Abstract
The United States wields a great deal of power in the international community. In fact, the political hegemony enjoyed by the United States is virtually unparalleled. Further, the United States has no rival in military force and it ranks among the most powerful economic forces in the world.2 Economic influence, even more than military power, offers the state holding that influence considerable sway in determining the productive viability and technological development of less affluent states. Therefore, U.S. foreign aid has been a key factor in establishing and reinforcing attitudes and encouraging activities in international settings. Very simply, U.S. behavior in world politics matters.3
And what right have we, Sir, to trumpet our ideals of freedom and justice to other countries when we can shake out from our most respectable newspapers any day of the week eggs like these?1
—Virginia Woolf, Three Guineas
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Notes
Virginia Woolf, Three Guineas (San Diego: Harcourt, Brace, 1938).
Gary Gereffi, “Power and Dependency in an Interdependent World,” in Global Crisis: Sociological Analyses and Responses, ed. Edward. A. Tiryakian (The Netherlands: E.J. Brill, 1984).
Jack Donnelly, International Human Rights, Dilemmas in World Politics (Boulder, CO: Westview, 1993), p. 7.
Nigel Rodley, “On the Necessity of United States Ratification of International Human Rights Conventions,” in U.S. Ratification of Human Rights Treaties: With or Without Reservations?, ed. Richard B. Lillich (Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1981), pp. 3–19.
Diane F. Orentlicher, “The United States Commitment to International Human Rights,” Human Rights and the World Community: Issues and Action, 2nd ed., eds. Richard Pierre Claude and Burns H. Weston (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1992), pp. 340–357.
David P. Forsythe, Human Rights and World Politics (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1983), p. 89.
Jeane J. Kirkpatrick, Dictatorships and Double Standards: Pationalism and Reason in Politics (New York: Simon and Shuster, 1982), p.8.
C. B. MacPherson, The Real World of Democracy (Oxford, UK: Clarendon Press, 1966).
David P. Forsythe, “Congress and Human Rights in U.S. Foreign Policy,” Human Rights Quarterly, vol. 9, no. 3 (August 1987): 403.
George Soros, The Crisis of Global Capitalism: Open Society Endangered (New York: Perseus, 1998), p. xxii.
Michael Clough, Global Changes and Institutional Transformation: Restructuring the Foreign Policymaking Process, Report of the 33rd Strategy for Peace, U.S. Foreign Policy Conference (Muscatine IA: The Stanley Foundation, 1992), pp. 8–9.
Hilary Charlesworth, “What Are ‘Women’s International Human Rights’?” in Human Rights of Women: National and International Perspectives, ed. Rebecca J. Cook (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1994).
C. B. MacPherson, in The Real World of Democracy (Oxford, UK: Clarendon Press, 1966), pp. 56–67, makes the argument that underdeveloped countries have undertaken the conquest of material scarcity by methods other than the acquisitive, individual power-seeking methods of the market societies. “They are trying to overcome scarcity without relying on the morality of scarcity.”
The President of the United States, Four Treaties Pertaining to Human Rights: the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, the International Covenant on Economic Social and Cultural Rights, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and the American Convention on Human Rights, 95th Cong., 2nd Sess., Feb 23, 1978 (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office).
The President of the United States, Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, 96th Cong., 2nd Sess., Nov 12, 1980 (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office).
In an address to the UN Security Council at the United Nations on January 20, 2000, Senator Jesse Helms is quoted by the Washington Post. He is articulating what sounds alarmingly like the rhetoric of the Bricker Amendment in the 1950’s. For a thorough discussion of the Bricker Amendment, see Natalie Hevener Kaufman and David Whiteman, “Opposition to Human Rights Treaties in the United States Senate: The Legacy of the Bricker Amendment,” Human Rights Quarterly, vol. 10, no. 3 (1988): 309–337.
William Schneider, CNN, “Play of the Week,” June 12, 1999.
Rebecca J. Cook, “State Accountability Under the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women,” in Human Rights of Women: National and International Perspectives, ed. Rebecca J. Cook (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1994), pp. 229–256.
Ambassador Madeleine Albright, U.S. permanent representative to the United Nations; chair, U.S. Delegation to the Fourth World Conference on Women, “The Fourth World Conference: A Success for the World’s Women,” in Bringing Beijing Home (Washington DC: Government Printing Office, January 1996).
Richard Falk, “Theoretical Foundations of Human Rights,” in Human Rights and the World Community, eds. Richard P. Claude and Burns H. Weston (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1992).
Celina Romany, “State Responsibility Goes Private: A Feminist Critique of the Public/Private Distinction in International Human Rights Law,” in Human Rights of Women: National and International Perspectives, ed. Rebecca J. Cook (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1994), p. 85.
Zillah Eisenstein, The Color of Gender: Reimaging Democracy (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994), pp. 15–35.
Laurie S. Wiseberg and Harry M. Scoble, “Monitoring Human Rights Violations: The Role of Nongovernmental Organizations,” in Human Rights and Foreign Policy, eds. Donald Kommers and Gilbert Loescher (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1979).
See, Richard L. Rubenstein, The Cunning of History (New York: Harper Colophon, 1975), p.6: “The Holocaust was an expression of some of the most significant political, moral, religious and demographic tendencies of Western civilization in the twentieth century.”
Felicia Gaer, “Reality Check: Human Rights NGOs Confront Governments at the UN,” in NGOs, the UN, and Global Governance, eds. Thomas G. Weiss and Leon Gordenker (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 1996), pp. 51–66.
See, for example, Jeane Kirkpatrick, Dictatorships and Double Standards: Rationalism and Reason in Politics (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1982).
Natalie Hevener Kaufman and David Whiteman, “Opposition to Human Rights Treaties in the United States Senate: The Legacy of the Bricker Amendment,” Human Rights Quarterly, vol. 10, no. 3 (1988): 309–337.
David P. Forsythe, “Congress and Human Rights in U.S. Foreign Policy: The Fate of General Legislation,” Human Rights Quarterly, vol. 9, no. 3 (1987): pp. 382–404.
Vamik Volkan, The Need For Enemies and Allies (Dunmore, PA: Jason Aronson, 1994).
Richard P. Claude, “The Case of Joelito Filartiga in the Courts,” in Human Rights and the World Community, eds. Richard P. Claude and Burns H. Weston (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1992), pp. 328–337.
Jack Donnelly, Universal Human Rights in Theory and Practice, ch. 6 (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1989).
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© 2000 Diana Zoelle
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Zoelle, D.G. (2000). International Human Rights and American Foreign Policy. In: Globalizing Concern for Women’s Human Rights. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780312299699_5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9780312299699_5
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