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9 - The Indispensable State? The United States and Human Rights

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2019

Hurst Hannum
Affiliation:
Tufts University, Massachusetts
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Summary

Every government in the world pays some attention to human rights, whether to promote them or obstruct them, and the United States is no exception. Human rights have been a formal part of US foreign policy since the 1970s, and the US has been generally supportive of expanding human rights mechanisms within international organizations, particularly the UN. Unfortunately, both during and after the end of the Cold War, the US has also politicized human rights, both rhetorically and in practice. Its officially sanctioned use of torture and its attempt to exclude the detention of suspected terrorists post-9/11 from any legal scrutiny is, at best, hypocritical. While the United States is not indispensable to respect for human rights in other countries, its failure to consistently advocate adherence to human rights norms and its persistent refusal to recognize the importance of economic, social, and cultural rights renders it more difficult for pro-human rights groups and politicians around the world to gain acceptance of such rights.
Type
Chapter
Information
Rescuing Human Rights
A Radically Moderate Approach
, pp. 135 - 156
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2019

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