Addressing Gaston, Clinton Pushes Renewed Priorities for Human Rights

The United States cannot successfully pursue an international lasting peace unless it practically promotes human rights, argued Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton today in Gaston Hall, in a speech that deviated from the Obama administration’s relative silence on issues of human rights.

Timed with the week of the 61-year anniversary of the signing of the Universal Declaration on Human Rights, Clinton’s address, titled “The Human Rights Agenda for the 21st Century,” outlined the United States’ commitment to making “human rights a human reality.” Throughout the talk, she gave special attention to the cases of China and Russia and referenced various other human rights abuses in Africa, yet did not discuss Saudi Arabia, a valuable ally that the United States has been hesitant to condemn for human rights violations.

Clinton’s impassioned tone and speech occurred in the face of criticisms that the Obama administration has shied away from addressing global human rights, although she did not make reference to these claims. “The potential to join freely with society so that every person can find fulfillment and self-sufficiency … is sacred,” Clinton said. “That, however, is a dangerous belief to many who hold power and construct their position against another.”

Human rights, democracy and development are three intertwined goals that the United States must advocate together, she continued. Democracy, she said, is the best political system for making human rights a reality in the long run, in that it necessitates accountable institutions and freedoms of choice, expression and press. Sustainable human development allows citizens of democracies to live up to their potentials. “To make a real and long-term difference in people’s lives, we have to tackle all three simultaneously with a commitment that is smart, strategic, determined and long-term,” she said.

Clinton admitted that this commitment could not be implemented universally, however, and that the United States today faces regimes that are unable but willing, able but unwilling and unable and unwilling to promote democratic institutions, citing African states, Cuba and the eastern Congo as examples.

The bulk of Clinton’s speech was a review of four elements of the Obama administration’s approach to human rights, starting with holding everyone, including the United States, accountable to universal standards. President Obama, she said, did this by prohibiting the use of torture in an executive order issued on his second day in office, and next year, the United States will include itself for the first time in its annual report on human trafficking. Holding governments accountable for their actions will not take one form, but rather will include publicly denouncing certain actions, such as the violence in Guinea, as well as engaging in administrative-level diplomatic talks, Clinton said.

Clinton emphasized that the United States must encourage that human rights be put into law and institutionalized. “In every instance, our aim will be to make a difference, not to prove a point,” she said. “Often the toughest test for governments … is absorbing and accepting criticism. And here, too, we should lead by example.”

The second element, that the United States must be “pragmatic and agile” in its approach to human rights, reflected these points. A balance of isolation and engagement, Clinton said, has helped the United States address security issues in North Korea and Iran and violence in Myanmar.

Clinton continued by noting that the U.S. must also act through multilateral institutions, in addition to bilateral relations, referring to its renewed membership of the U.N. Human Rights Council this year. In its first session, the United States co-sponsored a successful resolution promoting freedom of expression, including religious toleration. The secretary did not elaborate on a cohesive policy for achieving international religious freedom, however; the subject is highly relevant in the Middle East but has been marginalized, as the Obama administration has yet to name an ambassador-at-large for religious freedom.

Here, Clinton spoke more in depth about China and Russia, saying that the United States must open candid discussions with them to maintain positive bilateral relationships. The United States calls for rights of minorities in Tibet and Xinjiang and freedom of expression, she said, a statement that comes after national criticisms that Obama did not press human rights issues strongly enough in his recent summit with Chinese President Hu Jintao in Beijing. In Russia, Clinton said, the United States must act to condemn the murders and mistreatment of democracy activists and journalists.

Thirdly, Clinton emphasized the necessity of a bottom-up approach — one that engages civil society — in actualizing international human rights. “The project of making human rights a human reality cannot be just one for governments," she said. “Six weeks ago in Morocco, I met with civil society activists from across the Middle East and North Africa. They exemplify how lasting change comes from within.”

Enlisting religious groups and labor unions and pressing for a heightened presence of non-governmental organizations in multilateral institutions like the United Nations can help the United States avoid imposing change externally and allow it to defend it from the inside, Clinton said.

It is important to share information and access human rights defenders through the Internet and technological means of communication, the use of which, Clinton said, she has expanded in the State Department. (Cognizant of her own technological shortcomings, she later joked in response to a question that she doesn’t “know Twitter or tweeter, to be honest.”)

Such an approach to human rights requires targeted assistance and economic development to set a path for long-term growth, she continued. “We will pursue a rights-respecting approach to development — consulting with local communities, ensuring transparency, midwifing accountable institutions — so our development activities act in concert with our efforts to support democratic governance. That is the pressing challenge we face in Afghanistan and Pakistan today,” she said.

The fourth and final element is an attempt to widen the scope of countries that need U.S. aid. The United States, Clinton said, must continue its support of institutions in countries where democratic change has occurred instead of becoming complacent with apparent progress. “Positive change must be reinforced and strengthened where hope is on the rise, and we will not ignore or overlook places of seemingly intractable tragedy and despair,” Clinton said.

Clinton addressed more specifically discrimination against homosexuality in the Middle East, Africa and Asia, as well as genocide in Sudan. She also touched upon women’s rights, a cause that she has specially promoted in the past. “As I said in Beijing in 1995, human rights are women’s rights and women’s rights are human rights,” she said. “But, oh, I wish it could be so easily translated into action and changes. That ideal is far from being realized in so many places around our world.”

While acknowledging that American actions have had unintended consequences in the past, leading at times to greater human rights violations, the United States has since learned from its mistakes, the secretary said, adding that it cannot believe that progress in some places is impossible.

These four aspects of the U.S. approach, Clinton concluded, “will help build a foundation that enables people to stand and rise above poverty, hunger and disease, and that secures their rights under democratic governance. We must lift the ceiling of oppression, corruption and violence, and we must light a fire of human potential through access to education and economic opportunity.”

Clinton also called upon the Georgetown community, which she praised for its commitment to human rights through its Catholic identity, asking the student body for its ideas, criticism and analysis of how the U.S. human rights approach can be expanded.

“When a person has food and education but not the freedom to discuss and debate with fellow citizens, he is denied the life he deserves,” she said. “It is work that we know we don’t have all the answers for, but it is the work that America signed up to do. And we will continue day by day, inch by inch, to try to make whatever progress is humanly possible.”