How Pompeo’s focus on religion could recast US rights policy

Since becoming secretary of state in April 2018, Mike Pompeo has sought to distinguish his vision of human rights from that of preceding administrations and set a new course for the promotion of human rights globally.

The conservative Republican and evangelical Christian has pushed to shift the United States away from what he sees as an overemphasis on women’s reproductive rights and LGBTQ issues and toward religious freedom – which he likes to note is the first right America’s Founding Fathers listed in the Bill of Rights.

Moving the U.S. away from participation in international and United Nations-affiliated human rights bodies such as the Geneva-based Human Rights Council has also been a priority. The U.S. has a “unique” vision of human rights, he says – what he prefers to

Boon to autocrats?Defining what is a rightLeft out of conversation