The Commission on Unalienable Rights will advise Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in a move that has surprised and puzzled human rights activists. | Chris J. Ratcliffe/Getty Images foreign policy State Department to launch new human rights panel stressing 'natural law'

The Trump administration plans to launch a new panel to offer "fresh thinking” on international human rights and “natural law,” a move some activists fear is aimed at narrowing protections for women and members of the LGBT community.

The new body, to be called the Commission on Unalienable Rights, will advise Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, according to a notice the State Department quietly published Thursday on the Federal Register.


“The Commission will provide fresh thinking about human rights discourse where such discourse has departed from our nation's founding principles of natural law and natural rights,” states the notice, which is dated May 22.

Several human rights activists said Thursday that they were surprised by the move and trying to learn details. Some privately said they worry that talk of the “nation’s founding principles” and “natural law” are coded signals of plans to focus less on protecting women and LGBT people.

The word “natural” in such context is often interpreted to mean “God-given,” a phrasing that is less common in modern human rights literature but which could signal a religious component, experts said.

Activists and former U.S. officials noted that the Trump administration’s record on human rights so far is spotty at best.

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“Many in the human rights community will welcome an opportunity to advise the Trump Administration on where its policies contradict America’s founding principles. There will be much to discuss,” said Rob Berschinski, a top official with Human Rights First.

The State Department already has an entire bureau devoted to the issues of human rights, democracy and labor, and it was not clear whether officials in that bureau were involved or even aware of the plans for the new commission.

The top State Department contact listed on the notice was Kiron Skinner, Pompeo's director of policy planning. Her team acts like an in-house think tank that considers long-term foreign policy strategy.

Skinner drew criticism recently for seeming to suggest that China, a rising power, is such a fundamentally different culture from the United States that arguments about human rights may not have much effect in dialogue with Beijing. Skinner’s defenders have argued she is a serious thinker who probably simply stumbled in trying to articulate her point.

State Department officials were not able to offer details about the planned commission on Thursday.

But in remarks to reporters after this article was first published, Pompeo said the goal of the panel was to sort out “how do we connect up what it is we’re trying to achieve throughout the world, and how do we make sure that we have a solid definition of human rights upon which to tell all our diplomats around the world.”

“It was a project that I wanted to proceed on, and it’s an important review of how we think about human rights inside of our efforts in diplomacy,” he said. He added that while the panel is separate from the human rights bureau, it is “deeply connected” to that bureau’s work.

Former top U.S. officials who dealt with rights issues expressed puzzlement over the commission’s creation.

“On the one hand it’s commendable that the secretary wants to place more emphasis on these issues, given that the administration to date has not been very outspoken on them,” said David Kramer, who served as the assistant secretary of State for human rights under the administration of Republican President George W. Bush. “On the other hand, I’m not sure what this commission is supposed to do that the human rights bureau doesn’t already do.”

“I don’t think this is the advisory committee for expanding rights,” quipped Tom Malinowski (D-N.J.), a congressman who held the same assistant secretary role in the administration of President Barack Obama.

Generally speaking, President Donald Trump and his aides have de-emphasized the role of human rights in their foreign policy, raising the issue only selectively — typically to raise pressure on countries considered adversaries.

The Republican administration has, for instance, highlighted the plight of female activists seeking more freedom in Iran, a longtime U.S. nemesis, but largely ignored similar challenges facing such activists in Saudi Arabia, a longtime U.S. ally.

The administration has made promoting religious freedom overseas a high priority, a move that has delighted Trump’s many evangelical Christian supporters.

But the administration also has rolled back domestic regulations aimed at protecting members of the LGBT community, especially those who are transgender.

It also has cut down sections about women’s reproductive rights in the State Department’s annual human rights report and made attempts to eliminate references to “sexual and reproductive health” in U.N. documents.

According to the notice posted Thursday, the new commission will meet at least once a month. It is not clear who will serve on the panel or when their appointments will take effect, but activists and former U.S. officials noted that its composition will greatly affect the policies it promotes.