The Defeat of Ernest Lefever’s Nomination: Keeping Human Rights on the United States Foreign Policy Agenda

Abstract

To those committed to human rights, Ronald Reagan’s election on 4 November 1980 raised widespread apprehension. Their basic concern was that Reagan would abandon Jimmy Carter’s human rights policies. Joshua Rubenstein of Amnesty International spoke for many human rights activists when he said, ‘We are concerned that the Reagan administration will not have a positive emphasis on human rights and in some parts of the world his election has been taken as a green light, an encouragement for repressive forces.’ 1 The role of human rights in US foreign policy had slowly emerged in the 1960s and gained considerable ground in the years that followed, culminating with Carter’s declaration in his 1977 inaugural address that the US commitment to human rights must be ‘absolute.’ 2 To those focused on the issue, Reagan’s electoral victory threatened that progress. The persistence of human rights as an element of US foreign policy under Reagan is thus a testament to the power of the issue against communist regimes, but also to the efforts of the human rights community to keep the issue on the American foreign policy agenda and to its resonance with the broader American public. These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.

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