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Introduction: Human Rights in the Post-Cold War World
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10631 |
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CURRENT ISSUES
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7 / 1993 |
457 Words |
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The world has changed significantly since the height of the Cold War, when human rights were often set aside in the tense bipolar conflict between the United States and the Soviet Union. Jeane Kirkpatrick's distinction between authoritarian friends and totalitarian adversaries was widely accepted.
However, in the post-Cold War world, few deny that human rights should be given more prominence by the United States and every other nation. But should they rule U.S. or British or German or Japanese foreign policy? And just wheat do we mean by human rights?
Experts search for a balance between utopianism and realpolitik. A UN conference in Vienna attempts to come up with a new definition of human rights. Freedom House publishes its annual freedom survey. Amnesty International monitors closely political and other rights of nations.
This Special Report examines the status of human rights in the post-Cold War world and suggests a prudent policy for the United States in today's uncertain and often chaotic world.
As the world's leading power, argues Richard Schifter, former U.S. representative to the UN Human Rights Commission, the United States has a special obligation to encourage democratic forces and discourage dictatorial governments wherever they occur.
But it cannot do the job all by itself. The United States must persuade other industrial democracies, Schifter asserts, to form a solid democratic front that will take appropriate measures, particularly of an economic nature, to advance democracy and respect for human rights.
In surveying the current status of human rights and wrongs around the world, Washington Times' correspondent Warren Strobel reports a wider range of violations than ever before. Ethnic and other long-suppressed antagonisms have emerged in the absence of superpower conflict.
There is a seemingly endless list of offenders: China, North Korea, Burma, Iraq, Iran, Saudi Arabia, El Salvador, Cuba, South Africa, and Bosnia. The advent of instant reporting, through the Cable News Network and other global news services, says Strobel, has increased pressure on policymakers. But many governments, burdened with their own tarnished records, are slow to act.
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