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The United States Needs a New Human Rights Policy
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11381 |
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Section : |
CURRENT ISSUES
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11 / 1986 |
2,342 Words |
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Robert S. Walker
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Instead of being a consistent champion of a values oriented foreign policy that has at its center life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, America since World War II has played the superpower game of siding with immorality when it is convenient to do so. And in so doing we have largely lost our ability to champion human rights and lead by example.
A consistent human rights policy, founded on our own fundamental governing philosophy, should be the basis for addressing the foreign policy challenges that await us in the coming decades. A policy that champions human rights and extols democracy is philosophically consistent with the principles that anchor our own republic. It will herald the blessings of liberty to freedom-starved people across the globe. Such a policy is, in fact, essential if the United States is to maintain its leadership role in international affairs.
The desire for a consistent human rights policy is nothing new. President Carter made an aborted attempt to have human rights as the centerpiece of foreign policy, but this attempt fell short because it applied human rights standards on a selective basis and did not distinguish between authoritarian and totalitarian regimes. Similarly, conservatives can be faulted for not placing sufficient emphasis on the human rights aspect of foreign policy, and for a reluctance to take action against governments that profess pro-Western values. Our foreign policy must now go beyond the weak and flawed efforts of the past. A consistent human rights policy should be designed that will encourage the establishment of stable, democratic governments and pluralistic economies around the world.
A world of difference
As a U.S. human rights policy is developed, policymakers must look past political rhetoric and media-based perceptions of human rights issues. Policymakers will have to be willing to confront philosophical distinctions between authoritarian and totalitarian governments, for example. Jeane Kirkpatrick has described authoritarian regimes as those that tell the governed what they can do. Authoritarian regimes, in essence, allow many basic freedoms to exist; totalitarian regimes seek to eliminate all freedoms. There is a world of difference here, which reflects not simply the intensity of the oppression, but a basic distinction between the philosophical bases for different governments. Kirkpatrick's distinction is a revitalization of political philosopher Hannah Arendt's landmark differentiation between authoritarianism and totalitarianism.
For a human rights policy to be effective, we must understand the difference between these two systems, confront both of them because both violate human rights, but not treat them as one and the same.
Arendt was among the first to recognize the singular nature of totalitarian regimes and their distinction from the stereotypic authoritarian dictatorship. She saw totalitarianism as "an entirely new form of government" and termed its development "the crisis of our time." Her description of authoritarian tyranny brings to mind two recently fallen dictators: Ferdinand Marcos and Jean Claude Duvalier. Tyranny, she says, is essentially lawless. "Arbitrary power, unrestricted by law, wielded in the interest of the ruler and hostile to the interest of the governed, on the one hand, fear as the principle of action, namely fear of the
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