Human Rights and American Exceptionalism

This chapter focusses on the importance of international human rights for the interests of American imperialism. The United States has a very unique relationship with human rights. While the United States always portrays itself as a human rights champion, upon a closer look we see that the role the United States has played in the development and promotion of the international human rights, at the minimum, is contradictory and controversial. It looks at the concept of American exceptionalism and how it can be used to explain the human rights agenda in US foreign policy. It then explores the historical evolution of the human rights discourse in US Foreign Policy in successive presidential administrations with a specific emphasis on the early decades.