approved, this unusually emphatic endorsement of human rights has been given a great many explanations. Among the most commonly cited are:

The response to Carter's concentration on human rights, however, may appear to the interested observer to have created a hodgepodge of contradictory forces: accusations and defenses; revelations and concealments; sincere investigations and manipulative inquiries; legitimate concern and pious posturing; cynical resignation and naive optimism. One might conclude that the energy expended on this subject has produced more confusion than clarification, more harm than help. There are some who are already convinced that the human rights issue suffers from overexposure. They would be relieved, no doubt, to see the fading from public attention of this intensely complex, highly controversial, and personally disturbing subject. Their uneasiness is well-founded: a full, open national debate on human rights has the potential of revealing fundamental disparities between stated nationally shared values and their contemporary level of implementation.

Concern with human rights will continue to be a major characteristic of domestic and global politics and will, therefore, have a significant impact on the formulation, implementation, and evaluation of United States foreign policy. The contributors to this volume have felt from the beginning that the discussion of this subject although difficult and hazardous was worth pursuing. In addition, they agreed to the necessity of placing the debate in an international context aware that this added dimension would compound the problems already existent at the national level.