Human Rights: A Decent Respect for Public Opinion?

The last few decades have brought an explosion of concern for human rights. This increased attention, evidenced by common parlance, political rhetoric, and academic interest, has been loosely explained by a number of factors. The United Nations' concern for human rights and the subsequent embodiment of human rights principles into international law is sometimes cited. In the United States, the credit is alternatively given to presidential interest, congressional action, bureaucratic institutionalization, and the growth of nongovernmental organizations. Others have posited that advances in rapid communication have spurred the interest in the topic. While obviously none of these explanations stands alone, none explicitly considers the connection between the surge of interest in human rights, the chosen cause or explanation, and its relationship to public opinion. Yet this connection is of obvious importance. One of the hard-learned lessons of international relations is that, in the long run, a foreign policy must reflect the values of its constituent people. Evidence over the last two decades also indicates that, while government rhetoric and policy may espouse human rights values, criticism of human rights violations in other nations depends primarily on the degree to which the foreign government is considered friendly or politically important. Such states, even those with atrocious human rights records, tend to be immune from criticism or sanction unless public opinion at home demands it. In general, the pattern has been that governments take action only when public opinion in their own countries is aroused.' If this is the case, it would certainly be valuable