The Foreign Service Journal, June 2013

THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL | JUNE 2013 33 approve treaties they say are consistent with U.S. values and human rights practices at home. For instance, late last year the U.S. Senate failed to muster the two-thirds vote needed to approve a United Nations treaty banning discrimina- tion against people with disabilities, a measure patterned after the Americans with Disabilities Act. A More Pragmatic Approach The Obama administration took office notably cool to the democracy promotion policies of the George W. Bush admin- istration, preferring a more pragmatic approach to democrati- zation. It has taken heat from the human rights community for its counterterrorism moves, including failure to follow through on announced intentions to close the Guantanamo Bay deten- tion facility and stepping up drone attacks against suspected terrorists. Yet the administration has led on some issues, such as advancing Internet freedom. The administration also revived U.S. membership in the main United Nations rights agency, the Geneva-based Human Rights Council, which the Bush administration had derided as stacked with abusers intent on singling out Israel. As part of its U.N. re-engagement, the admin- istration has opened up U.S. practices to the council’s periodic review mechanism, a step applauded by many rights activists as a sign of U.S. transparency and one that has bolstered Washington’s cred- ibility as a rights standard-bearer. The administration also introduced a new strategy in 2011 aimed at preventing atrocities, including the establishment of an Atrocities Prevention Board and expansion of executive branch tools to combat rights abuses, including executive orders imposing sanctions. In April 2012, Pres. Obama signed an executive order permitting sanctions against companies and visa bans against those helping Syria and Iran to use tech- nology like cell-phone monitoring to carry out human rights abuses. The Obama administration’s experiences with Congress on human rights during its first term echo those of its pre- decessors for the past several decades. Each administration, Both State and Congress would benefit frommore frequent contact through existing channels, such as the Pearson Fellowship Program. “ Administration of Justice: Due process was denied during the detentions and trials of protesters arrested. ... Individuals responsible for the deaths of prominent journalists, activists and whistleblowers, notably Sergey Magnitskiy, have yet to be brought to be brought to justice. ” —From“Russia,” in the Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for 2012. Each year since 1977, the State Department has submitted a report to Congress on the human rights conditions in countries and regions around the world, as mandated by Congress in the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 and the Trade Act of 1974.