Attached is the paper I promised you when we talked a few weeks ago about the
desirability of giving permanent form to the Administration’s human rights
concerns by creating a human rights agency. The paper attempts to lay out
the reasons—which are largely political—for creating
such an agency and to identify the functions it could perform. It also
describes, as you suggested, alternative organizational locations for such
an agency.
The important thing, as I see it, is to enable the President to maintain his
commitment to human rights, on the one hand, and yet not have him under the
gun of having to produce every week a new “human rights victory” in order to
demonstrate the strength of that commitment. Creation of a human rights
agency would ease the pressure on him and at the same time create a body
which could work effectively for human rights over the long haul.
I would welcome the chance to discuss with you your reactions to the
arguments advanced in the paper.
Attachment
Paper Prepared by Samuel
Huntington of the National Security Council
Staff2
Washington, October 5, 1977
THE NEXT PHASE IN HUMAN RIGHTS
I. Human Rights as an Issue
Human rights is, in many respects, the distinguishing hall-mark of
Carter Administration
foreign policy. It epitomizes a fresh approach to foreign policy, the
effort to base foreign policy in morality, and the effort to restore
pride and confidence of Americans in the goals of their foreign policy
as well as in the government that conducts it. In other areas, such as
SALT and the Middle East, the
Administration has adopted new approaches to old issues. With human
rights, the Administration has moved a new issue to center stage and
focused attention on that issue as its issue.
In so doing, the Administration has created high expectations as to the
role which moral considerations can play in foreign policy. It has also,
of course, encouraged other political forces and groups which have their
own interest in promoting human rights, at times in ways and to extremes
which differ from those of the Administration.
The human rights issue has been a major asset of this Administration. It
needs to be conserved, nurtured, developed, and, most importantly,
prevented from turning sour or rotten. The identification of human
rights with the Administration can, however, give rise to some
problems.
1. Pressures—many of which are inevitable and some of which are
desirable—have developed to “ease off” human rights so as not to
complicate or discombobulate relations with key countries, such as Iran,
Brazil, South Korea, and, most importantly, the Soviet Union. And some
downgrading of the importance of human rights in various bilateral
contexts undoubtedly is necessary and desirable.
2. Even without these pressures to “accommodate to reality”, human rights
cannot indefinitely remain the distinctive focus of US foreign policy. Other issues will crowd
it and demand attention. While the President has made clear to everyone
the extent and depth of his commitment on this issue, it is,
nonetheless, most unlikely that human
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rights will occupy as much of Presidential time in
the first six months of 1979 (or even of 1978) as it did in the first
six months of 1977.
3. As human rights appears to decline in centrality and as realities
impose compromises, delays, and defeats in the achievement of human
rights goals, a reaction of cynicism and disillusionment about
Administration intentions is likely to set in. People will ask:
“Whatever happened to the Administration’s great crusade on human
rights?” There is a much greater potential for this type of
disillusionment with an issue like human rights, which does involve
morality and principles, than with bread-and-butter economic issues or
balance-of-power military issues.
4. One of the great attractions of human rights as an issue has been its
broad appeal: liberals espouse it, thinking of Iran, Chile, and South
Korea; conservatives see it as a weapon for use against the Soviet
Union. The problem is not only to maintain human rights as an issue, but
also to maintain its equal appeal to both liberals and conservatives.
There is thus a need to develop an approach to human rights which both
liberals and conservatives can support.
More generally, the above considerations suggest the need to avoid in
fact and in appearance an Administration abandonment of human rights as
a central concern.
II. Human Rights Actions
A related set of problems concerns the ways in which this government can
promote human rights. With some exceptions, the actions which the USG has so far taken and can take to
promote human rights fall into two categories. First, the leaders and
agencies of the USG can articulate and
dramatize their interest in advancing human rights. This can be done
either through “diplomatic actions, public statements, and various
symbolic acts” or through the “use of overseas broadcast facilities and
cultural and educational programs” (to use the language of
PRM/NSC–28).3 Second, the US can act or threaten to act to deny economic assistance,
loans, arms transfers, or other benefits to governments which violate
human rights (“changes in levels of security and economic assistance and
food aid” and “initiatives in international financial institutions” in
the language of the PRM). While the
US can also work through the UN and other multilateral institutions to
promote human rights and can take measures on its own (such as admission
of refugees), the two main methods of promoting human rights remain exhortation and penalties.
Each of these undoubtedly has its place. But each also has its
limitations. Exhortation reaches only so far, and its effectiveness
declines
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over time.
Penalties—that is, denials to other countries of the means to promote
other goals we support (e.g. economic development, collective
security)—obviously conflict with our efforts to achieve these other
goals. They also obviously have a particularly irritating impact on our
relations with the particular countries concerned. In effect, the
penalties approach requires us: to rate, publicly, other countries in
terms of their human rights performance; to identify those countries
which don’t measure up to some standard; (e.g., are manifesting “a
consistent pattern of gross violations of internationally recognized
human rights”); and then to deny to these countries some benefit which
we would otherwise extend to them in order to achieve some other goal of
national policy. The promotion of human rights thus comes to involve the
curtailment or cancellation of efforts to achieve some other goal.
Exhortation and penalties are at times necessary and even productive. But
the sustained effective promotion of human rights requires something
more. Neither exhortation nor penalties constitute a positive program of
actions to promote human rights comparable, let us say, to the program
which AID has to promote economic
development. To supplement exhortation and penalties, a positive program
of human rights actions is required.
III. A Human Rights Agency
The needs to maintain the broad support and appeal of human rights, to
institutionalize the concern of the Carter Administration with respect to human rights, and
to develop more effective action programs to promote human rights can be
most effectively met by the creation of a distinct government agency
which had the promotion of human rights as its principal objective. Such
an agency would constitute the institutional embodiment of the Carter Administration’s concern and
its permanent legacy to the future. It would be a human rights
initiative which both liberals and conservatives would have reasons to
support. It would also help ease the extent to which the promotion of
human rights (particularly through the imposition of penalties) directly
conflicts with the advancement of other policy goals. The creation of
such an agency would underline the extent to which human rights are not
simply a passing fancy but rather a long-term commitment.
The creation of such an agency would be a natural outgrowth of what the
Administration has done to date in the human rights area and would
parallel for the Carter
Administration what other Administrations have done in other fields. The
major foreign policy interests of the Kennedy Administration were embodied in the Peace Corps,
AID, and ACDA, all of which were created in 1961–62. A Human Rights
Agency would be the comparable institutional embodiment of a primary
foreign policy concern of the Carter Administration. It would be the
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source and the stimulus for action
programs in support of human rights which went beyond exhortation and
penalties.
IV. Functions of a Human Rights Agency
The overall purpose of the agency would be to support overall US foreign policy objectives through the
promotion of human rights on a global basis.4 It could, presumably, assume some human
rights functions already being undertaken by other agencies, but it
could also undertake additional programs and activities which could make
new positive contributions to the furtherance of human rights. Among
other things, the agency could be authorized to:
1. Plan, devise, develop, and execute programs which would further global
human rights in accordance with US
foreign policy objectives.
2. Work with other US government
agencies, foreign governments, private organizations, and international
organizations for the expansion of human rights.
3. Provide assistance to private individuals and organizations, public
and private international organizations, and other governments for
programs which promote human rights.
4. Periodically study the condition of human rights globally and in
specific societies and assess trends affecting human rights (possibly
assuming here responsibilities assigned to the State Department under
existing legislation).
5. Undertake research on human rights issues and the ways of more
effectively expanding human rights.
6. Monitor US government policies and
actions which affect human rights, assess their effectiveness, and make
recommendations to the appropriate executive and legislative bodies.
7. Prepare and disseminate information on human rights in order to
promote public understanding of human rights issues and support for
human rights in the US and abroad.
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8. Award, as appropriate, a human rights prize (comparable to the Nobel
Prize) to an individual or group which has made an outstanding
contribution to human rights.
The above is only a general outline of some of the functions which a
human rights agency might perform, but it does give some idea of how the
current concern with human rights could be institutionalized and made
permanent and of the ways in which more positive programs might be
developed to supplement existing activities.
V. Organization and Location of a Human Rights
Agency
Such an agency could occupy several different locations and have a
variety of different relations to other executive agencies. Three
distinct possibilities stand out.
1. The agency could be created as an office in the Executive Office of
the President. This would be in keeping with direct interest which
President Carter has in this
issue and would insure the agency of the clout which comes from a close
relationship to the President. On the other hand, however, if the agency
had the functions indicated above, it would also be an operational
agency, and there are good general reasons for not locating operational
agencies in the EOP. If a future
President did not have the same personal interest in human rights that
President Carter has, the
influence which comes from an EOP
location would be diminished in any event. In addition, even if the
agency were located elsewhere, it would always be possible for the
President, if he so desired, to give its director an additional “hat” in
the White House as his Special Advisor on Human Rights.
2. The agency could be created as an autonomous entity but subject to the
policy guidance and direction of the Secretary of State. In varying
degrees, AID and ACDA occupy this type of position now.
Such a position would insure a distinct identity and program but would
also insure that the activities of the agency would be compatible with
overall US foreign policy objectives.
The disadvantages of this location are that it could lead to the
subordination of human rights objectives to other goals and to the undue
influence of traditional Foreign Service and bureaucratic concerns in
the operation of the agency. Presumably, however, these could be guarded
against by careful drafting of the legislation and by recruitment of the
staff of the agency from appropriately diversified sources.
3. The agency could be created as an autonomous agency, part of the
executive branch, but independent of direct control or guidance by any
other executive branch agency. In this case, one form the agency might
assume could be as a government corporation, with a board of private
citizens and government officials, appointed by the President with the
advice and consent of the Senate. The closest model here
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would be the Inter-American
Foundation.5 Such an organization and
location would insure the independence of the agency and would promote
its sustained commitment to its original goals. It would also, however,
tend to separate it from other executive branch agencies concerned with
human rights and would probably reduce its ability to influence US policy more generally.
Each of these possible organizational locations thus has its advantages
and disadvantages. Any one could provide an acceptable format for the
performance of the new programmatic functions related to human rights.
The alternatives do, however, have different implications for the extent
to which existing offices and functions concerned with human rights
would be absorbed in the new agency or would remain separate. At
present, for instance, in the State Department human rights matters are
handled by the Coordinator for Human Rights and Humanitarian Affairs in
the Office of the Deputy Secretary, by the Counselor’s office, and by
the Assistant Legal Advisor for Human Rights in the Office of the Legal
Advisor. If the second alternative were adopted, presumably some of the
positions and functions now in the State Department would be moved to
the new agency in the Executive Office, but some would also probably
remain in the Department. If the third alternative were adopted, the
changes in the existing offices and functions in the Department would
probably be relatively minor.6
VI. Creating a Human Rights Agency
A proposal for the creation of a human rights agency would be an
appropriate part of the President’s legislative program for the 1978
session of Congress. Congressional interest in and support for such a
proposal would probably be extensive. In addition, there is a growing
and increasingly self-conscious and articulate human rights
constituency, involving, in a variety of ways and degrees, groups which
are both centrally concerned with the issue, such as Freedom House or
Amnesty International, but also larger and more politically influential
groups, including labor, church organizations, the press, Jewish groups,
and others. As a result of the broad constituency for human rights, the
Administration is now cross-pressured by liberals who want action
against one set of countries and conservatives who want action against
another. Creation of a human rights agency would be one cause which both
liberals and conservatives could support.
