Congressional Enforcement of International Human Rights
If it were ever true that the United States speaks with “one voice” when it comes to foreign affairs, the Trump turnabout on human rights rhetoric might mark an endpoint to US human rights diplomacy. But the United States has never spoken with “one voice” on the subject of international human rights. Indeed, since the beginning of the international human rights era in the 1950s, the United States has spoken with multiple voices, which have only infrequently been in harmony with one another.109 Any effective restoration of a robust role for the United States in human rights governance will require a president who returns to a rhetorical commitment to human rights—or at least does not actively seek to undermine human rights. Such presidential policy is necessary but not sufficient to meaningful human rights governance. At the national level, it has been Congress, not the judiciary, that has served to both hamper and promote the role of the United States in international human rights governance. Without appropriations, active oversight of executive branch human rights diplomacy, and other congressional lawmaking in support of robust human rights governance, a return to presidential leadership on human rights will fall short. Congress holds the keys to any restoration of US leadership in human rights governance. And the Khashoggi case is recent evidence that, in the wake of President’s Trump’s undermining of human rights diplomacy, Congress may be reawakening to its role.
Recommended Citation: Margaret E. McGuinness, Congressional Enforcement of International Human Rights, 44 Fordham Int'l L.J. 9 (2020).