Understanding U.S. Human Rights Policy: A Paradoxical Legacy by Clair Apodaca

Author:Clair Apodaca [Apodaca, Clair]
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Tags: International Relations, Political Science, General, Human Rights
ISBN: 9781135448196
Google: kEV9tePGwUkC
Goodreads: 17989023
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2006-08-21T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 6

Selling Off Human Rights: The Clinton Administration

American satellite makers, aircraft builders, cell-phone manufacturers, computer makers—not to mention insurance and financial services providers—wanted in on the rich Chinese market. The Clinton machine wanted huge amounts of cash for its campaign war chest. Let’s make a deal!

Robert Kagan (2001)

Clinton’s foreign policy rhetoric was reminiscent of Carter’s idealism. In language true to Carter’s optimism, Clinton announced that “U.S. foreign policy cannot be divorced from the moral principles most Americans share. We cannot disregard how other governments treat their own people” (Clinton 1991). Clinton believed that democratic enlargement,1 market economies, and international cooperation would inaugurate global peace and prosperity, thus producing international security. Clinton backed up his rhetoric by appointing human rights advocates to positions of power in his administration. For example, Clinton chose Warren Christopher, who chaired the Inter-Agency Group on Human Rights and Foreign assistance under Carter, as his secretary of state.2 John Shattuck, who served as director of the American Civil Liberties Union and was vice chair and board member of Amnesty International, became head of the newly renamed Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor (DRL).3 Equally important, as Julie Mertus (2004) reports, is the fact that the Clinton Administration also filled midlevel positions with people knowledgeable about and sympathetic to human rights.4 To the surprise of human rights nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), the State Department actually wanted NGOs’ advice and participation. Aryeh Neier, the founder and former executive director of Human Rights Watch, expresses the euphoria felt among human rights groups at that time:

The advent of the Clinton Administration aroused great hopes among proponents of human rights. It was not only his campaign statement; it was also appointments of such reliable human rights advocates as John Shattuck, now Assistant Secretary of State for Human Rights and Humanitarian Affairs. This seemed a sign that a concern with rights would weigh heavily in the Administration’s foreign policy. (Neier 1994, 79)

The expectations of the human rights community were quite high, higher than during the Carter Administration even, not only because the Clinton Administration sought their counsel but also because of the institutionalization of human rights in foreign policy that had taken place during the Reagan Administration. However, the crushing of these expectations would be all the more painful for human rights advocates, as Clinton clearly would follow, in foreign policy practice if not in rhetoric, Bush Sr.’s unsatisfactory policies for human rights.

Although Clinton was elected with a mandate to fix America’s domestic economic troubles, foreign issues, often involving massive human rights violations and humanitarian crises, could not be ignored. The Clinton Administration’s general belief was that political freedom would be best guaranteed by economic liberalization, which in turn would ensure global stability. The key, then, for Clinton was to enlarge the number of market democracies. Clinton’s concept of “democratic enlargement,” designed to cheaply—with little or no political, military, or economic cost—encourage states to become democratic, proved to be the source of the United States’ reluctant involvement in civil wars and complex emergencies in the 1990s.

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