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March 19, 2001
For a moment, the war in Afghanistan appeared to be a war on behalf
of human rights. Who can ever forget the sight of Afghan women celebrating
openly in public? But while the ouster of the Taliban led to dramatic
improvements for many in that country, this outcome was a byproduct,
not a primary goal, of the American-led offensive.
In much of the rest of the world, civil liberties are suffering a
setback. From India to Malaysia, governments have introduced stringent
new anti-terrorism measures, or have given new life to laws once used
to suppress peaceful dissent. In foreign policy circles, there is less
talk of universal rights standards and more emphasis on what kinds of
assistance states are providing to the war on terrorism. In this climate,
is a deepening clash between human rights and national security inevitable?
For the past twenty years, human rights thinking has increasingly shaped
how citizens and policymakers evaluate the behavior of nation-states
and other key international actors. Michael Ignatieff recently described
human rights as the "dominant moral vocabulary in foreign affairs"
in the post-Cold War era. He and others have warned, however, that after
September 11, we may be witnessing a sea change in attitudes.
President Bush has used moral language in calling for a war on terror;
but his imagery - of the forces of good and evil locked in mortal combat
- draws more on the Old Testament than on universal human rights standards.
U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Attorney General John Ashcroft
have each adopted more narrow interpretations of the constraints of
international and U.S. constitutional law than did their predecessors.
Even commentators who are critical of the Bush administration's rhetoric
have argued that U.S. leaders have a duty to act proactively to forestall
other, potentially even more damaging attacks before it is too late,
even at the expense of some rights protections.
In the face of the changing tide, U.S. rights advocates are scrambling
to shape the nation's understanding of recent events. Ken Roth of Human
Rights Watch labeled the 9/11 attacks a human rights crime and has urged
U.S. leaders to avoid falling prey to the same "ends justify the
means" thinking that motivates their terrorist foes. In addition
to tracking the shrinking space for dissent around the world and the
impact of new security restrictions at home, Roth's organization is
now engaged in a detailed assessment of how the United States is conducting
its military campaign.
Other rights advocates have challenged the Bush administration's unilateralist
tendencies, arguing that the United States needs to appeal to common
aims and aspirations to maintain an effective international coalition,
for which human rights provides a necessary framework.
Clearly, both security issues and human rights concerns have a claim
on our attention, but the details matter: the framework we use to understand
September 11 and its aftermath will have a decisive role in shaping
what comes next.
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