On July 8, 2019 Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said he was setting up an advisory panel, the Commission on Unalienable Rights, in the State Department to undertake an informed review of the role of human rights in U.S. foreign policy.  Headed by a social conservative law professor, Mary Ann Glendon of Harvard, former Ambassador to the Vatican, the bipartisan panel is to review the definition of human rights, and look at “its relationship to principles of the U.S.”  The panel has to consider the definition of the subject in the light of at least four factors. One is that human rights claims have proliferated and clashed with each other, resulting in the problem of which rights are entitled to gain respect. The second is the problem that some basic rights are being manipulated and ignored by the worst human rights violators in the world.   A third factor is the attitude of the panel on social issues, since Professor Glendon is known for...(Read Full Article)