Summary

• Pursuing human rights and democracy is essential to success in the war on terrorism and to overall efforts to secure peace. It is, however, a long-term process. Balancing must always be done between those long-term goals and immediate needs, including ending the terrorist threat.
• Democracy, a pillar of respect for the rights and value of each individual, remains key to obtaining lasting peace and a resolution to a number of scourges that face the world today, including terrorism, famine, corruption, and refugee flows.
• The war on terrorism has brought specific changes to how policymakers think. There is a greater focus on the Muslim world. The United States is developing new relationships with nations that will allow new dialogue on human rights. In the U.S. government and among the American public there is also a heightened awareness of the importance of foreign affairs.
• These changes provide opportunities to further fundamental goals, including the advancement of human rights and democracy. However, there is a difference between knowing what needs to be done and being effective in its application.
• Winning hearts and minds through the battle of ideas is a critical element of the war on terrorism. This involves doing a better job of explaining universal concepts of human rights, including labor rights. It also involves providing people with the means to turn those ideas into reality in their own societies. There is an important role for trade and business specialists in this process. The U.S. government must improve its capabilities in these areas.
• The United States must stay the course in order to succeed. Military victory alone is not sufficient. In addition to winning the military and ideological battles, the United States and the international community must devote substantial resources to rebuilding failed states affected by the war, most immediately Afghanistan. Failure to do so would undermine progress and could create conditions that foster new wars and new threats to international security. The United Nations must play a leading role in Afghanistan's post-war political transition and reconstruction.

About the Report

As part of its Human Rights Implementation Project, the United States Institute of Peace held a symposium on Capitol Hill last fall. It focused primarily on how the United States's traditional commitment to advancing human rights and democracy fits into the new order created by the war on terrorism.

Speakers included President Jimmy Carter; Ambassador Max M. Kampelman; Professor Shibley Telhami, University of Maryland; Morton Halperin, senior fellow, Council on Foreign Relations; Andrew Natsios, administrator, U.S. Agency for International Development; Stephen J. Solarz, senior counselor, APCO Worldwide; Lorne Craner, assistant secretary of state for democracy, human rights, and labor.

Elliott Abrams, senior director for democracy, human rights, and international operations, National Security Council; Professor John Norton Moore, University of Virginia; John Kamm, executive director, Dui Hua Foundation; William Clatanoff, assistant U.S. trade representative for labor; Holly Burkhalter, advocacy director, Physicians for Human Rights; and Marc Leland, president, Marc Leland & Associates. Also featured were Congressmen Tom Lantos and Frank Wolf, co-directors of the Congressional Human Rights Caucus.

This report was prepared by Kathy Ward under the direction of Debra Liang-Fenton, program officer in the USIP's Research and Studies Program.

The views expressed in this report do not necessarily reflect those of the United States Institute of Peace, which does not advocate specific policies.