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Chapter One
INTRODUCTION: AMERICAN EXCEPTIONALISM AND HUMAN RIGHTS
MICHAEL IGNATIEFF
Defining Exceptionalism
Since 1945 America has displayed exceptional leadership in promoting
international human rights. At the same time, however, it has also
resisted complying with human rights standards at home or aligning its
foreign policy with these standards abroad. Under some administrations, it
has promoted human rights as if they were synonymous with American values,
while under others, it has emphasized the superiority of American values
over international standards. This combination of leadership and
resistance is what defines American human rights behavior as exceptional,
and it is this complex and ambivalent pattern that the book seeks to
explain.
Thanks to Eleanor and Franklin Roosevelt, the United States took a leading
role in the creation of the United Nations and the drafting of the
Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948. Throughout the Cold War
and afterward, few nations placed more emphasis in their foreign policy on
the promotion of human rights, market freedom, and political ... read full excerpt from American Exceptionalism and Human Rights ebook
