Laura Bush on Human Rights? Oh, please

On Wednesday, December 10, Laura Bush will address the Council on Foreign Relations in New York on the occasion of the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Sigh. Mrs. Bush may have made occasional, anodyne comments about human rights, but she has certainly demonstrated no significant leadership in this domain over the course of her husband's eight years in office -- eight of the most damaging years to American human rights policy in the postwar period. What was CFR thinking? Since one First Lady helped draft the UDHR, let's invite another one to talk about it? But Laura Bush ain't no Eleanor Roosevelt.

The lack of a serious speaker on this important topic, and on this important day, suggests a real flaw in the Council's own analysis of the role human rights plays in international affairs today. Why not organize an event about how non-governmental organizations just helped bring into being the most significant arms control treaty in a decade -- the ban on cluster munitions being signed in Oslo this week? Several foreign ministers and senior ambassadors have publicly credited the human rights movement for generating the critical momentum, the expertise, and the intellectual leadership behind this new piece of international law. That's one of the most interesting transformations in US foreign policy in the last 60 years, thanks in part to the vibrancy of the ideas enunciated in the Universal Declaration itself -- foreign policy is no longer the exclusive preserve of men in governments. Or their wives, for chrissakes.