Human Rights as National Security Interests
A National Security Policy Proposal
Miranda Baumann
Betemekeds Belachew
Priya Dhanani
Kate Harvey
Rebecca Mohammadi
Executive Summary
Abstract
The protection and promotion of human rights is an important issue for the United States, if not the most important. Protecting human rights of not only our citizens, but for other political prisoners, citizens of states that we are currently occupying, and other state’s displaced people suffering from egregious human rights violations. Currently and in the past the U.S. has had less than an outstanding record in regards to the protection and promotion of human rights. The U.S. has been inconsistent and also failed to serve as an active member on the United Nations Human Rights Council, but recently under the Obama Administration decided to run for a seat. It is important for the U.S. to work more with the United Nations as well as nongovernmental organizations that are focused to the protection of human rights. While it is important for the U.S. to stay actively involved when human rights are being violated in other states, but to do this through the United Nations and without breaking another states sovereignty.
Contents
- Introduction: Human Rights (HR) as a national security interest
- HR records as indicators of propensity for international aggressiveness
- Inconsistent application of HR as a leading security interest leads to exacerbation of threats
- Analysis of HR interests and threats
- HR Promotion
- Threats
a)HR as tool for self-centered interest promotion
b)Inconsistent involvement in major humanitarian crises
c)Self-appointment as the world’s police
- Solutions
a)Embrace HR standards and institutions for altruistic purposes
b)Adopt multilateral approach to humanitarian crisis management
c)Handle disputes and problems through the UN/coalitions
- Peacebuilding
- Threats
a)America misunderstood because of many peacebuilding policies
b)US policies seen as problematic
- Solutions
a)Prioritizing interventions by regions with greatest turmoil
b)Support for NGOs
c)Promote peacebuilding everywhere, not just in areas of strategic interest
- Economic Policies Undermining HR Promotion
- Threats
a)Globalization has led to the exploitation of the Third World by capitalist ventures
b)USAID packages sometimes detrimental to recipient states
c)Economic relationships considered higher priority than HR standards
- Solutions
a)Regulation of companies doing business in the United States
b)Redefine standards and practices for dispensation of USAID
c)Weaken relationships with states that violate HR standards
- The War on Terror and HR Promotion
- Threats
a)Use of ethically questionable tactics in the name of fighting terrorism
b)HR violations ruin US credibility
- Solutions
a)Fight terrorism through a multilateral framework
b)Take part in UN operations
- Conclusion
I. Introduction: Why are Human Rights National Security Interests?
“A foreign policy that actively advances human rights around the world can enhance both national and global security by decreasing the number of states likely to engage in international aggression and the destabilizing consequences associated therewith.”
William W. Burke-White
An unnerving trend in American foreign policy has been the belief that human rights and national security are competing and contradictory goals. Due to the promotion of this idea, human rights considerations have taken a backseat to traditionally conceived security interests, often resulting in inconsistent treatment of human rights abuses worldwide and inappropriate use of human rights rhetoric to achieve self-interested goals. Rather than seeing human rights promotion as counter to the country’s national security goals, human rights must be seen as compatible and even complimentary to American national security interests. To understand the link between human rights promotion and effective national security policy, it is important to understand how human rights can affect the way in which security interests are formulated, and the damage that inconsistent and inappropriate use of human rights norms and rhetoric can cause.
Given that international peace is among the top concerns in American national security policy, it is telling that there is such a strong correlation between human rights standards and aggression in the post-Cold War world. Many policymakers and democratic peace scholars have argued a causal link between regime type and propensity for interstate aggression, whereby democracies do not go to war against other democracies while rogue states[1] do. While it may be true that democracies typically do not war with one another, there is little evidence to suggest that regime type plays a significant role in the determination of aggressiveness. Instead, research indicates that a country’s human rights record is a much stronger determinant of interstate aggression. In a 2005 study, Caprioli and Trumbore found that human rights rogues -- “states that systematically allow domestic discrimination on the basis of ethnicity and gender, and violate personal integrity rights -- were 50% more likely to be involved in an international dispute annually and more than twice as likely to be involved in a violent dispute annually than non-rogue states (141-142). They found that level of respect for a state’s own citizenry, not the state’s regime type, was the statistically significant variable in predicting violent, aggressive interstate behavior.
There are several noteworthy examples that support this research. For instance, Iraq was guilty of massive human rights atrocities against its Kurdish population when it invaded Kuwait, prompting American intervention. Likewise, major interstate conflicts in Africa (including DRC and Ethiopia/Eritrea) were waged by regimes with abysmal human rights records. The conflict in the Balkans, which culminated in the 1999 US-led NATO intervention, was a brutal and protracted conflict that resulted in the deaths of over 100,000 people and the displacement of over a million. To this day, accounts are surfacing of the atrocities committed in the region prior to American intervention, like the massacre of over 8,000 men and boys at the Srebrenica safe-zone in July 1995. Although the United States, during the NATO Operation Noble Anvil did finally take action against the Serbian military forces, countless equally bloody humanitarian crises came and went without American action. This inconsistency has led to both a breakdown of America’s legitimacy as the world’s moral authority and a state of human insecurity for the oppressed people of the world unlucky enough to reside in states deemed of little value to traditional US interests.
Inconsistent treatment of human rights norms and rhetoric has created a myriad of problems for the United States. By indicating that economic and security interests must take precedence over human rights, past administrations have limited the efficacy of human rights promotion throughout the world. This has translated into a number of shortsighted humanitarian efforts that lacked the will of conviction in the face of actual or projected American losses. More importantly, the inconsistent, convenient use of human rights rhetoric against regimes opposed to the United States has left the legitimacy of such norms in question. Human rights should be seen as a unifying principle that ties humanity together in a system of beliefs based on the proper and equitable treatment of all mankind. Unfortunately, human rights rhetoric has been overly politicized as the United States has used these principles to condemn uncooperative, ‘unimportant’ regimes’ behavior while simultaneously refusing to condemn the records of strategic allies and trade partners (who are often equally, if not more deserving of such condemnations).
America is in a unique position to promote human rights both by example and by influence. By recognizing that human rights promotion creates institutional constraints against aggression and forms a worldwide network of common values and goals, the United States can foster greater cooperation and problem solving which will likely decrease overall costs in the long run. While Iraq may well serve as a lesson that liberal democracy is not always the answer for every nation, a shift in the United States’ emphasis from democracy in its own image toward a more universally sound human rights promotion could well establish the common ground of goals and values necessary to create a lasting peace in the region and in the larger world. Before the United States can step forward and fill the human rights void, however, the threat posed to human rights promotion and peacebuilding must be examined. Also important to consider are some of the conventional economic security policies which undermine human rights norms.
II. Analysis of Human Rights Threats and Interests
“This is the duty of our generation as we enter the twenty-first century -- solidarity with the weak, the persecuted, the lonely, the sick, and those in despair. It is expressed by the desire to give a noble and humanizing meaning to a community in which all members will define themselves not by their own identity but by that of others.”
Elie Weisel
- Human Rights Promotion
“A world in which large masses of its inhabitants are deprived of basic needs, let alone a decent standard of living, cannot be a stable or a just world.”
Jerome J. Shestack
- Existing Threats
Since the establishment of the modern human rights camp, US policy makers have been exceptionalist in their approach to human rights promotion. By inconsistently applying human rights norms and principles, they have failed to meet international standards and have instead advocated the overwhelmingly hypocritical idea that American values and lives are worth inherently more than the values and lives of others. America’s self-centered use of human rights as a tool for national interest promotion, its capricious involvement in major human rights crises throughout the post-Cold War era, and the conceit of its self-appointment as the world’s police have effectively crippled efforts to curb worldwide human rights abuses, thus exacerbating human insecurity.
The United States’ historical inconsistency of promoting global human rights standards to achieve conventional American goals (commonly centered on energy, economic or security concerns) hinders its ability to implement long-term human rights policies with a chance of having an impact on the state of human rights in the world. Too often, gross human rights violations go unaddressed when the offending regime is willing to further US interests, such as in the cases of Saudi Arabia and China (oil and economics, respectively). While some mild condemnations of offenders’ widespread human rights abuses may exist, no action is taken when other, more conventional, national security interests are considered. In contrast, the United States volubly condemns human rights abusers with low or no strategic value. Moreover, human rights values themselves represent the convenient justification for coercive action in the world. For example, the Bush administration legitimized the Iraq War by accusing Saddam Hussein of colluding with anti-American terrorists by possessing weapons of mass destruction; however, after concrete evidence of weapons of mass destruction failed to materialize, the administration used Saddam’s abysmal human rights record as justification for this costly and highly contentious war. America’s own domestic policies create problems for human rights promotion when, while the United States “criticizes the human rights records of dozens of countries, [it] resists when its own human rights performance -- on capital punishment, for example -- is called into question” (Claude and Weston, 383). Ultimately, these inconsistencies breed contempt for US-led human rights initiatives and provide abusive regimes with cannon fodder for attacks on the United States’ intentions. Furthermore, US inconsistency leads to uncertainty in the international community, creating barriers to cooperation on a myriad of issues not limited solely to human rights promotion.
The United States’ self-serving involvement in major humanitarian crises over the last twenty years has also been a roadblock for human rights promotion. Though the world long ago responded to images of the aftermath of Hitler’s Final Solution with a resolute, “Never Again,” US interest quickly shifted away from the plight of the world’s abused peoples and toward the imminence of a Soviet military threat. It was not until the end of the Cold War, with the conceptualization of the New World Order, that human rights promotion again became part of American implemented policy. The death of eighteen American soldiers on the streets of Mogadishu in late 1993, however, brought an end to the overwhelmingly altruistic humanitarian intervention and set the stage for the US’ refusal to intervene when 800,000 Tutsi and their sympathizers were mercilessly slaughtered only months later in nearby Rwanda. Here again, exceptionalist ideas on the superiority of American lives promulgated throughout the administration and resulted in an unnecessary genocide. Samantha Powers aptly observed that “Rwandan gunmen deliberately targeted Belgian peacekeepers at the start of their genocide because they knew from the US reaction to the deaths of eighteen US soldiers in Somalia that the murder of Western troops would likely precipitate their withdrawal” (507). This postulation, if correct, carries intense implications, not only for the safety of American soldiers during humanitarian operations, but also for the future tactics human rights violators may employ.
More than simply putting lives at risk, the United States’ inconsistent involvement in humanitarian crises also damages American legitimacy in the eyes of the world. American ambivalence to the plight of Africans, when compared to the willingness of US-led NATO to react militarily to the protracted conflict in the Balkans, makes accusations that the United States is far more concerned with white Europe than black Africa difficult to refute. The United States is seen as being involved in humanitarian crises only when strategic interests are concerned. Hence, when the Bush administration turned its attention and ultimately its human rights rhetoric toward the Middle East after 9/11, few were surprised when Sudan’s government received little more than a verbal condemnation for the wholesale massacre underway in Darfur. Julie Mertis argues,
“by using some human rights norms strategically rather than applying all of them consistently, the United States sends the message that some victims of abuse are more worthy of assistance and equal justice than others, and that human rights can be jettisoned to suit political expediency” (382).
Blind adherence to a more strategic understanding of human rights norms has left the United States in a bizarre and unfortunate position as the world’s corrupt police. While actively promoting human rights norms and democratic values should hardly be considered corrupt ventures, the United States’ shortsighted approach to these initiatives has harmed international security by leaving nations ill-equipped to understand (let alone handle) the challenges of the liberal democratic process. US involvement in Somalia, the Balkans and 1980s Afghanistan was limited and shortsighted, leaving the regions to rapidly decline into chaos. Little attention was paid to the importance of legitimate social, political and legal institutions or the time involved in properly developing them. Instead, US troops were pulled upon first sight of hostility’s end or a danger to US personnel, and no attempts were made to foster effective multitiered initiatives on the ground to build stable democratic processes. The current conditions in all three regions (anarchy in Somalia, economic and social devastation in the Balkans, and a long-term war in Afghanistan) provide startling examples of the dangerous aftermath that shortsighted approaches can allow.
Really, the greater problem rests in US acceptance of this policing role as justification for self-interested actions and omissions. The recent and coercive regime change in Iraq, as well as decades of more covert overthrows have always found justification in the danger of the time. Whereas thwarting the advance of communism was the catchphrase for the overthrows of burgeoning democratic regimes in Guatemala, Iran, Brazil, and Nicaragua (among others), the War on Terror was the major call to arms against Iraq. Like the overthrows of the Cold War period, the premise for the War on Iraq was tentative at best. Simultaneously, the United States refuses to take action in crises of massive proportion where there is little incentive for American involvement. Conditions in many African and Southeast Asian countries clearly warrant the level of involvement the United States has approved for the Middle East. However, until these regions present the United States with any kind of strategic advantage, the potential loss of American lives, time and money will likely preclude intervention. By refusing to act, the United States is not only creating hostility in a world fully aware of its willingness to act in the name of its principles for the purpose of its own interests, but it is also standing by as millions of the world’s people suffer needlessly.
Furthermore, peace building is a significant process in developing a war stricken country. The United States supports peace building, yet it stands in the shadow when the effort is gravely necessary. The term peacekeeping refers to enforcing the prevention of further violence; whereas, peacemaking is the forging of a settlement agreement. A weakness of the United States when it does take a stance is to mainly focus on peacemaking while losing sight on the importance of prevention. In addition, the United States primarily encourages peace building in poor or developing countries when it sees a potential national security threat. The US government’s job is first and foremost to protect its citizens; however, continuing to promote these policies inconsistently will eventually lead to a greater national security threat as human insecurity increases throughout the world. For example, the United States used all resources necessary after 9/11 to fight the War on Terror, to implement democracy, to eradicate terrorism in the world, and help the Iraqis gain control of their country by capturing Saddam Hussein. 9/11 gave the U.S. the motivation to fight for national interests and then convey façade of fight for human rights and supporting peace building efforts. This simply reinforces the idea that the United States will take the opportunity to support human rights when deemed necessary to its own interests.