Law Commons^™

Human Rights Reporting As Human Rights Governance, Margaret E. Mcguiness

Faculty Publications

Contrary to the view that the rejection of human rights treaty membership has left the United States outside the formal international human rights system, the United States has played a key role in international human rights governance through congressionally mandated human rights monitoring and reporting. Since the mid-1970s, congressional oversight of human rights diplomacy, which requires reporting on global human rights practices, has integrated international human rights law and norms into the execution of U.S. foreign policy. While the congressional human rights mandates have drifted from their original purpose to condition allocation of foreign aid, they have effectively embedded international …

Congressional Enforcement Of International Human Rights, Margaret E. Mcguiness

Faculty Publications

(Excerpt)

On October 2, 2018, Jamal Khashoggi, a Saudi journalist based in the United States, walked into the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, Turkey, where he was brutally murdered and dismembered by Saudi government agents. It was a brazen violation of the most fundamental, internationally recognized human rights, carried out by one close US ally in the territory of another close ally. The US intelligence community quickly determined that the Saudi government and its Crown Prince, Mohammed Bin Salman, were responsible for the killing. Members of Congress briefed by the intelligence community accepted that conclusion, and on October 10, 2018, a …