논문 / 카터 인권외교에 대한 재조명 = Jimmy Carter's Human Rights Policy Reconsidered

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

This paper is a reevaluation of Jimmy Carter`s human rights policy. Carter`s human rights policy is a central element in evaluating his entire presidency in general and his foreign policy in particular. With the failure of his reelection, which had much to do with the Iran hostage crisis and the economic recession, the overall evaluation of the presidency of Jimmy Carter has been in the negative. Carter`s human rights record was no exception. The rise of neo-conservatism with the election of Ronald Reagan fanned the flames of the criticism of Carter`s human rights diplomacy. Starting in the late 1980s, however, scholars began to reevaluate the presidency of Jimmy Carter, including his human rights policy. President Carter was doing all that he had been asked to do, the arguments go, in order to achieve the best possible interests for the nation and the international community. The revisionists blame the condition in and outside of the United States for the failure of his diplomacy, not Carter`s personal shortcomings. Both conservatives and revisionists take the failure of Carter`s human rights policy for granted. The only difference between them is that the former focuses on Carter`s personal weakness in handling foreign affairs while the latter looks to the circumstances surrounding the nation. This paper follows the line of revisionists. However, it calls into question the judgement that Carter`s human rights was failed. The moral dimension of foreign policy, such as human rights, needs a longer period of observation than the realistic approach does before one can see any meaningful results. The improvement in human rights as a result of Carter`s policy was a fact, albeit it came at various speeds--in some countries, mostly in Latin America, the results came immediately, while in others, for instance, the Soviet Union and South Korea, they came years later after the end of the Carter administration. No one can deny the fact that Carter`s stance on human rights effected nearly every country Carter made an issue of during his term. Not until the detailed studies on the effects of the Carter human rights record upon individual countries or regimes appear can we arrive at a more objective analysis of the Carter`s human rights policy.