The Foreign Service Journal, June 2020

THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL | JUNE 2020 29 UDHR are important and need to be upheld, there was universal agreement that a few have special priority and thus require more rigid enforcement in all contexts. This idea is echoed in the many subsequent human rights treaties that have a set of legally bind- ing, nonderogable or emergency-proof rights. The Rise of Individualistic Rights Discourse The evolution of the rights discourse within the United States and other Western countries—alongside growing seculariza- tion and individualization—has prompted many of the growing disagreements over human rights. Whereas liberty was once thought to depend on a healthy body politic and a careful bal- ance of rights and obligations—a modern understanding—since the 1960s, it has increasingly meant individual rights and free- dom from constraints, a postmodern understanding. The ascendence of individualismmeans that nonindividual- istic values—such as those promoting communal duties or tied to religious belief—have been deemphasized. A one-size-fits-all approach—elevating individual autonomy and choice above all other values—has triumphed over the idea of a common stan- dard that could be brought to life in a variety of legitimate ways. The indivisibility and interdependence of fundamental rights have also been forgotten. And the promotion of human rights has been tied to the promotion of democracy and free markets. Meanwhile, the number of rights has risen steeply as various well-meaning special interest groups have sought to harness the moral authority of the human rights idea to their causes. Accord- ing to the Freedom Rights Project, there are 64 human rights agreements under the auspices of either the United Nations or the Council of Europe, including 1,377 provisions (some of which may be technical rather than substantive). This makes it, as University of Pennsylvania President Amy Gutmann writes in Human Rights as Politics and Idolatry (2003), “far more difficult to achieve the broad intercultural assent to rights that an inter- national human rights regime requires to be effective.” Yet as Jacob Mchangama and Guglielmo Verdirame, co- founders of the Freedom Rights Project, note with disappoint- How did human rights—an idea once powerful enough to unify a vast range of people in struggles against totalitarianism and apartheid—become so divisive? Secretary of State Michael R. Pompeo, center left, meets with the Commission on Unalienable Rights at the U.S. Department of State in Washington, D.C., on Oct. 23, 2019. Members of the commission are, from left, Dr. Katrina Lantos Swett, Professor Hamza Yusuf Hanson, Dr. Christopher Tollefsen, Rabbi Dr. Meir Soloveichik, Sec. Pompeo, Ambassador Mary Ann Glendon (chair), Dr. Peter Berkowitz, Dr. David Tse-Chien Pan, Dr. Russell A. Berman and Professor Paolo Carozza. Not pictured: Professor Kenneth Anderson, Dr. Jacqueline Rivers, Mr. F. Cartwright Weiland. U.S.DEPARTMENTOFSTATE/FREDDIEEVERETT