ABSTRACT
Bilateral human rights policies emerged along with the maturing of the global human rights regime. The expression of a “natural” internal inclination to pursue human rights in foreign policy was in fact greatly facilitated, and in some senses even created, by changes in international norms. The global human rights regime has created a world in which a government’s commitment to human rights is seen as essential to full national and international legitimacy. The transformation of the national interest represented by the rise of bilateral human rights policies is thus both a cause and a consequence of the domestic preferences of states and the global human rights regime's mutual interactions with one another to push policy in a particular direction. Public human rights diplomacy has at least three important dimensions: gathering and disseminating information, communicating criticisms of violations and support for improvements in human rights practices, and mobilizing pressure.
