Human Rights

This essay examines the perspectives of three eminent Christian leaders—Ambassador Charles Malik, Father Richard John Neuhaus, and Reverend Dietrich Bonhoeffer. They were shaped by different theological traditions (Greek Orthodox, Catholic, and Lutheran, respectively), but each wrestled with the political, cultural, and moral crises of their times according to their Christian convictions.

The international human rights community should protest the arbitrary imprisonment of the Aksu couple rigorously since they are descendants of a people who have been historically persecuted, violated, and subject to genocide.

The Burmese military is the primary perpetrator of violence against Rohingya. Villages in Maungdaw township on the border with Bangladesh are almost completely empty because Rohingya fled the brutal violence. The United Nations is calling it a textbook case of ethnic cleansing, and Human Rights Watch believes it may constitute crimes against humanity.

The Kurdish independence movement gives the United States a unique opportunity to support a government as it transitions towards democracy and becomes a viable Middle Eastern partner within a region of chaos.

For a century American foreign policy has often purportedly seesawed between cold focus on American interests through realpolitik or high-minded advocacy of democracy and human rights.

Every president faces a devil’s choice between stability and security on the one hand and our founding values on the other.

Regardless of the ethnicity of the women in the CNN documentary, the fact remains that child sex trafficking is a problem in Cambodia.

Truths about human rights have, indeed, been discovered in the West, but are not the property of the West and do not apply only in the West. But Trump implied that these were simply local, particular, and culturally-specific “values.”

As President Trump seeks to reel back the role of the US in the world and disengage with multilateral initiatives that don’t fit his strong “America first” ideology, a coherent approach to foreign policy and human rights needs to be reestablished.