Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced that the State Department under the guidance of the Trump administration is launching a new Commission on Unalienable Rights. The purpose of the Commission is to focus on protecting the unalienable rights of people worldwide that are somewhat more protected in the United States because of our Constitution.
The State Department announced that it is rolling out the new Commission as a response to countries that are consistently growing into regime’s more and more oppressive of people’s basic “human rights.” The Commission is composed of a panel made up of Democrats, Republicans, and independents.
“An American commitment to uphold human rights played a major role in transforming the moral landscape of the international relations after World War II, something all Americans can rightly be proud of,” Pompeo said. “Under the leadership of Eleanor Roosevelt, the 1948 Universal Declaration on Human Rights ended forever the notion that nations could abuse their citizens without attracting notice or repercussions.”
Pompeo said that too often, governments use the term “human rights” as an excuse to oppress people
“It’s a sad commentary on our times that more than 70 years after the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, gross violations continue throughout the world, sometimes even in the name of human rights,” Pompeo said. He continued:
International institutions designed and built to protect human rights have drifted from their original mission.
As human rights claims have proliferated, some claims have come into tension with one another, provoking questions and clashes about which rights are entitled to gain respect.
Nation-states and international institutions remain confused about their respective responsibilities concerning human rights.
Harvard Law School professor Mary Ann Glendon was named as the chairwoman of the 15-member commission.
“I wanted to thank you especially for giving a priority to human rights at this moment when basic human rights are being misunderstood by many, manipulated by many, and ignored by the world’s worst human rights violators,” Glendon said during the press conference where the Commission was announced.
She added:
At the same time, I understand that the mission that you have set us is a challenging one.
You’ve asked us to work at the level of principle, not policy, and you’ve asked us to take our bearings from the distinctive rights tradition of the United States of America, a tradition that is grounded in the institutions without which rights would not be possible: constitutional government and the rule of law.
“The Commission on Unalienable Rights will provide the secretary of state with advice on human rights grounded in our nation’s founding principles and the principles of the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights,” a State Department spokesman told The Daily Signal.
