The 25th Anniversary of the U.S. Human Rights Report: backgrounder

Washington -- On February 26, the United States will release its annual human rights report on conditions in the year 2000 in 194 countries. The first report -- on human rights conditions in 1976 -- covered just 82 countries. Since then the reports have grown in depth as well as breadth.

The U.S. commitment to human rights monitoring and reporting is rooted in the international human rights movement that grew rapidly in the years after World War II. The colossal loss of life in that war -- an estimated 50 million people -- fostered a determination to build a new world structure that would elevate fundamental rights and freedoms to a much more prominent position in world affairs and hold human rights violators responsible for their actions.

But long before World War II had concluded, the momentum toward worldwide recognition of human rights had taken hold -- in the Atlantic Charter (1941) that detailed the right to freedom and democracy, and a few months earlier, in President Franklin Roosevelt's Four Freedoms (of speech and worship and from want and fear) speech to the U.S. Congress. In Britain, Prime Minister Winston Churchill echoed the American president's view, declaring that an allied victory would result in "the enthronement of human rights."

In the Third and Fourth worlds, colonized peoples were coming to the realization that freedom and human rights were not just for Americans and Europeans, but for all men and women everywhere. The conviction grew -- perhaps for the first time in history -- that human rights should be guaranteed all over the world. The universality of human rights was incorporated into the Charter of the United Nations, adopted in 1945, which set the goal of "promoting and encouraging respect for human rights and for fundamental freedoms of all without distinction as to race, sex, language and religion."

Governments played a key role in the adoption of the U.N. Charter, but -- not so well known -- so did the emerging nongovernmental human rights movement that would be such a crucial part of the struggle for fundamental rights and freedoms in the decades ahead. By one count, more than 1,300 nongovernmental human rights organizations actively lobbied for the adoption of a strong human rights component in the Charter.

Another major victory occurred in 1948 with the adoption of the U.N. Universal Declaration of Human Rights for which Eleanor Roosevelt, the wife of President Franklin Roosevelt, worked so tirelessly. The Declaration was the first major accomplishment of the newly established U.N. Commission on Human Rights. Mrs. Roosevelt was its first chairman. Speaking before the General Assembly after its adoption, the former U.S. first lady stressed its epoch-making value.

"We stand today," she said, "at the threshold of a great event both in the life of the United Nations and in the life of mankind. This Declaration may well become the international Magna Carta of all men everywhere. We hope its proclamation by the General Assembly will be an event comparable to the proclamation of the Rights of Man by the French people in 1789, the adoption of the Bill of Rights by the people of the United States, and the adoption of comparable declarations at different times in other countries."

The scope of the achievement was obvious to all. Never before in world history had the community of nations successfully identified specific rights and freedoms not just for one nation, not just for one race, but for all people everywhere for all time. Article I of the Declaration set the tone for a broad range of political, social, and economic rights that are set forth as a common standard for every country. "All human beings," it says, "are born free and equal in dignity and human rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood."

The pioneers of the early international human rights movement realized, however, that it was important not just to affirm human rights but also to create mechanisms for bringing major human rights violators to account. In the aftermath of World War II, the Nuremberg trials firmly established the precedent that human rights violators should be tried for their crimes, including political leaders who wage aggressive war, and that there should be clear and precise mechanisms to deal with those guilty of human rights crimes, including war crimes, particularly those committed on a mass scale.

Unfortunately, during the decades of the 1950s and 1960s, particularly, forging progress on human rights would not be easy. The divisions in the world created by The Cold War and the struggle against colonialism made it difficult to win consensus and create the kind of international mechanisms that would advance the cause so eloquently and boldly stated in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

But there were clear successes nonetheless, most notably the 1966 binding Covenants on civil and political rights and on economic, social, and cultural rights. These documents held nations responsible for the ideals they committed to in the Universal Declaration. The Covenants, as well as other successes such as the Helsinki Accords (1975), were proof of the growing power of the international human rights movement despite difficult post-War circumstances.

By the mid-1970s, the government of the United States was moving toward the idea that human rights should be more formally incorporated into U.S. foreign policy.

The conviction gained ground not only because of international developments but also because of domestic events. The U.S. Civil Rights Movement had convinced a majority of Americans that civil rights and human rights are core American values that must animate every aspect of U.S. society, including the nation's foreign policy.

The story of how human rights were formally incorporated into U.S foreign policy, how a State Department bureau specifically concerned with promoting human rights was established, and how and why an annual U.S. human rights report was introduced will be told in a subsequent article.

The immediate origin of the report is an amendment to Section 502B of the Foreign Assistance Act, which Congress passed in 1976. The amendment required the secretary of state to transmit to Congress "a full and complete report" every year concerning "respect for internationally recognized human rights in each country proposed as a recipient of U.S. assistance." The first report was far from universal. But there was a strong feeling that, at a minimum, the human rights records of recipients of U.S. security assistance should at least be documented and publicized.

As a result of the amendment a newly created post of coordinator for human rights and humanitarian affairs was established in the State Department under President Jimmy Carter, who took office in January 1977. The position later was upgraded to assistant secretary of state for Democracy, human rights and labor. This office prepared the first human rights report and submitted it to Senator Hubert Humphrey, who was then chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee's subcommittee on foreign assistance. The report covered 82 countries in receipt of U.S. security assistance. Most were friends and allies of longstanding.

The 1978 report was lengthened to include U.S. recipients of economic but not security assistance -- 33 of them. The following year, the Foreign Assistance Act again was amended so that the human rights report could be dramatically expanded to include an entry on each member of the United Nations. As a result, the 1979 report was 854 pages in length and covered 154 nations, including for the first time such countries as Cuba, China and three, which were not UN members -- North Korea, Rhodesia and Taiwan.

At this time, the basic format of the report was established. It included information on specific areas such as:

-- Respect for the Integrity of the Person, which includes torture, arbitrary arrest, denial of fair trial and invasion of the home.

-- Respect for Civil and Political Liberties, which includes freedom of speech, press, religion and assembly and freedom of movement and ability to participate in the political process.

-- Government Attitude and Record Regarding International and Non-Governmental investigations of alleged violation of human rights.

In 1980, a section was added on disappearances and in 1982 sections were added on political and extrajudicial killings. The following year, the right of citizens to change their government was added and in 1986, a new section entitled "Discrimination" based on race, sex, religion, language or social status was added along with a category on status of labor.

The first Bush administration, which took office in 1989, included a category on the use of excessive force and violation of human rights in internal conflicts while the conditions of labor section was revised to include specific discussion of the right of association and the right to organize and bargain collectively.

Conditions of labor also was included.

In 1993, the Discrimination section was expanded to include discussion of the rights of women and children, indigenous peoples, persons with disabilities, and national, racial and ethnic minorities. In 1994, Congress created the position of senior advisor on Women's Rights and in 1996, a section on refugees and final asylum was added. By 1998, the report had grown so large that it was published in two volumes. Later that year, Congress passed the International Religious Freedom Act, which mandated annual reports on the state of religious freedom in every country. In 1999, at the request of Congress, a separate section was added to the country reports on trafficking in persons.

The human rights report is facilitated by the work of U.S. embassies around the world. All sections in each embassy are asked to compile and corroborate reports of in-country human rights violations.

The initial draft of the annual report is essentially the work of the embassies, which gather information from a variety of sources throughout the year.

The final version is produced in Washington after consultation with other bureaus within the State Department and sources outside the U.S. government.

The basis for the report is internationally recognized human rights ideals detailed in the U.N. Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted in 1948.

It is significant that over the quarter century since the report was first published, it has been continually expanded by Republican and Democratic administrations alike, testimony to the essential bipartisanship demonstrated on this, more than most, issues. Not every group -- including some nongovernmental human rights organizations -- agrees with the conclusions of all of the country reports, but most concede the reporting is comprehensive and fair, as evidenced by the criticism leveled in some of the country reports against even the staunchest U.S. allies. The complaint by many NGOs is not against the accuracy of the report, but the degree to which it impacts and shapes U.S. foreign policy.

The first human rights report a quarter century ago was greeted only with mild interest and curiosity overseas. Today it is the most-sought-after foreign policy document the United States government produces. The annual Human Rights Report presents a detailed view of the status of human rights worldwide in the previous calendar year and is increasingly recognized as an important benchmark and aid in efforts to improve human rights around the globe.