Human Rights and Canada's Foreign Policy

Abstract

These are extraordinary times. As the end of the millennium approaches, incommensurable feelings of optimism and dread are in the air. History will record this period as the time the Cold War ended, the Soviet empire disintegrated, the map of Europe was redrawn, new independent states emerged, the roots of South African apartheid were severed, and major unintended changes occurred to the environment because of new technologies and economic growth. Significant points of reference are shifting, but as yet no one knows where will they stabilize. Still unfolding are struggles for supremacy between the forces of democracy and inward-looking nationalisms, between a fragile global ecosystem and the much vaunted but highly elusive new international economic order. Woven into this matrix of power relations are challenges to gender, race, and class inequities perpetrated by institutions with inherent patriarchal, racist, and classist tendencies. The tensions created by these struggles cause fear and uncertainty for many people because old ways seem incapable of dealing with unprecedented human rights dilemmas and challenges. The trend towards greater calls to respect human rights and political freedoms is as uncertain as the future role of the United Nations and other international, regional, and, in some cases, national regimes and styles of government. The role of human rights in Canada's foreign policy is in evolution and transition, adapting and reacting to the momen-