*EPF306 02/25/2004
Transcript: Annual Human Rights Reports an Effective Tool, U.S. Official Says
(Interview with Assistant Secretary of State Craner) (1540)

The annual U.S. Human Rights Reports are a vital tool in the fight for human rights, says Lorne Craner, assistant secretary of state for Democracy, Human Rights and Labor. The 2003 edition of the congressionally mandated Country Reports on Human Rights Practices was released on February 25.

"People refer back to them when issues of human rights or democracy are being discussed," Craner said of the reports during a February 22 Washington File interview. "Clearly the reports are beginning to be seen as a volume of record."

Violations of human rights are no longer tolerated by modern society, and the Human Rights Reports, which are read around the world, create an incentive for countries to make improvements, Craner said. "It is no longer acceptable in the world to have a bad human rights record like it was 30 or 40 years ago," he said.

The United States does not issue a report on its own human rights situation, Craner said, noting that it would be impossible to create an unbiased report on one's own country. But he also noted that a number of countries already produce human rights reports on the United States.

The 2003 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices can be found at:
http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2003/index.htm

Following is a transcript of the interview:

(begin transcript)

February 22, 2004

Interview with Assistant Secretary of State Lorne Craner on the
2003 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices

QUESTION: How and when did the annual human rights reports come into existence?

CRANER: The U.S. Congress [in the mid 1970's] felt that there needed to be the introduction of more human rights issues into the formulation of American foreign policy. And Congress thought both creating the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor and publishing the human rights report, which would go through the human rights issues that exist in each country, would focus peoples' minds on what needed to be done in the area of human rights diplomatically and otherwise to help improve human rights.

Q: How is the decision made as to which countries will be included in the report, and what is the key purpose of identifying these countries?

A: In this report, all countries that are members of the U.N. must be included, but we also include all the other countries that aren't members of the U.N. as well. We also produce a second report ["Supporting Human Rights and Democracy"] that discusses how the United States is working to make improvements in countries. And that does not include as many nations.

But in the Country Reports on Human Rights, it was made clear that all countries were to be included. So, I report on human rights violations in North Korea and Cuba, but I'm also required to report on human rights issues in Sweden and Canada, and the United Kingdom.

Q: Why doesn't the United States issue a Human Rights Report on itself?

A: We don't think we can be unbiased about the situation in our own country. This year, for example the Iraq report only covers events through April because we're an occupying power there so we decided not to go beyond that time period. But I note there are a number of countries that already do, or are starting to do their own reports that include the United States, and I look forward to reading them.

Q: How does the report influence countries with poor marks in human rights to improve their record?

A: Because the report is circulated within countries, it creates an incentive for countries to improve their human rights record, if they have any inclination to do so. There are some countries that clearly aren't interested in improving their human rights record, but there aren't that many around the world anymore.

It is no longer acceptable in the world community to have a bad human rights record like it was 30 or 40 years ago. Now, where countries are presented with evidence, at the very least, they make excuses, but most of them try to make improvements. And we think that that is a good thing.

I am always stunned by how many people read this report. It is the most read report that the State Department produces. I am also amazed at the level at which it is read. I have had prime ministers wave a country report in my face to talk about it.

Q: And for countries working to improve their human rights record, once the country begins to address key problems, is change immediately visible, or does it take time to see improvements?

A: Some changes are immediately visible. In some countries, the leader will decide they want their legacy to be not only that they fed their people, or that they tried to make health care better, but also that they opened up the political system. So you have some countries where the leader decides that he's going to have an election that comes close to or actually meets international standards thereby making improvements.

It is more often the case that change will take time. For example, a country may decide to let the Red Cross in to see their prisons, or they will invite a U.N. special rapporteur on a particular issue to come to their country. And then they will work over the next two or three years in a very sincere fashion to try and alleviate those problems.

Obviously, if you have a revolution, as happened with the fall of the Soviet Union, it can happen a lot quicker. But then it's not in the purview of the leaders.

Q: Are there any human rights issues this year that stand out among others? Any dramatic changes in countries that at one time had poor marks in the report?

A: I think if you look at the history since we started writing these reports, you would see a dramatic improvement in a large number of countries. Twenty-five or 30 years ago, there were perhaps 30 countries in the world that could be called democracies. They were Japan, Australia, countries in Western Europe, and a few in the Western Hemisphere. Today you have about 120 countries that one could describe as democracies. So if you look over the history of the reports you see for most countries there has been dramatic improvement. The reports actually chronicle things getting better both in democracy and in human rights.

Q: Does the protection of human rights ever conflict with other important issues such as safeguarding national security?

A: We have tried, and I think been successful at ensuring, especially after September 11th, that human rights is wrapped into national security. There was a time when people thought the two conflicted.

There was a time during the Cold War from the mid-1970s until 1990 when we tried to make human rights a factor in winning the Cold War. And, in fact, a lot of people will tell you that is part of why we won the Cold War. If you look at where we were in the mid-1970s in terms of winning the Cold War, we were in a rather rotten spot, in part because people had ignored human rights.

So it's clear to us, and it's clear to most people that if you want the United States to be more secure, having more democratic nations is a very important way to do that. Having populations in those countries that say "When we weren't free, the United States tried to help us and we may not agree with the U.S. on everything, but we'll never forget that they tried to help make us free."

And you can gain yourself generations of friendship from countries by doing that. If you look at the Middle East Partnership Initiative, if you look at the President's speech on democracy in the Middle East, if you look at the millennium challenge account -- they're all centered around the idea that we can make ourselves more secure if we try to help other countries improve human rights and improve democracy in other countries.

Q: Is there anything else you would like to add?

A: We spend an enormous amount of time on these reports and a lot of work out in the field goes into these reports. I have a staff who do an outstanding job here in the Democracy, Human Rights and Labor Bureau and we try to make them as honest and sincere as we can. I think over the last couple of years, we've been doing that. We're trying now, also, to make them as clear and readable as possible so that they become more and more of a factor in policy debates. And I must say, even the two years I've been here, I've seen them quoted very often in policy debates. And people refer back to them when issues of human rights or democracy are being discussed. So clearly the reports are coming to be seen as a volume of record, and not just something that is produced once a year and put up on a dusty shelf.

(end transcript)

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

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