ABSTRACT
This chapter aims to explain how the George W. Bush Administrations have applied human rights selectively in foreign policy, thereby contradicting the necessary conditions for human rights defined in terms of universal and impartial application. The criterion adopted by the administrations to interpret human rights abuses has not been an independent assessment of violations but instead the broader political context in which they have occurred and in particular, the predetermined identities of the actors involved in the abuse. This approach is hostile to the notion that all people have fundamental inalienable rights since it subordinates human rights to political contingencies.
