The Foreign Service Journal, September 2007

Ghraib, and at detainee holding facil- ities at Bagram Air Base outside Kabul, at Guantanamo and else- where in the U.S.-run international detention system violates the most basic human rights. Yet to date, nearly all those prosecuted under U.S. law have been low-ranking mili- tary personnel. While guilty of crim- inal behavior, these perpetrators were operating in an administration-created environment that either allow- ed or, in some instances, encouraged abuse. Under pressure to obtain intelligence from detainees who were publicly demonized by the most senior members of the administration, these personnel committed abus- es that dismayed their families, friends and fellow Americans. But those senior officials whose policy memoranda and public statements created the environment in which mistreatment took place and who oversaw the “migration” of abusive tactics — e.g., from Guantanamo to Abu Ghraib — remain unprosecuted and unrepen- tant. Then-White House Counsel Alberto Gonzalez, who advocated the torture memo’s contents to the pres- ident, was made attorney general. Vice President Dick Cheney, in offhand public comments, endorsed such tactics as “waterboarding,” in which victims endure sim- ulated drowning. Moreover, the U.S. refusal to join the International Criminal Court has had symbolic and real implications for the application of international stan- dards of justice to international conduct. Until the senior civilian and military officials respon- sible for creating conditions in which abuses are encouraged, ignored and, in some instances, covered up, are themselves prosecuted, these abuses will remain open, festering wounds on the American con- science. Without such application of the healing balm of justice, U.S. leadership in the defense of human rights will remain the greatest casualty of the Bush administration’s assault on fundamental American and international values. Reasserting American Values The burdens that a new American president will assume in January 2009 are extraordinary and, in some sense, unprecedented. He or she will assume responsi- bility for leadership of a nation whose reputation for integrity and just behavior will be at a low point, exceeding even the nadir of the post–Vietnam War era. For the new administration to reas- sume a position of leadership in the defense and promotion of human rights it will need to bring new energy and commitment to that work. A broad- ened focus for the effort would under- score American sincerity and rebuild our credibility. As noted above, a significant component of the human rights manifesto as set out in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and as conceived in President Roosevelt’s “Four Freedoms,” has fallen to the margins of the U.S. and international agenda. Rights that are identified in the Universal Declaration’s Articles 22 (economic, social and cultural), 23 (fair employment), 25 (an adequate standard of living with access to essential services) and 26 (education), in particular, need concerted international defense and promotion. By broadening the international agenda to include those rights now denied by circumstances such as poverty, inadequate education and health services for billions of people in sub-Saharan Africa and elsewhere, the U.S. could redeem its leadership role and reputa- tion over time. That would entail a commitment of energy and material resources on behalf of those whose needs are great and of long standing. It would also require sufficient humility to acknowledge that some of those needs remain unaddressed even within the con- fines of our own borders. This is the challenge facing the next administration. But Congress also bears responsibility for broad U.S. abandonment of its historical leadership role in the defense and promotion of human rights. It has collab- orated in the administration’s policies, especially those that led to human rights abuses and the denial of legal recourse for detainees in the post-9/11 era. There is a record to build on, fortunately. For many years the U.S. Congress took a leadership role in the defense of human rights. Bipartisan, bicameral majori- ties endorsed restrictions on American collaboration with foreign governments and militaries with records of abuse, demanding accountability and reform before assistance went forward. In recent years, however, those restrictions have been weakened or waived at the insistence of the administration, which sought to culti- F O C U S 24 F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L / S E P T E M B E R 2 0 0 7 The “new” doctrine of pre-emptive defense is, of course, not new.