The Foreign Service Journal, September 2020

THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL | SEPTEMBER 2020 19 The commission’s report included a prefatory note highlighting the recent racial upheaval in America, and the stark need to improve on human rights in the United States. “As the Commission’s work on this Report was nearing its completion, social convulsions shook the United States, testifying to the nation’s unfinished work in overcoming the evil effects of its long history of racial injustice,” the note reads. “The many questions roiling the nation about police brutality, civic unrest and America’s commitment to human rights at home make all the more urgent a point we had already stressed in the Introduction and elsewhere in this Report: The credibility of U.S. advocacy for human rights abroad depends on the nation’s vigilance in assuring that all its own citizens enjoy fundamental human rights. With the eyes of the world upon her, America must show the same honest self-examination and efforts at improve- ment that she expects of others. Ameri- ca’s dedication to unalienable rights—the rights all human beings share—demands no less.” A coalition of four groups sued Sec- retary Pompeo on March 6 for allegedly unlawfully creating the commission in violation of the Federal Advisory Com- mittee Act. And human rights groups have criticized the commission for considering LGBT+ rights and women’s reproductive rights (including abortion) to be among those they see as outside of “natural,” unalienable rights. In his speech in Philadelphia, Secre- tary Pompeo denounced “rioters pulling down statues [who] see nothing wrong with desecrating monuments to those who fought for our unalienable rights,” and disparaged The New York Times’ 1619 Project about the history of slavery in the United States. The Times “wants you to believe that our country was founded for human bondage,” he said. “They want you to believe that America’s institutions con- tinue to reflect the country’s acceptance of slavery at our founding. They want you to believe that Marxist ideology that America is only the oppressors and the oppressed. The Chinese Communist Party must be gleeful when they see The New York Times spout this ideology.” On July 20, a group of more than 30 religious leaders (including Catholic, evangelical, Jewish, Muslim, Sikh and Buddhist leaders) released a statement in response to the commission report, stating in part: “We know from Secretary Pompeo’s repeated comments … that he will seek to use the Commission’s report to justify marginalizing certain rights, thus diminishing human rights advocacy and stifling demands for accountability for those whose rights have been violated. … “Such politicization of human rights— and of freedom of religion in particular— is dangerous, particularly now when the forces of authoritarianism are on the rise globally. … “We urge members of the commission to consider the risks of complicity in such an effort and use this comment period to ensure that the final version of the commission’s report firmly upholds the universality and indivisibility of rights as set forth in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.” No Good Deed Goes Unpunished T he July 22 New York Times reports that in February 2018 Robert Wood Johnson IV, President Trump’s ambas- sador to the Court of St. James’s, unsuc- cessfully pressured U.K. officials to steer the British Open golf tournament to the Trump Turnberry resort in Scotland. AFSPA afspa.org Episcopal Church Schools of Virginia www.episcopalschoolsva.org Clements Worldwide clements.com/missionsabroad Corporate Apartment Specialist corporateapartments.com Federal Employee Protection Systems fedsprotection.com Georgetown University, Walsh School of Foreign Service, ISD casestudies.isd.georgetown.edu Property Specialists, Inc. propertyspecialistsinc.com Richey Property Management richeypm.com Washington Management Services wmsdc.com WJD Management wjdpm.com