Human Rights and US Foreign Policy

Jan Hancock

• Publisher: Taylor & Francis
• Year: 2007
• eBook ISBN: 9781134214372
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Civil Rights in Politics
• Index: Politics & International Relations

This book analyzes the role of human rights in the foreign policy of the George W. Bush Administrations.

References to human rights, freedom and democracy became prominent explanations for post-9/11 foreign policy, yet human rights have been neither impartially nor universally integrated into decision-making. Jan Hancock addresses this apparent paradox by considering three distinct explanations. The first position holds that human rights form a constitutive foreign policy goal, the second that evident double standards refute the first perspective. This book seeks to progress beyond this familiar discussion by employing a Foucaultian method of discourse analysis to suggest a third explanation. Through this analysis, the author examines how a discourse of human rights has been artificially produced and implemented in the presentation of US foreign policy. This illuminating study builds on a wealth of primary source evidence from human rights organizations to document the contradictions between the claims and practice of human rights made by the Bush Administrations, as well as the political significance of denying this disjuncture.

Human Rights and US Foreign Policy will be of interest to advanced students and researchers of US foreign policy, human rights, international relations and security studies.

Part I
Human rights discourse in foreign policy theory and practice

1 The hegemonic discourse

Introduction

The aim of this chapter is twofold. It seeks first to identify the consistencies in which the language of human rights has featured in the official foreign policy narrative expressed by the Bush Administrations and second to consider the relative merits of three differing interpretations of the resultant hegemonic discourse. The chapter is split into two sections. The first defines the hegemonic discourse in terms of three internally consistent messages or rules, (i) that human rights are impartially promoted as independent foreign policy goals; (ii) that rule one is derived from a pre-existing US identity; and (iii) that championing human rights complements distinct foreign policy goals of freedom, justice and democracy promotion.

All but the most dogmatic observers agree that policy makers have not applied human rights concerns on the basis of impartiality and universality identified in the introduction as the necessary conditions for human rights. Three possible accounts of the hegemonic discourse then become apparent and each will be examined in the second part of this chapter. The first of these, termed the reflective explanation, holds that human rights need not be impartially or universally applied in foreign policy decisions for these to nonetheless constitute independent policy goals existing alongside other competing goals. The contradictions between the reflective position and the necessary conditions of human rights lead the second approach, termed the rejectionist explanation, to reject the hegemonic discourse as simply rhetoric. The third explanation, termed the productive explanation, accepts that the hegemonic discourse does not impartially describe a corresponding reality but asserts that it is politically significant for producing an understanding of the real world. For the productive account, the political significance of the hegemonic discourse resides not in its literal meaning but instead in how its internal consistencies work as a technique of governance by disciplining the minds of those who internalize its logic as unproblematic truth.

Rule one: human rights are promoted as independent foreign policy goals

The first internally consistent feature of the hegemonic discourse asserts that the Bush Administrations promote human rights as independent policy goals. This rule has been asserted in a succession of public statements from administration officials, some of which pre-date 9/11. The head of the US delegation to the 57th Session of the UN Commission on Human Rights, for example, affirmed in March 2001 that ‘the Administration of George W. Bush is fully committed to the cause of human rights’.¹ The secretary of state likewise announced that ‘America’s emphasis on human rights in the world will not wane during this administration. President Bush will always be mindful of the sanctity of the individual as opposed to the state and the precious rights that keep that sanctity intact’.² Repeating this message, the undersecretary of state for global affairs asserted that

[w]e shall continue to be the world’s leading advocate for democracy and human rights. We shall continue to meet foreign government officials, and insist that our views on human rights be known. We shall speak up for the dissidents, the victims of persecution, the tortured and the dispossessed.³

The message underlying these comments is one of support for human rights as an independent foreign policy goal.

After 9/11, the discursive endorsement of human rights became more prominent and was adopted by administration officials who had previously been seen as human rights skeptics. Included in this group was the president himself, who announced on one occasion that ‘[w]e believe in … the duty of nations to respect the dignity and the rights of all’.⁴ Colin Powell affirmed that ‘on every continent we make important immediate and long-term investments in democracy and human rights’.⁵ On another occasion the secretary of state announced ‘we commit ourselves to democracy, development, global public health and human rights’.⁶ The director of the office for the promotion of human rights and democracy closed his April 2004 statement before the Congressional Human Rights Caucus ‘by stressing that the promotion of democracy and the protection of fundamental human rights is a central, defining element of our foreign policy’.⁷ The assistant secretary for democracy, human rights and labor declared that ‘I can wholeheartedly attest to the fact that in the Bush Administration human rights and democracy work is alive and well’ and that ‘human rights is and will remain a pillar of American foreign policy’.⁸ The 2002 National Security Strategy asserted a forthright defense of values when it declared that states lose rights to non-intervention if they ‘brutalize their own people’ or ‘reject basic human values’.⁹ In correspondence with the author, Minister Counselor for Public Affairs at the US embassy in London, Daniel Sreebny, reported that ‘[t]he promotion of universal human rights is an integral and important part of contemporary U.S. foreign policy’.¹⁰ The underlying message in these statements locates the promotion of human rights as a constitutive foreign policy goal of the Bush Administrations.

Administration officials have, moreover, affirmed that human rights are promoted in foreign policy on a universal rather than selective basis. When submitting a resolution on human rights violations in China to the UN Commission on Human Rights in 2001, the head of the US delegation for example urged ‘other Commission members to join us in upholding the principle of universality of human rights’.¹¹ The assistant secretary for democracy, human rights and labor asserted the commitment of the administration to the universality of human rights by identifying ‘our work promoting the universal observance of human rights’,¹² and by stating that ‘[w]e employ a wide range of strategies to promote human rights and democracy’,¹³ and by affirming that the administration is ‘maintaining the focus on human rights and democracy worldwide’.¹⁴

The Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor repeated the message that universal human rights are promoted as independent foreign policy goals by announcing that ‘we share the common goal of promoting respect for human rights’ and highlighted ‘those set forth in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and international humanitarian law’ as receiving particular attention.¹⁵ This same message has been expressed in various human rights reports produced by the State Department. Since 1975, Congress has required the State Department to produce an annual Country Reports on Human Rights Practices to document human rights violations occurring around the world. In 2004, the State Department published an additional report, Supporting Human Rights and Democracy.¹⁶ This document described how the US was responding to those issues raised in the Country Reports and ‘highlights US efforts to promote human rights and democracy in the 101 countries and entities with the worst human rights record’.¹⁷ The document concluded that these efforts demonstrated ‘the United States is pursuing a broad strategy of promoting respect for human rights that is both appropriate in itself and beneficial for US security’.¹⁸

In a Foreign Affairs article, Paula Dobriansky labeled as ‘incorrect’ the criticism that the Bush Administration cooperated with authoritarian regimes and turned a blind eye to the anti-democratic practices carried out by US allies.¹⁹ The undersecretary of state for global affairs clarified that ‘this administration, whenever it encounters evidence of serious human rights violations or anti-democratic practices in specific countries, has raised a voice of opposition to such violations and sought to address these problems’.²⁰ Moreover, this principled position was maintained ‘irrespective of the identity of the offender’.²¹ The internally consistent message in this discourse affirmed the promotion of universal human rights as an independent policy goal of the Bush Administrations.

Rule two: rule one is derived from a pre-existing US identity

The second internally consistent rule in the hegemonic discourse holds that human rights are constitutive foreign policy goals (rule one) not out of choice alone but instead to realize a pre-existing US identity. This rule rests on two pillars. First, the rule requires that identities can be established as matters of fact, rather than of interpretation. The second pillar requires that US identity can be defined in terms of the good, while those of its enemies can be defined in terms of evil. In one notable expression of this rule asserted during his 2002 State of the Union address, the president juxtaposed the US against ‘evil doers’, ‘terrorists’ and ‘rogue states’ that together constituted an ‘axis of evil’.²² This discourse differentiates the world into binary opposites with the US defending human rights as a component of its struggle against evil. As Craner explained

[t]he United States stands up for democracy and human rights around the world, and we maintain a fundamental belief that freedom is better than oppression, that liberty is better than tyranny, that rule of law works better than power and that respect for human rights is better than arbitrary abuse of individuals.²³

Having established specific identities, the second hegemonic rule holds that the US must promote human rights as an aspect of its identity both as a state and as a people. The president has advanced this rule through stating that ‘[t]his nation is freedom’s home and defender’,²⁴ and that ‘our nation is committed to an historic, long-term goal – we seek the end of tyranny in our world’.²⁵ Here, the president is contextualizing foreign policy not in terms of choices made by the administration but rather by recourse to beliefs and values that are attached to the nation.

On other occasions the president has articulated US identity in terms of human rights by declaring that ‘advocating human rights around the world allows all Americans to celebrate the universal principles of liberty and justice that define our dreams and shape our hopes as we face the challenges of a new era’.²⁶ In his 2005 inaugural speech President Bush similarly announced that ‘[a]ll who live in tyranny and hopelessness can know: the United States will not ignore your oppression, or excuse your oppressors. When you stand for liberty, we will stand with you’.²⁷ This repeated the identity of the US described by the president in his 2002 State of the Union address when he proclaimed that ‘America will always stand firm for the non-negotiable demands of human dignity: the rule of law; limits on the power of the state; respect for women; private property; free speech; equal justice and religious tolerance’.²⁸ The message shared by these assertions held that a pre-existent US identity validated and justified the support for human rights evident in the foreign policy of his administrations.

Repeating this link between national identity and human rights, the head of the US delegation stated in remarks to the UN Commission on Human Rights that ‘ours is a country with global interests and a deep and abiding concern for the promotion of universal human rights in every country of the world’.²⁹ The assistant secretary for democracy, human rights and labor likewise linked human rights to US identity by asserting that ‘human rights have the deep and strong backing of both parties, all branches of government, and, most importantly, the American people’.³⁰ According to this message, the promotion of human rights is hard wired into the nature of the US state and civil society. It is in this context that Colin Powell asserted that ‘[t]he United States values the sanctity of the individual and is committed to preventing human rights abuses’.³¹ The secretary of state likewise derived support for human rights from US identity when he commemorated 2004 human rights week by reaffirming ‘our commitment to the principles which have come to characterize our nation’.³² Reifying hegemonic rule two, Powell included human rights in these principles since ‘[o]ur fight for human rights will continue so long as tyrannical regimes infringe upon the freedom of citizens’.³³

Indeed, the US has been defined in the hegemonic discourse not as a territorial state geographically located to the south of Canada and to the north of Mexico but instead in terms of ideals of human rights and freedom. National Security Advisor, Condoleezza Rice, for example, announced following 9/11 that, ‘we are not going to stop talking about the things that matter to us – human rights and freedom and so forth. We’re going to press those issues. We would not be America if we did not’.³⁴ There is simply no alternative, Rice explained on another occasion, ‘America’s power and purpose must be used to defend freedom’.³⁵ Consistent with defining US identity partly in terms of human rights, the president rejected allegations that US intelligence officers tortured foreign prisoners on the grounds that ‘the values of this country are such that torture is not a part of our soul and our being’.³⁶

Hegemonic rule two equates US identity with the promotion of human rights through employing simplified renditions of the origins of the state. Articulating this myth, Dobriansky proclaimed that ‘US commitment to human rights dates from the Declaration of Independence and our nation’s founding. This reflects our nation’s values’.³⁷ Repeating this message that US commitment to human rights derives from the origins of the state, the president asserted that, ‘from the day of our Founding, we have proclaimed that every man and woman on this earth has rights, and dignity, and matchless value’.³⁸ On another occasion President Bush stated that ‘[d]uring Human Rights Day, Bill of Rights Day and Human Rights Week, we celebrate the founding ideals of our Nation and emphasize the importance of protecting human liberty throughout the world’.³⁹ Again conflating human rights with the founding of the US, the president used the occasion of his 2003 State of the Union address to announce that, ‘[o]ur founders dedicated this country to the cause of human dignity, the rights of every person and the possibilities of every life’.⁴⁰ On a further occasion the president repeated the underlying message by calling upon ‘the people of the United States to honor the legacy of human rights passed down to us from previous generations’.⁴¹

The version of history that asserts US identity in terms of freedom and human rights has been subsequently appealed to when explaining foreign policy decisions. For example, in a news conference after the 2003 invasion of Iraq, President Bush announced that

for nearly a century, the United Sta...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Acknowledgments
• Abbreviations
• Introduction
• Part I: Human rights discourse in foreign policy theory and practice
• Part II: Case studies
• Notes
• Bibliography