Woodrow Wilson and Human Rights

Woodrow Wilson and Human Rights The issue of human rights is to this day one of the most important aspects of international law and often seen as the cornerstone of international cooperation and the basis of legal adjustments on a constant basis.

However, despite the fact that this issue is on the front pages of most newspapers almost on a daily basis nowadays, the human rights movement traces its roots to the beginning of the 20th century, in Woodrow Wilson's idealism and its promotion of equality among states as a matter of right and an issue of international law. To this day, elements of the Monroe Doctrine are present in the foreign policy approach of the United States, from the Cold War approaches to the Obama reactions to the Arab Spring.

The Monroe Doctrine was not a very effective or pivotal document in the history of the American continents. The United States, at the time, did not possess a strong navy or army. While the Latin American revolutionaries at the time, most notably Simon Bolivar, saw the Monroe Doctrine as considerate but useless. The document was also vulnerable to many different interpretations.

The Roosevelt Corollary assumed that the "chronic wrongdoing...may in America, as elsewhere, ultimately require intervention by some civilized nation " By taking this role, the United States officially shifted in its position from a political entity to an international police and superpower. While this was not the first case that the United States attempted to establish political dominance over the American continents, it was the most notable one and would continue to affect United States foreign policy throughout the twentieth century.

Many, such as Noam Chomsky, have stated that the Monroe Doctrine, especially aspects such as the Roosevelt Corollary, was created purely to establish the United States as the continental hegemony. The global campaign of President Wilson in championing the silent dominant group, paved way for the American human rights and democracy foreign policy. This shaped up in the wake of the twentieth century. Wilsonian statutes resounded obviously in the Atlantic Charter message.

Although it was proclaimed by Franklin Roosevelt (the intellectual beneficiary of Wilson), it showed U.S.' disappointment with the absence of power for colonized individuals. The concern for the declaration of democracy and human rights is in this manner a segment of this legacy of the foreign policy of the U.S., towards the African continent. The striking nature of these ethical standards in foreign policy practice has been stable despite the realistic foundation of U.S.' strategy. This was evident during the Cold War.

The status of such thoughts in the post-Cold War United States foreign policy remains an open question. Nevertheless, the Monroe Doctrine was one of the first public statements made on the issue of state equality as a matter of right and not as an indulgence. More precisely, at the Pan American Union in December 1913, President Wilson announced that the Monroe Doctrine was unfolding into a new doctrine as the Wilson Doctrine of Pan Americanism.

In this sense, the president stated, "We must prove ourselves their friends and champions upon terms of equality and honor. You cannot be friends upon any other terms than upon the terms of equality " (p186). This statement proved that President Wilson at the time had set the grounds for a new foreign policy type, one that was based on the issue of equality among states, an aspect that would later on be at the foundation of the National League, the precedent of the United Nations.

This important factor in the way the U.S. foreign policy shifted from the Monroe Doctrine iterated the interest of the U.S. In the entire hemisphere. From Wilson's point-of-view, the consideration of all states as being equal was the basis of an honorable foreign policy. The United States was morally obliged to follow it.

This desire for equality did not manifest itself solely at the level of the foreign policy, but also at the national level as President Wilson was a strong supporter of equality of race and gender The historical events following the end of the First World War were the most influential and crucial to U.S.' foreign approach and its view on the issue of state and human rights.

On the international scene, the creation of the Soviets was a clear proof of human rights, among which of the critical, the right to self-determination that was demanded by most European states, including Greece, Hungary, Poland, or Romania (p18). At the same time though, the threat of communism was essential for re-drafting the U.S. foreign policy not necessarily by changing the basis of its democratic principles but rather by prioritizing the directions of its foreign policy.

At the Yalta Conference in 1945, the United States had allowed the Soviet Union to continue to occupy the Eastern European nations mentioned in the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, an agreement between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union if the Soviets would implement free elections. Churchill believed that Stalin would be true to his word, claiming that while "Poor Neville Chamberlain believed he could trust Hitler. He was wrong.

But I don't think I'm wrong about Stalin (Berthon & Potts 2007)." Although it was evident several years later that elections in the Eastern Bloc were being rigged in order to establish communist governments, the United States, nor did its allies intervene, fearing direct conflict with the Soviet Union. This may have made the United States' to shift their foreign policy towards and anti-communist stance, regardless of Wilson's fourteen points, in order to ward off the expansion of Soviet communism the U.S.

supported dictators with a record of human rights abuses as long as they declared themselves anti-communists (Galvan, 2012). Although it may have been a proper path to follow in the beginning, the U.S. created precedents that would reverberate during the Cold War and even after later. Wilsonianism Shelved: U.S. Policy to Africa and the Cold War In the 1960s, America promoted decolonization and freedom in Africa using the Wilsonianism spirit.

However, when the Cold War was the center stage of global politics, sustaining American investments and interests was seen through the fights against socialism in Africa and other parts of the world. Without a doubt, such concerns were obvious even before Africa's freedom.

After visiting the African continent, the then Vice-President Nixon illustrated that the course of development and growth in Africa could well turn out to be the unequivocal component between the forces of global communism and freedom The concerns with majority rules system and human rights sporadically surfaced in the discussions of the foreign policy adopted by the U.S. For example, the U.S. Congress enacted legislation linking military and economic support to human rights and democracy in the early sixties.

Section 116 among the provisions of the 1961 Foreign Aid Act denied the President from providing development support to countries, which participated in a consistent trend of violent infringement of universally recognized human rights. The Congressional Foreign Aid Act endorsed in 1976 requires the U.S. To encourage an environment that respects human rights and democracy spaces all around the globe. U.S. security support must be released in a way that will provide and enhance human rights.

However, it must not identify the United States as promoting these programs where such nations were denying their citizens distinguished human rights and basic freedoms. These long-winded legislative endeavors must not confuse people to a situation where U.S.' foreign policy works against the statutes of Wilsonianism. The role of the U.S. In Africa during the Cold War shows recurring actions against Wilsonian idealism, which were defended and disguised to promote communism.

They include U.S.' support for fierce tyrants like Moi, Mobutu, Barre, Selassie, and Nimieri whose records of human rights were exceedingly terrible across the African continent. Many millions of dollars had to be used to eradicate socialism. For instance, weapons from the U.S. army assumed fundamental roles in conflict situations in Angola, Namibia, Ethiopia, Zaire, Somalia, Sierra Leone, Sudan, Liberia, and Uganda The succession of the U.S.' foreign policy also affirms its hesitance in supporting Wilsonian idealism.

The then President guided by key strategic interests was unable to act against provincial drives in Portuguese settlements in Africa. His concern for the key bases of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization was within the Azores. Evidently, the 1960 self-determination and decolonization-conscious resolutions of the UN that plainly inscribed Wilsonianism were not upheld by Eisenhower's administration. America was among the leading nine nations (South Africa, Australia, the Dominican Republic, Belgium, Britain, France, Spain, and Portugal) to avoid voting in the United Nations' General Assembly.

The abstention unmistakably showed that the U.S. authorized racial segregation, oppression and the gross Human Rights violation across the African continent by the colonization powers. U.S. vacillation on the question of Rhodesian was also a reasonable indication of a reluctance to promote human rights policies and democracy in Africa.

Although the organizations of the then presidents were usually focused on the issue of politically sanctioned racial discrimination in Southern Africa, the War in Vietnam took much of their time Although Johnson's administration upheld the UN financial sanctions against the white administration in Rhodesia because of the human rights violation, President Nixon allowed the U.S.' Union Carbide to engage in a trade. The company imported an estimated 145,000 tons of chromium mineral from Rhodesia.

Additionally, Nixon's Administration also expanded military help to South Africa resulting in the violation of the ban by the UN. This policy obviously put the U.S. As an afterthought of the South African white administration of backing the human rights violations, which were part Wilson's frameworks. The policies of the Ford and Nixon systems of Administrations that wanted to replace Wilsonianism with the national security only upgraded existing conditions in the area. The patterns in foreign policy conduct encountered continuous and conflicting shifts during Carter's Administration between1977 to1981.

Carter won the Vietnam War Watergate but the weary scandal tormented Republican Administration by expanding domestic constituency supporters dissatisfied with the Cold War. His new vision de-accentuated the perspective conceptualizing Africa's conflicts within the socialist adventuristic ideologies. For Carter, conflicts emerged as an aftereffect of social disorder, or political and socio-economic anxiety. Just like Wilson, Carter resorted to the religious and ethical virtues of the White House, which were transformed into the process of forming the U.S.' foreign policy.

The greatest concern was the manner of achieving a genuine democratic system in African. While helping him realize this target, he selected various African-Americans, who shared his perspectives to strategic foreign policy making positions It was during Carter Administration that a genuine qualitative leap that the noticeable quality of American foreign policy relating to human rights was reactivated. Although weak at first, Carter was capable of moving America far from the realpolitik of the Ford-Nixon-Kissinger regime to the practical Wilsonian ideology.

He explicitly transformed the issues of democratic governments and the fundamental rights of humanity as the main themes of global political talk. This policy initiative was sought after during the initial years of his service. This won the confidence of pro-human rights and democratic advocates in both Africa and the U.S. For instance, import and export restrictions were imposed on South Africa, Uganda, and Ethiopia.

By connecting military and economic support violations to human rights policies, Carter's Administration planned to influence the policies of the oppressive administrations in Africa Carter's idealism empowered nations in Africa to respect democracy as a pillar of promoting human rights. During his Administration, he rejected the plans by Kissinger in southern Africa as conflicting with human rights and democratic standards. However, it upheld the Front-Line States' in the anti-apartheid efforts. Carter also expanded strategic endeavors at the Angolan, Namibian, and Mozambican dictatorial regimes.

Dictatorship and racism instead of socialism were seen as the principle risk to the U.S. interests Africa. The administration also invalidated the Byrd Amendment of 1971, which permitted American organizations to import chrome from Rhodesia. Similarly, it endorsed new laws denying U.S. organizations from engaging in exchange with the white minority administrations in South Africa and constraining military sales bans on nations in Africa that violated human rights.

These moves showed Carter's Administration as the main devotee of the pro-democratic government and human rights developments in Africa and opposition to apartheid South Africa. President Carter's move from socialist realpolitik to Wilsonian idealism was evident during the Soviet attack of Afghanistan in 1979 and the recalling of the U.S. prisoners in Iran. He arranged for the U.S. army to help Afghanistan shield its citizens from the U.S.S.R.'s attack.

Besides, Carter swiftly arranged for army installations in Somali, Kenya, and Sudan in 1980 when grave violations of human rights were evident in these nations. Carter used logistical back-ups from the Rapid Deployment Joint Task Force established as a consequence of the 1979 Soviet attack on the U.S. And Afghanistan prisoners in Iran. His Administration's conflict was evident in various occasions. His principal concern was the Soviet's expectation in the African continent and his regime's firmness on the recognition of human rights.

Between the financial years 1979 and 1982, nations like Zaire turned into one of the initial Sub-Saharan African victims whose military support was lessened by Congress throughout the Administration of Carter. South Africa and Ethiopia additionally were reserved for denial and sanction of military support The Bush and Reagan Administrations saw the issue of democracy and human rights policies within the context of suppressing socialism in Africa. This was plainly symbolized in their continued support in what Reagan called "flexibility warriors" like the Angola's National Union for Independence.

The Western nations' contact group made during Carter's Administration to direct the Namibian move to freedom was softened during Reagan's Administration. In this case, Reagan created the policy of productive engagement, which focused in the perspectives of the anti-apartheid administration. The rapprochement of the U.S.-USSR, which started in 1980s paved way for the end of the Cold War. Such advancements cleared the way for the accommodative policy of Reagan's Administration to human rights policies advanced under.