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The United States and Global Human Rights
A three-day international conference, 11-13 November 2004
The Rothermere American Institute is pleased to host an international conference examining the role of the United States in promoting and/or weakening human rights around the globe. Despite – or perhaps because of – its strong rights tradition, the USA has recently come under fire from the international community for abrogating human rights in its wide-ranging anti-terrorist campaign. The question of America’s historic relationship to global human rights is one full of ambiguities and ambivalence and thus merits close examination. What are human rights in the U.S. view? Have they been redefined since 9/11? What impact has recent American foreign policy had on its ability to promote an external human rights policy? Does the US preference for unilateralist action weaken its ability to promote an external human rights policy and to contribute to the further development of the international human rights regime? Or do rights properly belong under the protection of nations rather than international institutions?
Plenary Speakers will be:
- Michael Ignatieff, Director of Carr Center for Human Rights Policy, Harvard University
- Gay McDougall, Executive Director, Global Rights
- Zygmunt Bauman, Emeritus Professor of Sociology at the Universities of Leeds and Berlin
Papers and panels will relate to the following themes:
- The Rights Tradition in the United States
- U.S. Contributions to the origins and development of the international Human Rights Regime
- U.S. Human Rights policy-making
- America and the International Criminal Court
- Civil Rights and Human Rights within and without the United States
- Human Rights case studies – U.S. policy toward specific countries and under specific presidencies.
- The role of American NGOs in the global Human Rights Regime
- The United States and the United Nations
- American Sovereignty and Human Rights
The conference is free and open to the public.
Advance registration is essential. For further details of the conference and to register, please see the RAI’s website (address given below) or contact:
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