ABSTRACT
One of the dominant problems in human rights is the discrepancy between claims about human rights and political practices. On the one hand, we in the United States have widely proclaimed support for human rights normsthrough various international declarations and covenants that we have signed and ratified, the stated goals of our foreign policy, and through the widespread support of various non-governmental agencies and organizations, like Amnesty International and Doctors Without Borders. Yet on the other hand, our political practices and policies undermine our explicit adherence to these norms. Internationally, we regularly support regimes that violate human rights norms, and nationally, we have failed to secure a life of dignity for millions of citizens who lack health care, access to decent education, and a basic level of subsistence. More alarming, we have consistently failed to come to the aid of peoples experiencing gross human rights violations such as genocide. We have only to think of the situation in Darfur to see this at its worst.
