Human rights organizations went on a public relations blitz this summer as the U.S. State Department’s Commission on Unalienable Rights first released the draft, and then final version, of its report. These same groups have been vocal opponents of the commission— which I serve on as rapporteur—from the start, anointing themselves the only true guardians of human rights as soon as Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced its formation last year. Now that the commission has produced something deliverable, nongovernmental organizations say they feel vindicated. Pulling no punches, Kenneth Roth, the executive director of Human Rights Watch, slammed the report in an Aug. 27 article in Foreign Policy as “a frontal assault on international human rights law.”
Roth is an influential figure in the world of human rights advocacy, so his statements carry weight. But, in this case, he and like-minded activists are victims of their own ideological blinders. By any objective measure, the only assault has been a misguided, rhetorical one on the part of those entities that, in virtually all domains save this one, advocate for anti-bullying and the free expression of unorthodox views. To see why their feigned outrage falls flat, it is necessary to consider how the commission report was written, why certain emphases are present, and what the text, on a close read, actually says.
