States as Protectors of Human Rights 371one ele m ent in the pro cess of deciding whether the United States should allocate for-
eign aid to a country or engage in a relationship. Just hours before Secretary of State
John Kerry left for Vienna to conclude the Iran nuclear deal in 2015, the U.S. Depart-
ment of State released a negative assessment of Iran’s human rights rec ord. However,
these reports are not the only criteria, and sometimes, major human rights violators do
receive aid because of other overriding strategic or po liti cal interests.
Punishing states through sanctions, as Table 5.1 shows (p. 157), is also a possi-
bility. Following China’s crackdown on dissidents and the Tian anmen Square mas-
sacre in June 1989, the United States instituted an arms embargo against China and
cancelled new foreign aid; it was joined by Japan and members of the Eu ro pean
Union. Some estimate that the coercive action may have cost China over $11 billion in
bilateral aid over a four- year period. But, as Chapter 5 discusses, imposing sanctions
to try to pressure a state to reverse its egregious policy (or policies) often punishes the
population more than the state, impinging further on individual rights.
In cases of particularly severe violations, like genocide or mass atrocities, states
may choose to use force against offending states, although as discussed in a later sec-
tion, resorting to force for human rights violations is controversial, selective, and usu-
ally carried out through multilateral actions.
states as abusers of human rights
States are also violators of human rights. Both regime type and forms of real or per-
ceived threats to the state are explanations for state abuse. In general, authoritarian
or autocratic states are more likely to abuse po liti cal and civil rights, while less
developed states, even liberal demo cratic ones, may be unable or unwilling to meet
basic obligations of social and economic rights due to scarce resources or lack of po liti-
cal will.
All states, including demo cratic ones, threatened by civil strife or terrorist activity
are apt to use repression against foes, domestic or foreign. State security usually pre-
vails over individual rights. In fact, the International Covenant on Civil and Po liti cal
Rights acknowledges that heads of state may revoke some political- civil liberties when
national security is threatened.
Nowhere is the potential clash between human rights and national security more
focused than the issue of torture, prohibited in the Convention against Torture and
Other Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading Treatment or Punishment. May states, fearing
imminent attack or grave harm, use torture to coerce those they believe have relevant
knowledge? If states restrain themselves and avoid coercive interrogations, some citi-
zens may die. Which, then, is the greater harm— violation of the rights of the detained,
or loss of the lives of innocent citizens? In 2009, former U.S. vice president Dick
Cheney argued publicly that po liti cal leaders had a greater responsibility to the nation’s