Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Monday unveiled a new Commission on Unalienable Rights, a bipartisan panel he said is aimed at providing him with “an informed review of the role of human rights in American foreign policy.”
The panel will be headed up by Mary Ann Glendon, a Harvard law professor and former ambassador to the Vatican under George W.
Bush. Glendon is also a social conservative who has been a prominent anti-abortion voice.“Every once in a while we need to step back, and reflect seriously on where we are, where we’ve been and whether we’re headed in the right direction,” Pompeo said. He hailed former first lady Eleanor Roosevelt’s 1948 Declaration on Universal Human Rights as one of the foundational documents for the commission’s work, but noted that the panel would serve as advisers as opposed to policymakers.
In remarks at the State Department on Monday, Pompeo noted that “words like ‘rights’ can be used by good or evil,” decrying how some have “hijacked” human rights rhetoric to be used for “dubious or malignant purposes.”
Glendon, in brief comments, echoed that, telling reporters that "basic human rights are misunderstood by many, manipulated by many, and ignored by the world’s worst human rights violators."
While Pompeo was vague in laying out what exactly the panel will do, he praised its members as those he hoped would facilitate "one of the most profound reexaminations of the unalienable rights in the world since the 1948 universal declaration."
International groups were split over the group Monday. In a statement cheering Pompeo's formation of the commission, Family Research Council President Tony Perkins said that the panel would be useful in light of governments like Cuba, China and Iran who the group said "have wormed their way onto 'human rights commissions' in their search for international legitimacy.
""Other special interest groups have sought to expand the definition of a 'human right' to include virtually anything. If everything is a human right then the term begins to have little meaning," he said.
In addition, Perkins added, the commission would further promote religious liberty abroad, which he hailed as the "foundation for all other human rights."
Amnesty International, meanwhile, accused Pompeo of using the panel to politicize human rights.
"If this administration truly wanted to support people's rights, it would use the global framework that's already in place. Instead, it wants to undermine rights for individuals, as well as the responsibilities of governments," said Joanne Lin, national director of advocacy and government affairs. "This approach only encourages other countries to adopt a disregard for basic human rights standards and risks weakening international, as well as regional frameworks, placing the rights of millions of people around the world in jeopardy."
Article originally published on POLITICO Magazine