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Advocacy Group Urges Biden to Strengthen US Role on Human Rights

Margaret Besheer

   NEW YORK - Human Rights Watch is urging President-elect Joe Biden to
   strengthen human rights in the United States in a way that his
   successors will not be able to reverse, while also prioritizing them in
   his administration's foreign policy.

   "Donald Trump was a disaster for human rights," HRW Executive Director
   Kenneth Roth said Wednesday at the virtual launch of the organization's
   [1]World Report 2021. But he cautioned that while the election of Joe
   Biden presents "an opportunity for fundamental change," it is not a
   panacea.

   Roth said four years of Trump's transactional foreign policy, reverence
   for autocrats, general indifference and "often hostility" to human
   rights have hurt U.S. government credibility on the issue.
   "Even though there was an occasional condemnation of human rights in
   Venezuela, Cuba, Iran, sometimes China, these rang hollow when there
   was parallel praise bestowed on the likes of Russia, Egypt, Saudi
   Arabia, or Israel," Roth said.
   The HRW report also criticizes the Trump administration for domestic
   policies, including those that separated undocumented migrant children
   from their parents, restricted access to women's reproductive health
   services and set back LGBTQ rights.
   "Biden's big challenge is not simply to reverse Trump's damage to human
   rights -- important as that is," Roth said. "But also to change the
   narrative on human rights in a more fundamental way, so that way it can
   better survive future changes in administration."
   The Trump administration did not immediately respond to the criticism
   but has portrayed itself in the past as a leading defender of human
   rights around the world.
   "At home and abroad, we continue to advocate for the universal freedoms
   of religion, speech, including for members of the press; and for the
   rights of individuals to peaceably assemble, and to petition their
   government for a redress of grievances," U.S. Ambassador to the United
   Nations in Geneva Andrew Bremberg said at a meeting in November.
   At a separate meeting in November, Bremberg said, "We remain committed
   to advancing human rights worldwide, as well as accountability for
   those who abuse those rights."

References

   1. https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2021

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