HUMAN RIGHTS IN CANADIAN FOREIGN POLICY

Canada enjoys a positive international reputation in relation to human rights. The world generally perceives Canada as a country with a human face that protects the human rights of its own citizens while pursuing international relations through policies designed to promote human rights in all countries. Within Canada, however, political and social factions disagree with respect to both the comprehensiveness and the effectiveness of Canada's accommodation of human rights objectives in its foreign policy (Black, 2001).

This paper examines the issue of the comprehensiveness and the effectiveness of Canada's accommodation of human rights objectives in its foreign policy. Specifically, the paper addresses the following question: What role should human rights play in Canadian foreign policy? The thesis of this paper is that Canada can improve the effectiveness of its accommodation of human rights in it foreign policy without expanding the comprehensiveness of the scope of the role of human rights in the country's foreign policy.

The initial discussion following this introduction analyses the contemporary state of Canada's accommodation of human rights in its foreign policy. Following this analysis and assessment, the paper presents recommended policy changes intended to enhance the effectiveness of Canada's accommodation of human rights in its foreign policy.

. . .
rthy (1998) defends the approach of the Canadian government to the administration of the human rights element of the country's foreign policy on the ground that, in the contemporary world, the safety of the individual must be the paramount human rights concern of Canada's foreign policy. According to the Foreign Minister, to be effective, Canada's application of human rights policies must be flexible. While some people in Canada do advocate inflexibility in the application of human rights policies, most people accept the wisdom of a flexible policy application in relation to human rights. What they tend to reject, however, is an interpretation of flexibility in policy application that allows certain types of human rights abuses to continue in the absence of overt diplomatic and economic pressures being brought to bear on offending governments by the government of Canada regardless of the merits of the situation. Canada has a great record and a great international reputation as a peacekeeper nation. Canada willingly engages in peacemaking operations such as Kosovo and the Gulf War in 1991. Canada's record of applying its human rights policies to economic issues, especially so in the case of countries where Canadian companies
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Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 1746
Approximate Pages = 7 (250 words per page)

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