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  • Human Rights and the Negotiation of American Power by Glenn Mitoma
  • Mark Oromaner
Human Rights and the Negotiation of American Power. By Glenn Mitoma. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. 2013.

In the fall of 2013, the Foreign Relations Committee of the United States Senate held hearings on the proposal that the US join the overwhelming majority of nations [End Page 188] and sign the United Nations treaty on the rights of people with disabilities. I was somewhat surprised that there was opposition to this apparent no-brainer. After all, the US prides itself on the Americans With Disabilities Act and on its implementation. Glenn Mitoma, of the Human Rights Institute of the University of Connecticut, has demonstrated that the debate to support or not to support international human rights treaties has existed within the US government since the earliest discussions concerning the founding of the United Nations in the 1940s.

The central paradox Mitoma addresses is that “while American global leadership was the essential condition for the ascendancy of human rights as an international discourse, American policy has consistency both restrained broader interpretations of human rights and held international enforcement mechanisms at arm’s length” (2). The United States and the other “Big Three” nations (United Kingdom, Soviet Union) to emerge from War World II protected their political jurisdictions from the enforcement of international human rights. For the US, this meant the exemption of the rights of African Americans; for the UK, this meant the exemption of the rights of citizens of nations within the British Empire; and for the USSR, this meant the exemption of the rights of citizens in Eastern European nations.

Although the theme of the book is the role of the US, Mitoma’s broader discussion is informative. For instance, in his examination of “The Eastern European Cases,” he points out that even during the Cold War the US failed to use international human rights as a basis for the condemnation of the suppression of religious rights in Hungary, Bulgaria, and Romania, but rather relied upon provisions of treaties that these nations had signed at the end of World War II.

While Mitoma’s narrative includes references to American leaders such as John Foster Dulles, Franklin Roosevelt, Eleanor Roosevelt, and Harry Truman, the two central players are Charles Malik of Lebanon and Carlos Romulo of the Philippines. Two of the five main chapters are devoted to these diplomatic fighters for universal human rights. Both men were educated in American schools and wished to spread their understanding of the American tradition of support for individual rights throughout the world. However, they were also vocal in pointing to the hypocrisy and contradictions between this tradition and support of colonialism and the denial of human rights for all regardless of where they lived.

Mitoma makes a major contribution to our understanding of the ambivalent position of the US concerning human rights when he introduces the important role of non-government and civil society organizations into the narrative. His in-depth and well-documented case study centers on the opposing roles of civil rights organizations, primarily the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and the American Bar Association (ABA). The terms in which this 1940s/1950s debate took place (e.g., universal rights vs. internal national sovereignty) are identical to the terms of the 2013 Senate debate concerning the rights of people with disabilities.

Issues concerning universal human rights are part and parcel of an increasingly networked and globalized society. Given the leadership role of the US in international affairs, the way in which this country approaches these issues will have a significant impact on their resolution and ultimately on that leadership role itself. Glenn Mitoma [End Page 189] has provided a highly readable and intelligent guide to the foundation on which any discussion of a universal rights ethic within the America context will take place.

Mark Oromaner
Independent Scholar, New York City
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