Issues: Human Rights in Foreign Policy
The United States was in the forefront of creating international institutions like the United Nations and formulating the Universal Declaration on Human Rights in 1948. This year is the 60th anniversary of the adoption of this declaration. We must as a nation get back to a foreign policy that focuses on human rights. The U.S. should ratify the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. The U.S. must take steps to encourage respect for human rights and not ally itself with regimes that brutalize their citizens. The United States should close The Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation (WHINSEC) the former School of the Americas. (See School of The Americas Watch.)
> The United States must not utilize or condone torture. Torture is not effective in gaining information and damages the credibility of the United States.
> Torture also endangers American diplomatic and military personnel as it makes it more likely that should they be captured that their rights as prisoners of war under international law would not be respected.
> The US must not surrender individuals to other countries where there is the threat that they will be tortured and have their civil rights violated.
> US foreign policy has been characterized by narrow economic and security self-interest. This has led the United States to support dictatorial regimes.
> These policies have been very short sighted as the United States becomes intimately associated with these governments. When they fall, such as the monarchy in Iran, or the Somoza government in Nicaragua, American influence in these countries and regions suffer long term negative repercussions.
Every November protesters grace the chain link walls of the School of Assassins with crosses bearing the names of the SOA's victims.
