Pompeo’s new commission undermines universal human rights — just as planned

Elisa Massimino and Alexandra Schmitt explain how U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo's Commission on Unalienable Rights undermines basic human rights norms.

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Yesterday, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo unveiled the draft report of the Commission on Unalienable Rights, a group headed by former U.S. ambassador to the Vatican Mary Ann Glendon. Pompeo launched the commission last year to deal with an “urgent” human rights problem: too many people claiming too many rights.

That’s right — the burning human rights problem for the Trump administration is not that the president encouraged the construction of concentration camps for religious minorities in China, or that he legitimizes murderous dictators such as Kim Jong Un. It’s not Trump’s flagrant violation of the laws protecting refugees fleeing persecution, or that he feels a special kinship with the “very fine people” chanting “Jews will not replace us.” And it’s certainly not that black Americans are dying at the hands of police in a criminal justice system rife with institutional racism.

The above excerpt was originally published in The Washington Post. Click here to view the full article.

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