46. Paper Prepared in the Department of State1
HUMAN RIGHTS AND U.S. FOREIGN POLICY
This Administration is determined to pursue a vigorous and humane foreign policy designed to protect the integrity and independence of the United States and that of its allies. At the same time, we [Page 138] will seek to develop a world community that respects diversity and fosters peaceful relations among states. In making our decisions, we will take into account their impact on freedom, dignity, and human rights.
Indeed, it is our intention to broaden and deepen the concept of human rights which too often has been limited to a narrow range of specific violations by governments against their own people. Assaults on the integrity of the person, such as torture, prolonged imprisonment without due process, exile under brutal conditions, and the denial of emigration are always reprehensible. But we must also recognize that human rights are seriously violated, and on a much larger scale, by direct or indirect aggression, the imposition of foreign control over other peoples, external subversion, genocide, and terrorism. Seen in this perspective, human rights are an inescapable concern in all our foreign policy deliberations.
Of necessity, foreign policy decisions emerge from a calculus of competing ends, alternative means, and anticipated consequences. These decisions always involve considerations of national security, regional stability and the freedom and independence of peoples. We are determined to pursue these ends with the least possible political and human cost.
In recent years, there has been a lively debate on how best to integrate human rights considerations into our pursuit of national security and international order. There are four specific ways the U.S. Government, with the support of the American people, can advance the cause of freedom and dignity:
1. Perhaps the most significant contribution the United States can make is to remain an example of a society which strives successfully to guarantee the full range of human rights for all our citizens. Since the founding of our republic, America has been regarded by peoples the world over as an example to be emulated.
2. We must stand by our allies and friends when their survival as independent states is jeopardized by external military pressures or political subversion. It would be tragic if, in the name of human rights, we were to refuse vital assistance to an ally in grave danger and thus open the way for a successor regime that would abolish virtually all human rights. We must be willing to help endangered allies in all appropriate ways.
3. We believe that quiet diplomacy, rather than public scolding or threats, is a more effective way to encourage greater respect for human rights by allied and friendly governments.
4. In the face of gross violations of human rights—genocide, aggression, external subversion, or terrorism—by any government, it is entirely appropriate for the United States to engage in public condem[Page 139]nation. In the recent past and at present such gross violations are largely confined to adversary states, notably the Soviet Union. Most communist regimes brutalize their own people, and some of them are engaged in exporting their repressive systems by subversion and terrorism. Thus, they are not only gross violators of human rights, but they threaten the peace as well. Moscow’s conquest of Afghanistan, Cambodia’s genocide, the use of surrogate forces to subvert African states, and Libya’s sponsorship of terrorism all deserve public condemnation by the U.S. Government and by private groups.
There is a significant moral and political distinction between totalitarian regimes that brutally repress their own people and deny them virtually all political and civil rights and authoritarian regimes which permit a measure of freedom and guarantee some human rights. Violations of fundamental rights by any government, totalitarian, authoritarian, or democratic are wrong, but we must respond to different situations with a measured sense of proportion.
The world rarely presents us with a choice between the perfect and the imperfect. We are usually confronted with choosing between two less-than-perfect courses of action. A major factor in any decision affecting another state is the foreign policy of its government. Some of our Third World allies who are pursuing constructive external policies simply have not developed the civic culture that can sustain the concept of a loyal opposition or institutions capable of guaranteeing the human rights we Americans take for granted. We must seek to understand these realities or we may find ourselves in self-righteous isolation in an increasingly hostile world.
In developing a deeper and more effective approach to the role of human rights in our foreign relations, we seek the advice and support of the United States Congress and of the scores of private groups which have a distinguished record of nonpartisan humanitarian service and a genuine concern for the freedom and dignity of human beings everywhere.
We Americans will not always agree on methods, but we are united in our commitment to enlarging the frontiers of freedom and respect for human rights in a dangerous world.
- Source: Department of State, Assistant Secretary Files—Elliott Abrams Subject and CHRON Files, 1981–1987, Lot 89D184, Human Rights—General. Limited Official Use. Drafted by Lefever. A March 14 covering memorandum from Lefever to all HA Officers reads: “The attached statement is intended for your guidance. It has been cleared by the Secretary of State and is for internal use only.”↩