Talk is Cheap: The Obama Administration on Democracy Promotion and Human Rights
Morgan Lorraine Roach /
Diplomacy and development have been major administration priorities as illustrated by the State Department’s first ever Quadrennial Diplomacy and Development Review (QDDR) intended to provide the short-, medium-, and long-term blueprint for our diplomatic and development efforts.
On December 14, 2009, Secretary Clinton gave democracy its due in a lecture at Georgetown University which stressed the parallels between democracy promotion and human rights:
Our human rights agenda for the 21st century is to make human rights a realist, and the first step is to see human rights in a broad context…people must be free from oppression or tyranny, from torture, from discrimination, from the fear of leaders who will imprison…them. But they must also be free from the oppression of want – want of food, want of health, want of education, and want of equality in law and in fact…That is why supporting democracy and fostering development are cornerstones of our 21st century human rights agenda.