Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announces the formation of the Commission on Unalienable Rights during a news conference at the Department of State on Monday. | Mark Wilson/Getty Images Foreign Policy Mike Pompeo unveils panel to examine 'unalienable rights'

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Monday unveiled a new Commission on Unalienable Rights, a panel he said is aimed at providing him with “an informed review of the role of human rights in American foreign policy.”

The panel will be headed up by Mary Ann Glendon, a Harvard law professor and former ambassador to the Vatican under George W. Bush. Glendon is also a social conservative who has been a prominent anti-abortion voice, which could lend credence to the concerns among human rights activists that the commission is a ploy to undercut LGBTQ and women’s rights under the guise of religious liberty.


In remarks at the State Department on Monday, Pompeo noted that “words like ‘rights’ can be used by good or evil,” decrying how some have “hijacked” human rights rhetoric to be used for “dubious or malignant purposes.”

Glendon, in brief comments, echoed that, telling reporters that "basic human rights are misunderstood by many, manipulated by many, and ignored by the world’s worst human rights violators."

“Every once in a while we need to step back, and reflect seriously on where we are, where we’ve been and whether we’re headed in the right direction,” Pompeo said. He hailed former first lady Eleanor Roosevelt’s 1948 Declaration on Universal Human Rights as one of the foundational documents for the commission’s work, but noted that the panel would serve as advisers as opposed to policymakers.

While Pompeo was vague in laying out what exactly the panel will do, emphasizing its focus on “principles” over “policy,” he praised its members as those he hoped would facilitate "one of the most profound reexaminations of the unalienable rights in the world since the 1948 universal declaration."

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The commission will be made up of 10 members who represent a range of religious backgrounds. Many are religious scholars, with at least one other joining Glendon in having been appointed to represent the Vatican on social issues in the past. One, Hamza Yusuf, is one of the founders of the first Muslim liberal arts college in America. Another, Christopher Tollefsen, specializes in moral philosophy, natural law ethics, practical ethics and bioethics.

Pompeo indicated that the panel could also be used in part to rein in overzealous invocations of human rights, suggesting the group “revisit the most basic of questions: What does it mean to say or claim that something is in fact a human right?”

“How do we know — or how do we determine — whether that claim ... is it true and therefore ought it to be honored? How can there be human rights rights we possess, not as privileges we are granted or even earn, but simply by virtue of our humanity belong to us?” he asked. “Is it in fact true, as our Declaration of Independence asserts, that as human beings we — all of us, every member of our human family — are endowed by our creator with certain unalienable rights?”

In an op-ed published Monday morning in the Wall Street Journal, the secretary expressed hope that the group would “reorient” institutions like the UN “back to their original missions.”

“Many have embraced and even accelerated the proliferation of rights claims—and all but abandoned serious efforts to protect fundamental freedoms,” he wrote, complaining that “human-rights advocacy has lost its bearings and become more of an industry than a moral compass.”

Reactions to the new panel were split on Monday. In a statement cheering Pompeo‘s formation of the commission, Tony Perkins, head of the conservative Christian group Family Research Council, said that the panel would be useful in light of governments like Cuba, China and Iran who the group said "have wormed their way onto 'human rights commissions' in their search for international legitimacy."

"Other special interest groups have sought to expand the definition of a 'human right' to include virtually anything. If everything is a human right then the term begins to have little meaning," he said.

In addition, Perkins added, the commission would further promote religious liberty abroad, which he hailed as the "foundation for all other human rights."

Amnesty International, meanwhile, accused Pompeo of using the panel to politicize human rights and pointed to the Trump administration’s rollback of rights for LGBTQ citizens.

"If this administration truly wanted to support people's rights, it would use the global framework that's already in place. Instead, it wants to undermine rights for individuals, as well as the responsibilities of governments," said Joanne Lin, the group’s national director of advocacy and government affairs. "This approach only encourages other countries to adopt a disregard for basic human rights standards and risks weakening international, as well as regional frameworks, placing the rights of millions of people around the world in jeopardy."

And at least one religious group said it was viewing the commission’s formation with skepticism. Rori Kramer, director of government affairs for the American Jewish World Service, criticized Pompeo for employing what she called a “narrow view of religion as a means to undermine the ecumenical belief of respecting the dignity of every person.”

Kramer argued that Pompeo “clearly illustrated” the panel “will be used to question the very notion that basic human rights are inherent in all individuals.”

A pair of congressional Democrats also ripped the commission.

House Foreign Affairs Chairman Eliot Engel said in a statement Monday that the new panel amounted to an end-run around established structures within the department, and touted an amendment in a House spending bill passed last month that would block funding for "this bizarre effort."

He claimed that the group Pompeo had selected would "give preference to discriminatory ideologies that would narrow protections for women, including on reproductive rights; for members of the LGBTQI community; and for other minority groups," and he hit the secretary for providing little information regarding plans for the commission.

And Sen. Bob Menendez, the top ranking Democrat on the Foreign Relations Committee, called Pompeo's claims that human rights had been manipulated "absurd" and asserted the new commission would only weaken human rights.

"President Trump’s personal affection for gross human rights violators has stained America’s moral fabric," he said, pointing to the president's praise for leaders such as North Korea's Kim Jong Un and the Philippines' Rodrigo Duterte. "No Trump Administration commission can erase that."

