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In theory, human-rights activists ought to support President Bush's global democracy campaign. But a close examination of Bush's program shows big differences between Bush's approach and the policies pushed by human-rights groups.
For one thing, they question Bush's language. The National Security Strategy of 2002, in which Bush unveiled his democracy plan, makes no mention of “human rights,” referring instead to “freedom” and “human dignity.”
Human-rights experts say the omission is critical because “human rights” carries a precise definition in international law. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights commits signatories to respect individuals' rights to life, liberty and personal security, as well as the presumption of innocence and other liberties.
Not using the term “human rights,” according to advocates, suggests the administration seeks to avoid working through the international institutions responsible for enforcing the declaration. The effect, says Carroll Bogert, associate director of Human Rights Watch in New York, is “human-rights promotion without commitment.”
Secondly, the administration is not applying equal standards to hostile governments and allied ones, critics say. “When are they going to push their friends?” Bogert asks. “Every state is reluctant to apply stringent human-rights criteria to its friends. That's why the multilateral character of human rights is important, why you need more than just one country brandishing its big stick.”
Saudi Arabia and Pakistan are often cited as undemocratic allies that the United States treats with kid gloves. While administration supporters acknowledge that neither country meets democracy standards, they argue that Bush nonetheless has put effective pressure on both. Pakistan has gone from an ally of the Taliban dictatorship in Afghanistan to a fairly reliable anti-terrorism partner, says Clifford May, executive director of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies. And Saudi Arabia's recent elections, though limited, were a step forward, he says. “If the incentives and disincentives being applied are producing progress,” May says, “you don't want to go so fast that the enterprise crashes.”
Planned elections in Egypt and the release of imprisoned Egyptian democracy activist Ayman Nour are other examples of how calibrated pressure can produce change, May argues.
As for the United States acting unilaterally, May says, “This administration attempts to work in multilateral fashion when possible,” but overthrowing Saddam Hussein was worth taking on, even without U.N. backing.
Despite their concerns about the administration's human-rights record, groups like Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International spent years collecting evidence against Saddam's government that could provide the bulk of U.S. evidence against Iraqi defendants charged with human-rights violations.
Human Rights Watch alone has issued some 80 investigative reports, inquiries and recommendations to U.S. and Iraqi officials since U.S.-led forces took Baghdad. Among the topics: defects in the legal procedures to be used in the trials of Saddam and his top aides; evidence of torture by the new Iraqi government; the looting of records of the human-rights crimes of Saddam's regime and possible links between the Abu Ghraib detainee-abuse scandal and the Bush administration's decision not to apply international legal standards to treatment of prisoners captured in Afghanistan and elsewhere.
Human Rights Watch has criticized the law setting up the Iraqi Special Tribunal, which will be allowed to admit confessions obtained by torture or through interrogations without a lawyer present, the organization said. The group also faults the fact that judges and prosecutors will not be required to have experience in genocide and war crimes cases.
Some tribunal judges say they would like experienced foreign judges sitting with them, but they say Iraq would reject such moves as outside manipulation.
The choice between Iraqi-approved justice and an internationally approved trial perfectly mirrors the human-rights community's conflicted response to Bush's democracy agenda.
“Do we applaud the recent developments in the Middle East — people challenging autocratic governments, people voting? You bet,” Bogert says. “But sometimes those moves forward need bolstering by something a little broader than just one country.”
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