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20 Harv. Hum. Rts. J. 1 (2007)
New Frontiers for the Human Rights Movement

handle is hein.journals/hhrj20 and id is 3 raw text is: Reflections on Twenty Years in Human Rights New Frontiers for the Human Rights Movement Jimmy Carter* The global human rights movement faces challenges unforeseen just a few years ago. Fundamental individual rights are being eroded to startling degrees by policies advanced in the name of national security and survival in such broad strokes that new efforts must be made to reassert the line between legitimate state actions and those that undermine societies' most basic values. The embrace of freedom and democracy has become a global movement built upon countless acts of courage, including those carried out by the brave soldiers who defeated tyranny in World War II. Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Winston Churchill understood the power of this ideal when appealing for human solidarity against Nazism. The adoption of the Atlan- tic Charter in 1941 raised a moral banner under which the United States could enter World War II. The Charter asserted the right of all peoples to choose the form of government under which they will live . . . and envis- aged a world in which all the men in all the lands may live out their lives in freedom from fear and want. ... I The Charter was high political rhetoric made imperative by state sanc- tioned mass brutality. It also represented a fundamental break from the paradigm of unconditional sovereignty of governments, and empires, over their subjects. A young lawyer named Nelson Mandela was inspired by the document and, along with other South African human rights advocates, helped create the African National Congress' African Claims of 1943. Mandela's vision took fifty years to realize, and millions of others joined the struggle within their own societies. Human rights heroes such as Mandela have made tremendous gains in advancing a set of rules that morally bind governments against arbitrary actions and repressive policies. The moral authority that set this movement into motion is today being undermined by the catastrophic U.S. decision to wage war in Iraq under the * Jimmy Carter, the 39th President, is the founder of the Carter Center and the winner of the 2002 Nobel Peace Prize. 1. Atlantic Charter, U.S.-U.K., Aug. 14, 1941, 55 Star. 1603; for more on the Atlantic Charter's connection to the evolution of human rights, see ELIZABETH BORGWARDT, A NEw DEA. FOR THE WORLD (2005).

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