*EPF305 04/02/2003
Transcript: Craner Terms Human Rights Reports "Accurate, Comprehensive"
(Interview with assistant secretary of state) (2380)

The U.S. Human Rights Reports are regarded as the most accurate and comprehensive reports of their kind in the world today, says Lorne Craner, assistant secretary of state for democracy, human rights and labor.

"We try to treat all countries the same," Craner said. "We apply the same standards, and where we see violations, we're as honest about them with friends as we are with those like Iraq, who are our enemies."

When countries receive low marks for their human rights record, the United States tries to influence them to improve those marks first through diplomacy and secondly by working with them programmatically, he said. "But it's important in the beginning that the leadership of the country have the political will to do that," Craner added.

He said the democratic right to free elections expressed in the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights is not necessarily a pre-condition for improving human rights, but over the long term, it's the best guarantee of respect for human rights.

The United States does not do a human rights report on itself, the assistant secretary said, "because we're not the best judges, I imagine. No matter what we produced, we would be accused of being biased."

On April 1, one day after the United States released the State Department's 2002 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices, Craner expressed these views in an interview with International Information Programs writer-editor Stuart Gorin.

The 2002 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices can be found at
http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2002

Following is a transcript of the interview:

(begin transcript)

QUESTION: The annual Human Rights Report was released on March 31st. How and why did this practice begin?

ASSISTANT SECRETARY CRANER: The practice began about 27 years ago, and it was part of an effort by the Congress to ensure greater attention to human rights in American foreign policy. It came at the insistence of Congress, as did this Bureau, and I think it has served that purpose ever since.

QUESTION: What key points do you wish to make about specific countries in the annual report?

ASSISTANT SECRETARY CRANER: We have kind of a set format that we use for every country about human rights issues, like arbitrary detention, extra-judicial killings.

We've also tried to introduce, over the last couple of years, more and more issues of what I would call democratization, which is institutional change, in a lot of countries. The two usually go hand-in-hand. One can lead the other.

In a number of countries -- for example, I would cite Serbia and Peru -- where you have democratic elections and democrats come to power, they can usually improve the human rights situation greatly in their country.

So over the past, I would say six, seven, eight years, we've been paying greater attention to that within the Human Rights Reports.

QUESTION: It is alleged that the United States uses human rights selectively in its foreign policy, and some ask why the principles are not universally applied to all countries. Can you comment on that?

ASSISTANT SECRETARY CRANER: Sure. In this report, they are. The reports 10 years ago did not have the reputation that they do today. Today, they are regarded as the most accurate, comprehensive human rights reports in the world, and it was my predecessor, Harold Koh, that brought them to that standard.

One of my pledges when I came here was to keep them at that standard, and basically what that means is that we try to treat all countries the same, that we apply the same standards, and where we see violations, we're as honest about them with friends as we are with those like Iraq, who are our enemies.

QUESTION: How does the United States hope to influence countries receiving low marks to improve their human rights record?

ASSISTANT SECRETARY CRANER: Through a couple of methods.

I would say the first State Department job is diplomacy, and that is the job of me and my staff and others here at the Department and the regional bureaus, but also of the Secretary of State and the Deputy Secretary of State, trying to persuade leaders, as the Secretary has often said, that if they are going to join a world that is turning more and more democratic, that is more and more open to economic betterment from the outside, then they need to open up their societies.

And this is a message, as I've said, that everyone in the Administration carries forth, including the President.

The second method is to then help them do that, where there is political will, to work with them programmatically, to give them the expertise that they need.

It's very easy to ask somebody, for example, to improve their prison system, but if they don't know where to start, it's useful to bring in people not just from the United States, but also from other countries that have improved their systems, to talk about exactly how that can be done and how you can have the incentives for it.

But it's important in the beginning that the leadership of the country have the political will to do that.

QUESTION: Are there human rights problems in particular countries that you believe the foreign press ignores or plays down; and if so, which ones?

ASSISTANT SECRETARY CRANER: I think, in general, people have a good sense of the problems in particular countries. I think the larger a country, the more attention their human rights problems get. I think if a country is smaller, it might not get as much attention.

So I would like to see more reporting on, for example, Zimbabwe, more reporting on the human rights situation in Cuba, more reporting on the human rights situation in North Korea, as difficult as that is.

QUESTION: Is guaranteeing human rights a process with progress measurable in milestones, or should human rights be guaranteed by governments in word and deed, period?

ASSISTANT SECRETARY CRANER: I think both, is the answer. I referred earlier to political will; and where you have political will to end human rights abuses, they can be ended, but it's a process. It can't be done overnight. It can take some years.

But I would say, where you see the political will, it can be done rather quickly, and absent the political will, no amount of persuasion or programs are going to change the human rights situation in a country comprehensively.

So I would actually say the answer is both.

QUESTION: Are there any major changes in the Human Rights Report this year in terms of both content and emphasis, and are there any changes being planned for next year?

ASSISTANT SECRETARY CRANER: No major changes, I would say. We are trying to cut the growth, the level of growth in the reports.

They've grown by about 10 percent a year for many years, and we've tried, through better editing, to make them slightly shorter this year, but we didn't, I don't think, affect the quality or the content.

The only content difference I would give to you is, we're trying to improve reporting on some of the institutional changes -- rule of law -- where there are changes in some countries. The political situation in some countries, we're trying to improve reporting on that. But in general, the main issue for us is to keep the quality of the reports where they are today.

QUESTION: In recent years, especially since 9/11, some commentators have indicated that there may be a conflict between promoting human rights and safeguarding national security. Human rights has been a major component of US foreign policy, but just how major is it, in your view? Is it paramount?

ASSISTANT SECRETARY CRANER: I think it's been a major component of US foreign policy for about the last 25 years. I think [former] President [Jimmy] Carter deserves a lot of credit on the human rights side, and I think [former] President [Ronald] Reagan deserves a lot of credit on the democracy side; and I think as the years have gone on, people have seen those two as complementary.

Certainly, the last two Secretaries of State, Madelyn Albright and now Colin Powell, have made a major emphasis of human rights in foreign policy.

There's an interplay between national security and human rights. Increasingly, people understand that democracies usually are not aggressive towards other countries, that it is extremely rare for two democracies to war against each other, whereas, if you think about the countries who are fearsome around the world, you're going to be thinking about dictatorships.

In countries where people have input into their political systems, they don't feel frustrated, they don't feel a need to express their views through other, more violent means, so increasingly, people understand that there is an interplay between national security and human rights.

QUESTION: What is the connection, in your view, between democracy and human rights? Is the right to democracy, the right to elect one's leaders, as detailed in the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights, a pre-condition of all other human rights?

ASSISTANT SECRETARY CRANER: It's not necessarily a pre-condition. You could have improvements in human rights by a government that was not elected, but they will only go so far, and you will not be able to have accountability from the government.

You could have an improvement in human rights and then a diminution in human rights, and you would be able to do nothing about it in a country, whereas democracy gives you the opportunity to ensure that elected officials are accountable, and to the extent that you think human rights are important, to cast your vote for those that you think will uphold them best.

So I would say it's not an absolute pre-condition, but over the long term, it's the best guarantee of respect for human rights.

QUESTION: How would you summarize the 2002 reports? If you could give a scorecard, how would you rate the world, and then, particular areas of the world?

ASSISTANT SECRETARY CRANER: I touched a little bit on this yesterday. I talked about how, when the Human Rights Reports were first issued 27 years ago, there were not yet, I don't think, three dozen democracies in the world, and they were mostly concentrated in North America, Western Europe, with a few in Asia.

We had a meeting in Seoul, South Korea, last November, of what is called the Community of Democracies, and these are countries that have now put in democratic institutions in their countries. There were not three dozen there; there were over 100 there.

If we had tried to have that meeting 27 years ago, for example, we could not have had it in Seoul, South Korea, because at the time, it had a government that was not democratic.

So I think there's been enormous progress over the past 27 years, and I think incrementally, year by year, there is progress around the world.

You know, people often don't think of Africa as having many democracies. In fact, there are over a dozen in Africa that are showing their way and their conditions to others on the continent. None of the countries in Africa that are democracies have had a famine since they became democracies.

I think if you look at Asia, you're seeing more and more countries becoming more and more democratic. Indonesia went through a transition. South Korea, I mentioned. Taiwan has gone through a great transition over the past 20 years. Thailand has undergone a democratic transition.

So I think you're seeing more and more improvement around the world, simply because people recognize democracy is the best guarantor, both of human rights but also of economic success. Governments that want to be re-elected have to produce economic success.

QUESTION: Many foreign journalists ask why the United States does not do a Human Rights Report on itself. Why doesn't it?

ASSISTANT SECRETARY CRANER: Well, because we're not the best judges, I imagine. No matter what we produced, we would be accused of being biased.

I know that there are other countries that have thought of doing this. I understand Sweden has now begun to do a Human Rights Report, and I would have a great interest in seeing such a product.

QUESTION: The annual meeting of the UN Human Rights Commission is now taking place in Geneva. What are your hopes for the meeting this year, and will the US approach be based on the conclusions made in the Human Rights Report?

ASSISTANT SECRETARY CRANER: Our hope for the meeting this year is that it be better than the last year or two. The UN Human Rights Commission, we hope, has hit rock bottom.

This year, Libya was elected the Chair of the Human Rights Commission. There are now 19 or 20 countries that are undemocratic, on a 53-member commission.

So our hope is that this year will be better than last year, both in terms of the seriousness with which people are approaching human rights situations in other countries, but also in terms of the membership.

There is certainly a place on the Human Rights Commission for countries with different views of human rights than those shared increasingly by the rest of the world, but we don't think a third to a half of the Commission is the proper place for countries like that.

As far as the conclusions made in the Human Rights Report, yes, we've already, I think, seen in a number of cases both the arguments we make and the speeches we give based largely on information from the Human Rights Reports.

QUESTION: Are there any other points that you would like to make?

ASSISTANT SECRETARY CRANER: We look for feedback on the Human Rights Reports. We're always looking to improve them. Where people see, validly, things that can be changed, we look forward to receiving that information.

We discourage countries or people from giving us incomplete information and asking us to change reports based on incomplete or false information. We do want to continue to improve the quality of these reports, and we're very much committed to that.

(end transcript)

(Distributed by the Office of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)

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