People smarter than me agree...

I assume this is the point of the all-important paper literature review? So be it. I promise things will get more interesting after this post. I'll remind you again that I'm still polishing things. Paper is due Sunday--there are many days for fine-tuning.


Donnelly writes of the many tools with which states have pursued human rights goals, including but not limited to investigations, cancellation of ministerial visits, embargoes, withdrawal or increasing of aid, and direct aid to both peaceful and military opposition—but rarely direct military action on behalf of human rights. When U.S. military policy has been addressed in relation to human rights, it is often in the context of either modern day imperialism or abuses carried out by U.S. forces past and present. It can be argued that it it simply not the role of an army tasked with providing national defense to end human rights abuses of foreign governments against their own citizens, as has certainly been the habit of more conservative circles within the United States itself. However, the military has increasingly been given the task of global public relations ambassador on top of national defense, charged with promoting a favorable impression of the U.S. abroad, for example through showing that U.S. troops can “use our combat skills to drop...supplies to those in need” in the aftermath of the tsunami . Recently the Defense Department has been expanding its control over foreign military training programs formerly run by the State Department, moving a former tool of foreign policy out of State's hands and into the pervue of the U.S. military. With arguably the world's largest skilled and highly-trained army, the U.S. is also uniquely positioned to use its military operations for both security protection and the greater good. While he was not explicitly discussing military objections, Donnelly bolsters this point when discussing the unique role of the U.S. in leading by example on the issue of human rights: “On the one hand, America has been seen as a beacon, the proverbial city on a hill, whose human rights mission was to set an example for a corrupt world...On the other hand, the American mission has been seen to require positive action abroad. The United States must teach not simply by its domestic example but by active international involvement on behalf of human rights.”

Recommending the U.S. to use its considerable monetary and international influence to end the recruitment and use of child soldiers in Colombia does is not a prescription that readily lends itself to categorization as a realist, liberal, or constructivist approach to the problem. As described in greater detail in a later section, the U.S. has pressing strategic interests in maintaining its influence in Latin American through Colombia. Therefore, there is “an intrinsic concern for power” that Donnelly writes as being a characteristic of a realist approach . However, a realist would likely see the prioritization of ending human rights abuses in Colombia as a non-central component of U.S. foreign policy in that country, especially when such large military operations and budgets are at play. The Center for International Policy, in a recent report on the increasingly blurring lines between State Department diplomatic programs and Department of Defense programs, writes that historically U.S. policy was often formed in agreement with a realist principle, as the “executive branch generally dislikes the idea of human rights conditionality in the law governing military assistance, since it may disrupt the flow of military aid.”

The case for U.S. involvement in stemming the use of child soldiers is a policy rooted somewhere between the liberal and constructivist schools of thought. Liberals, concerned with absolute gains from cooperation, have trade at the heart of interests in promoting human rights. However, in the case of Colombia and the United States one could argue that the interest is in ending trade—at least in the primary product of trade, narcotics. That said, the U.S. desire to maintain a stronghold of influence in the region, with particular regard to systems of government and social system, could be seen as tied closely to trade interests. The U.S. has already seen what can happen to trade in oil, for example, when a government becomes hostile to the U.S., as is the recent case of Chavez in Venezuela. Finally, constructivists view human rights as powerful forces with the potential to change international politics. Actors, both individual and collective, are shaped by the norms espoused in human rights doctrine. Societal change is possible through the promotion of human rights at all levels. In the case of Colombia, ending the use of child soldiers will break the cycle of violence in the civil conflict, at least in the long-term. Therefore, because of balance of U.S. strategic interests and the hopes for societal change, the policy prescription advanced in this study has its basis in both these schools of thought.

In Human Rights and National Security: The Strategic Coorelation, Burke-White advances a theory of “correlation between the domestic human rights practices of states and their propensity to engage in aggressive international conduct." As a result of this correlation between advancing rights and decreasing aggression, Burke-White recommends that the U.S. adopt a foreign policy informed by human rights so as to enhance its own security. It can be argued that while the risk of aggression on one's own soil is perhaps a nation's most paramount security concern, a state need not attack its neighbor or a far-away rival to pose a security threat. Refugee flows from a conflict-ridden nation across the border to a neighboring state can be equally disruptive. A January 2007 release from the United Nations High Commissioner on Refugees (UNHCR) described the growing need for refugee processing centers on the Venezuelan border to deal with the increasing number of Colombians seeking security outside their country. According to ReliefNet, a respected resource for humanitarian workers, UNHCR and the Venezuelan government estimate 200,000 Colombians are seeking protection in Venezuela.

Both Burke-White and Robert Dahl advance the theory that democratic states do not abuse the human rights of their citizens. In citing the situation in Lebanon at the time of his piece, Dahl notes that negative impact of long-term conflict on the development of democratic institutions that protect human rights--an observation as relevant to Colombia and its 40 year conflict as to Lebanon.