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On American Values, Unalienable Rights, and Human Rights: Some Reflections on the Pompeo Commission

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 March 2020

Mathias Risse
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Abstract

In July 2019, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo launched a Commission on Unalienable Rights, charged with a reexamination of the scope and nature of human rights–based claims. From his statements, it seems that Pompeo hopes the commission will substantiate—by appeal to the U.S. Declaration of Independence and to natural law theory—three key conservative ideas: (1) that there is too much human rights proliferation, and once we get things right, social and economic rights as well as gender emancipation and reproductive rights will no longer register as human rights; (2) that religious liberties should be strengthened under the human rights umbrella; and (3) that the unalienable rights that should guide American foreign policy neither need nor benefit from any international oversight. I aim to show that despite Pompeo's framing, the Declaration of Independence, per se, is of no help with any of this, whereas evoking natural law is only helpful in ways that reveal its own limitations as a foundation for both human rights and foreign policy in our interconnected age.

Keywords

human rightsPompeo CommissionTrump administrationU.S. Declaration of IndependenceUniversal Declaration of Human Rightsnatural rightsnatural laweconomic rightshuman rights proliferation
Type
Essays
Information
Ethics & International Affairs , Volume 34 , Issue 1 , Spring 2020 , pp. 13 - 31
Copyright
Copyright © Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs 2020

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Footnotes

*

I am grateful to members of the Human Rights Colloquium at Harvard University and to Sushma Raman, John Shattuck, Marcel Twele, and Zoe von Dohnanyi for discussion of earlier versions of this material. I am also indebted to the editors of Ethics & International Affairs for their valuable editorial work.

References

NOTES

1 For the announcement, see Michael R. Pompeo, “Secretary of State Michael R. Pompeo Remarks to the Press” (remarks, Secretary of State Michael R. Pompeo Press Briefing Room, Washington, D.C., July 8, 2019), U.S. Department of State, www.state.gov/secretary-of-state-michael-r-pompeo-remarks-to-the-press-3/.

2 Michael R. Pompeo, “Unalienable Rights and U.S. Foreign Policy: The Founders’ Principles Can Help Revitalize Liberal Democracy World-Wide,” Wall Street Journal, July 7, 2019, www.wsj.com/articles/unalienable-rights-and-u-s-foreign-policy-11562526448?mod=searchresults&page=1&pos=1.

3 See “Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights,” United Nations Human Rights, Office of the High Commissioner, www.ohchr.org/EN/Issues/Women/WRGS/Pages/HealthRights.aspx.

4 Pompeo, “Secretary of State Michael R. Pompeo Remarks to the Press.”

5 Ibid.

6 In a speech given in January 2019, Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro also rejected what one might characterize as the leftish orientation of human rights (see Jair Bolsonaro, “Speech by the President of the Republic, Jair Bolsonaro,” Plenary Session of the World Economic Forum, Davos, Switzerland, January 22, 2019, www.itamaraty.gov.br/en/speeches-articles-and-interviews/president-of-the-federative-republic-of-brazil-speeches/19992-discurso-del-presidente-de-la-republica-jair-bolsonaro-durante-la-sesion-plenaria-del-foro-economico-mundial-davos-suiza-22-de-enero-de-2020). However, concerns about proliferation are not limited to right-wing politicians. For a classic articulation of the view that human rights should be limited to civil and political rights, see Cranston, Maurice, What Are Human Rights? (London: Bodley Head, 1973)Google Scholar. For a broader understanding of human rights mindful of proliferation concerns, see Griffin, James, On Human Rights (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For a recent rearticulation cognizant of the Pompeo Commission, see John Tasioulas, “Are Human Rights Taking over the Space Once Occupied by Politics?,” New Statesman, August 26, 2019, www.newstatesman.com/2019/08/are-human-rights-taking-over-space-once-occupied-politics. For a survey of the philosophical concerns, see James Nickel, “Human Rights,” in Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy online, last updated April 11, 2019, plato.stanford.edu/entries/rights-human/.

7 “There Is a Need for Fresh Thinking on Human Rights: But Mike Pompeo's New Commission Looks like a Partisan Stunt,” Economist, August 10, 2019, www.economist.com/united-states/2019/08/08/there-is-a-need-for-fresh-thinking-on-human-rights.

8 Kenneth Roth, “Beware the Trump Administration's Plans for ‘Fresh Thinking’ on Human Rights,” Washington Post, July 11, 2019, www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/07/11/beware-trump-administrations-plans-fresh-thinking-human-rights/.

9 In addition to her grounding in Catholic social thought, Glendon is known for work on the genesis of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights seen through the lens of Eleanor Roosevelt's role; see Glendon, Mary Ann, A World Made New: Eleanor Roosevelt and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (New York: Random House, 2002)Google Scholar. She has written essays on many human rights themes; see Glendon, Mary Ann, Traditions in Turmoil (Ann Arbor, Mich.: Sapientia Press Ave Maria University, 2006)Google Scholar.

10 Pompeo, “Unalienable Rights and U.S. Foreign Policy.”

11 The Declaration has received much scholarly attention; for recent work, see Armitage, David, The Declaration of Independence: A Global History (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2008)Google Scholar; Maier, Pauline, American Scripture: Making the Declaration of Independence (New York: Vintage, 1998)Google Scholar; Jayne, Allen, Jefferson's Declaration of Independence: Origins, Philosophy, and Theology (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1998)Google Scholar; Fliegelman, Jay, Declaring Independence: Jefferson, Natural Language, and the Culture of Performance (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1993)Google Scholar; Dupont, Christian Y. and Onuf, Peter S., eds., Declaring Independence: The Origin and Influence of America's Founding Document (Charlottesville, Va.: University of Virginia Library, 2008)Google Scholar; and Allen, Danielle S., Our Declaration: A Reading of the Declaration of Independence in Defense of Equality (New York: Liveright, 2015)Google Scholar. See also West, Thomas G., The Political Theory of the American Founding: Natural Rights, Public Policy, and the Moral Conditions of Freedom (Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 2017)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Lepore, Jill, These Truths: A History of the United States (New York: W. W. Norton, 2019), chs. 3–4Google Scholar. My discussion is influenced by Danielle Allen's.

12 Allen, Our Declaration, p. 275.

13 See Reagan's first inaugural address, “January 20, 1981: Reagan Quotes and Speeches,” Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation and Institute video, 23:37, www.reaganfoundation.org/ronald-reagan/reagan-quotes-speeches/inaugural-address-2/.

14 Bentham offers his assessment in Jeremy Bentham, “Short Review of the Declaration (1776),” in Armitage, Declaration of Independence; for the quote, see ibid., p. 186.

15 Engel, Jeffrey A., ed., The Four Freedoms: Franklin D. Roosevelt and the Evolution of an American Idea, 1st ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

16 For a contemporary take on the founding principles, see Lepore, Jill, This America: The Case for the Nation (New York: Liveright, 2019)Google Scholar.

17 Rawls, John, Political Liberalism, exp. ed. (New York: Columbia University Press, 2005)Google Scholar.

18 One might say Rawls's understanding of conflict is naïve in that it omits an explicit formulation of racial tensions. That is true, but his approach, with its division between a public-reason standpoint and comprehensive doctrines, can be reformulated to be less naïve in that respect.

19 “Publicly available values” are those that can and must be shared among all citizens. Among them are those that inform the selection of principles of distributive justice, those related to freedom and equality of citizens, and those related to the fairness of the terms of social cooperation. Political equality, freedom of religion, efficiency of the economy, stability of the family (to help ensure reproduction), and concern about a healthy environment are also among these values. “Nonpublic values” are those internal to associations like churches or philosophical movements. “Public standards” are principles of reasoning and rules of evidence all citizens may reasonably endorse, standards drawing on common sense, and generally known facts and well-established scientific insights. Justification should not depend on prophecy, or on disputed social-scientific theories.

20 “From Thomas Jefferson to Henry Lee, 8 May 1825,” National Archives “Founders Online,” founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/98-01-02-5212.

21 That religions cannot play prominent roles in public life has implications for how we should think about questions surrounding marriage, procreation, and beginning- and end-of-life questions, but it is no straightforward process from that insight to certain conclusions. For the complexities involved, see, for example, George, Robert P., Conscience and Its Enemies: Confronting the Dogmas of Liberal Secularism (Wilmington, Del.: Intercollegiate Studies Institute, 2016)Google Scholar.

22 Boucher, David, The Limits of Ethics in International Relations: Natural Law, Natural Rights, and Human Rights in Transition (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), p. 245CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

23 For this second understanding, see Risse, Mathias, On Global Justice, 1st ed. (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2012), ch. 5Google Scholar. According to this second view, human rights may overlap with natural rights, in the sense that some human rights are natural, but not all.

24 See Pagden, Anthony, “Human Rights, Natural Rights, and Europe's Imperial Legacy,” Political Theory 31, no. 2 (April 2003), pp. 171–99CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

25 Finnis, John, Natural Law and Natural Rights (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1980)Google Scholar; and Finnis, John, Aquinas: Moral, Political, and Legal Theory (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998)Google Scholar. For extended defenses, see George, Robert P., In Defense of Natural Law (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001)Google Scholar. For introductions, see Finnis, John, “Aquinas and Natural Law Jurisprudence,” in Duke, George and George, Robert P., eds., The Cambridge Companion to Natural Law Jurisprudence (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2017), pp. 17–56CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Robert P. George, “Natural Law, God, and Human Dignity,” in Duke and George, The Cambridge Companion to Natural Law Jurisprudence.

26 Anscombe, Elizabeth, “Modern Moral Philosophy,” in Crisp, Roger and Slote, Michael, eds., Virtue Ethics (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997), pp. 26–44Google Scholar.

27 George, “Natural Law, God, and Human Dignity,” pp. 60–61.

28 For the classic formulation of the argument that security and subsistence rights stand and fall together and must both be available in order for anybody to enjoy any other right, see Shue, Henry, Basic Rights: Subsistence, Affluence, and US Foreign Policy (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1980)Google Scholar.

29 George, Conscience and Its Enemies, part 3; and George, In Defense of Natural Law, part 2.

30 We have not looked at religious liberties in the last two sections on natural law/rights, but it should be plausible that in a highly pluralist society the need to curtail the relevance of religion in public life could only be superseded by appealing directly to the superiority of one religious tradition over others.

31 See Beitz, Charles R., The Idea of Human Rights (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011)Google Scholar; Rawls, John, The Law of Peoples: With “The Idea of Public Reason Revisited” (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2001)Google Scholar. For the debate between the moral and political approaches to human rights, see Etinson, Adam, ed., Human Rights: Moral or Political? (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

32 One other source I have done much work with is humanity's collective ownership of the earth, but that topic is harder to expand upon given the present space limitations; see Risse, On Global Justice, part 2. For a summary of this approach, see Risse, Mathias, “Human Rights as Membership Rights in the World Society,” in Voeneky, Silja and Neuman, Gerald L., eds., Human Rights, Democracy, and Legitimacy in a World of Disorder (Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 2018)Google Scholar.

33 This is the argument taken from Shue, Basic Rights.

34 Chapters 12 and 13 in my book On Global Justice spell out the efforts for a human right to essential pharmaceuticals and for labor rights as human rights. I am genuinely not sure about gender emancipation and reproductive rights being understood as human rights. They might be better understood as domestic civil rights, and as such should then hold in every country in the world. But my approach can indeed also accommodate a global movement to see them as human rights, in terms of efforts to establish new human rights in the right procedural way. That might well currently be the best way of thinking about these rights.