Human Rights and Obama’s Policies in the Arab World
A year after President Obama called for a new beginning in U.S. relations with the Muslim world, it is still unclear how important human rights are for Washington’s policies in the Arab countries. While the recently released National Security Strategy includes the promotion of democracy and human rights abroad as a core foreign policy value, there are lingering questions as to how this will translate into action. Is it possible for the U.S. administration to engage strategically with governments in the region and consistently defend human rights?
Michael Posner, assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights and Labor, will discuss the role of human rights in the National Security Strategy at an event cosponsored by the Carnegie Endowment and Heinrich Boll Foundation. Two leading Arab human rights advocates—Bahey El Din Hassan of the Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies and Amal Basha of the Sisters' Arab Forum for Human Rights in Yemen—will discuss the human rights situation in the region. Carnegie's Michele Dunne will moderate.
A light lunch will be served.
Michael Posner
Michael H. Posner is the assistant secretary of State for the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor. Prior to joining State Department, Posner was the executive director and then president of Human Rights First. Posner played a key role in proposing and campaigning for the first U.S. law providing for political asylum, which became part of the Refugee Act of 1980. In 1998, he led the Human Rights First delegation to the Rome conference at which the statute of the International Criminal Court was adopted. Posner also has been a prominent voice in support of fair, decent, and humane working conditions in factories throughout the global supply chain.
Bahey El Din Hassan
Bahey El Din Hassan is the director of the Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies, an independent regional non-governmental organization founded in 1993 to promote respect for the principles of human rights and democracy. Hassan is also a member of the Board of the EuroMed Human Rights Foundation and is a lecturer and author of several articles and papers on human rights and democracy in the Arab region. He has edited several books in Arabic, including Bastion of Impunity, Mirage of Reform, CIHRS Annual Report on the Human Rights in the Arab Region for 2009, From Exporting Terrorism to Exporting Repression, CIHRS Annual Report on the Human Rights in the Arab Region for 2008, and Arabs between Oppression Inside and Injustice Abroad.
Amal Basha
Amal Basha is the chairperson for Sisters Arab Forum for Human Rights, Sana’a, Yemen. A long time human right’s advocate, she received the Al-Saee'd Cultural Foundation Annual Prize and Golden Shield for distinguished work in human rights in 2007.
