Abstract:
The aim of this paper is to examine the role of human rights in the making of United States foreign policy. While the concept of human rights has had a prominent place in US foreign policy especially since the early 1970s, this paper argues that Washington’s concern for human rights is mainly rhetorical and very much interwoven with perceived US national interests at any given time. This study takes examples from human rights policy of various US administrations, yet focuses on the Carter and Reagan presidencies in order to highlight the dynamics of human rights in US foreign policy both in theory and practice. The objective is to understand various executive approaches and limitations to and potentials for the promotion of human rights in American foreign policy. The reason for selecting these two administrations is that Jimmy Carter was the first US president to institutionalize human rights in US foreign policy formulation and implementation, while the Reagan Administration sought to roll it back. The article also demonstrates how human rights discourse can have its own impact on political developments abroad regardless of the intentions of foreign policymakers in Washington.
Machine summary:
Keywords: foreign policy, human rights, morality, interests, rhetoric, institutionalization & unintended consequences Senior Fellow in Politics & International Relations, Department of Economics and International Studies, University of Buckingham.
The first part, Morality, Interests and Foreign Policy, explores the American perception of human rights and how it was influenced by domestic and international political realities prior to the Carter Administration (1977-1981).
Finally, Human Rights & the Fall of the Shah of Iran, examines the challenges the Carter Administration faced in implementing its human rights policy and elaborates on the unintended consequences of the President’s policy towards an important ally.
I. Morality, Interests and Foreign Policy At the abstract-intellectual level, human rights aspirations are present in important documents of the United States' political life: the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.
For instance, while the United States initially maintained a neutral stance during the First World War and President Wilson couched US foreign policy in terms of moral principle, lecturing the belligerents on their responsibilities as civilized nations, American businessmen traded with Europe and sought out the new business that war would bring.
The escape clause was not only used to justify US military support for undemocratic regimes such as those of the Shah of Iran, Marcos in the Philippines and Suharto in Indonesia, but it also illustrated the dependence of human rights variables on national interests in US foreign policy.
Unintended Consequences The Carter Administration's human rights policy with regard to Iran also demonstrated the complex impact of democratic ideals on political processes, independent of the policy objectives that foreign governments pursue.