Why the United States Reports on Human Rights in Foreign Countries

By Thomas B. Robertson
U.S. Ambassador
March 6, 2007

Today, the US State Department will release, once again, its annual compilation of our Human Rights Reports on all the nations in the world.  Included of course will be the Department’s Human Rights Report on Slovenia.  During my over 25 years in the Foreign Service of the United States I have experienced all kinds of reactions to these reports, from indignation and disbelief or even cynical disregard (often from governments criticized in the reports) to gratefulness and appreciation (particularly from human rights activists in these countries).  As we prepare for the coming report’s issuance—and the predictable reactions, I think it is worth reviewing for Slovenians why the United States does these at all, and what it all is supposed to mean.

Why does the United States government do these reports?  Back in the seventies, during the Carter Administration, when human rights became a more strongly emphasized part of our foreign policy, Congress passed a law that required the Department to submit to the House of Representatives and the Senate Foreign Relations Committee human rights reports on all countries that received U.S. assistance aid.  Clearly, Congress felt that as it considered whether to give aid to a country, that country’s human rights record was an important part of the calculus of whether to do so.  These reports became critical parts of the discussion in Congress and in the country about whether assistance should continue.  Very often the debates were fierce and impassioned.  Some proponents who believed that human rights should be a more prominent criterion in our assistance policy would try to block assistance to countries whose human rights records had serious failings.  Some others would make assistance contingent in improvements in their human rights records.  As a result, the reports often became a tool in trying to elicit better human rights behavior from governments in exchange for assistance, particularly when the assistance was military.  But they were ultimately a tool by which Congress could judge if, and what kind of, assistance might be given.

As time went on, the Department was required to do these reports on all member states of the United Nations.  Today our Embassies overseas spend considerable time gathering material to provide to the Department, where the final reports are written.  These include meeting with government officials, perusing official and unofficial statistics, reading the press, and meeting with human rights activists and NGO’s.  It is hard work, particularly to come up with an objective appraisal that fairly describes the situation at hand.

The fact is that the Department of State Human Rights Report is among the most widely read and distributed sources of information on the state of human rights in the world.  I know Slovenians care deeply that the Sudanese government doesn’t allow access to those affected by the ethnic violence in Darfur or that Burma keeps Aung San Suu Kyi, a Nobel Peace Prize winner, in jail for eleven of the past seventeen years or that China restricts lawyers, journalists, religious leaders and civic leaders from expressing their views independently.  We have highlighted these and many more violations of human rights in past reports and you can expect the 2006 report, due out today, to draw the strongest reactions from the biggest violators.  Opinion leaders in government, the media and NGO’s will cite the report in pressuring these violators to improve conditions within their countries.

Slovenians can be proud that you have a strong human rights record, not surprising for a country with strong democratic institutions and a tradition of rule of law.  Still, like in all countries (including the United States, by the way), it can always be better.  Issues that are covered by your human rights ombudsman, or European and Slovenian human rights organizations and NGO’s, such as “the erased,” the situation with the Roma and other minorities,  plans for the eventual building of a mosque in Ljubljana, or the independence of the media, will also likely be covered in our report. 

Finally, the question so many ask:  How come you don’t do a human rights report of the United States?  Do you Americans think you’re so perfect and democratic that you don’t have human rights problems?  Far from it.  Few Americans would argue that we are blameless in this regard.  The simple answer is that Congress does not require the executive branch to do such a report.  But the more relevant answer is that we have a strong tradition of investigative reporting and energetic human rights NGO’s.  Every day our newspapers and media outlets report on our human rights record, whether at home or abroad.  Whether the question is the death penalty or immigration, excesses at Abu Ghraib or treatment of detainees at Guantanamo, Americans passionately care about and debate the issues.  They change policy through the ballot box and punish violators in the courts – as it should be.  Slovenians judge American actions based on the reports in your media.  These reports often reflect work that American journalists or NGO’s themselves have done.  The free press and these non-governmental organizations are an inalienable part of a true democracy, as they are a critical first step in holding our government accountable for our own human rights shortcomings.

In 1981, President Jimmy Carter said that “America did not invent human rights.  In a very real sense ... human rights invented America.”   Eight years later, human rights reinvented the countries of Central and Eastern Europe in the wave of popular peaceful revolutions of 1989, creating a Europe whole, free and at peace.  The process of invention must go on until the benefits are extended to all peoples.  I hope that the State Department’s report moves us closer to that day.