Human Rights Quote (45): Double Standards

Western democracies trade enthusiastically with countries like China and Indonesia. They may wince at massacres in Beijing or East Timor, but they will not, in Jack Kennedy’s words, ‘pay any price, bear any burden’ to promote liberty. They will almost certainly not go to war and they are generally reluctant to disrupt trade. The countries singled out for a bashing are often soft targets, like Myanmar, which offer few economic opportunities and have little power to hit back. Sometimes when the West claims to be acting in the interests of human rights, it is really responding to domestic pressures - such as protectionist demands against cheap competition. It is true that there are elements of inconsistency, even hypocrisy, in the West’s attempts to foster the cause of human rights round the world. So what? That is an inevitable consequence of the fact that human rights are only one of many foreign-policy concerns. Keeping the peace and encouraging trade are also important goals. The point is that democracies should both accept and proclaim that promoting freedom is an important aspect of foreign policy. The Economist, April 12th, 1997

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