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Andrew Light Speaker Tour in Europe May 14, 2013 / Berlin, Germany; Brussels, BelgiumGMF Senior Fellow Andrew Light participated in a speaking tour in Europe to discuss opportunities for transatlantic cooperation on climate and energy policy in the second Obama administration.
In this podcast, GMF Vice President of Programs Ivan Vejvoda discusses last month's historic agreement to normalize relations between Kosovo and Serbia.
Anchor Elaine Reyes speaks with Andrew Small, Transatlantic Fellow of the Asia Program for the German Marshall Fund, about Beijing's potential role in brokering peace between Israel and Palestine
Clinton on human rights: digging out of a hole
December 15, 2009
Foreign Policy
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, in her speech on Monday at Georgetown University on "The Human Rights Agenda for the 21st Century," finally grabbed a shovel and started digging out of the hole she had placed herself in on this very issue. With some exceptions, her speech sounded familiar: Many of the passages could just as easily have been delivered by a senior Bush administration official.
That is because promotion of democracy and human rights has been an issue with strong bipartisan support for decades. For many in the Obama administration, however, President Bush discredited democracy promotion and the freedom agenda through the torture at Abu Ghraib and the detentions without trial at Guantanamo Bay, and by forcing democracy on other countries through military means. The Obama team wanted to strike a contrast with the Bush Administration on human rights and democracy issues -- and in the process, created a real mess for themselves.
Clinton's problems started her first day on the job. Given her 1995 speech in Beijing as first lady, which highlighted the importance of human rights, and her track record while serving in the U.S. Senate, many expected Clinton would be a strong proponent of human rights and democracy. Instead, however, she turned into a major disappointment. At her arrival ceremony at the State Department, she said, "There are three legs to the stool of American foreign policy: defense, diplomacy, and development." No mention of democracy.
Clinton dug a deeper hole during her first overseas trip to Asia in February when, on her way to China, she told reporters, "We pretty much know what they [the Chinese government] are going to say" on human rights issues, such as greater freedoms for Tibet. "We have to continue to press them. But our pressing on those issues can't interfere" with other crucial topics, such as climate change, the economy, and North Korea.
The full version of the article can be accessed here.
