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“The Right Thing to Do”: Why Values Matter in Policymaking

Most casual students of U.S. history and foreign policy consider the beginning of the Carter Administration (1977) as the point at which concern for human rights became a factor in American foreign policy decision-making. Often overlooked is the fact that the U.S. led efforts to draft the UN’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948, and even though concern for human rights didn’t figure into U.S. foreign policy before the 1940s, many individuals, organizations, and even some in the U.S. Congress have shown concern for human rights almost from the founding of the republic. It is, however, correct to assume that human rights didn’t play a significant role in foreign policy until the Carter years.

Despite our professions of concern for human rights—even during the 1940s as we played a key role in the establishment of the UN and the drafting of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights—our own record on this issue has been checkered. One has only to look at the contrast between the words ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal,’ and the institution of slavery and the denial of rights to women.

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