While intergovernmental agencies and private transnational groups dealing with human rights proliferate, one key to progressive developments remains states and their foreign policies. As we have already seen, IGOs, from the UN through the OAS to the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, have extensive human rights programs. Independent international officials for these organizations generate some influence. But it is usually state members of these IGOs that take the most important decisions, and it is primarily states that are the targets of reform efforts. Likewise, as we will see in Chapter 7, NGOs such as Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and Physicians for Human Rights, among others, are highly active in human rights matters and generate some influence. But, still, it is states that approve treaties and their monitoring mechanisms, states that sometimes manipulate foreign assistance in relation to rights, states that (may or may not) arrest war criminals – either singly or via international organizations such as NATO. NGOs mainly pressure states to do the right thing.

This chapter looks at human rights and state foreign policy in comparative perspective. It begins with a short discussion of three prominent mechanisms states can and do – at least sometimes – employ to influence another government's human rights policies: diplomatic, economic, and military means. Different approaches may be taken in different situations, as states usually calculate the instruments available, the expected effect of the action taken, and anticipated reactions. This is followed by a focus on the United States, the most important actor in international relations at the birth of the twenty-first century. I show that the USA has a particular slant to its foreign policy on rights, and that Washington is often more prone to preach to others than to take international rights standards very seriously in its own policies. The chapter then provides a comparative analysis of human rights in the foreign policies of some other states that either are liberal democracies or aspire to be so. I show that most differ from the US approach in one way or another, due to a varying combination of history and political culture, geo-political position, and perceived national interests. This is followed by a brief commentary on the human rights policies of some illiberal states such as Iran.