Blinken ends Trump rights plan promoting conservative agenda

In a sharp rebuke to Trump-era policies, Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Tuesday will formally scrap a blueprint championed by his predecessor to limit U.S. promotion of human rights abroad to causes favored by conservatives like religious freedom and property matters while dismissing reproductive and LGBTQ rights.

The report from Pompeo's Commission on Unalienable Rights had been harshly criticized by human rights groups.

Human rights advocates condemned the commission's 60-page report when Pompeo unveiled it last year to great fanfare from religious and social conservatives.

ADVERTISEMENT.The official said Blinken would on Tuesday make the case that all human rights are "Universal and co-equal" and that there is "No hierarchy that makes some more important than others." Nearly all references to the commission's report and Pompeo's advocacy of it have been removed from the State Department's website, although they remain available on archived pages.

The "International human rights project is in crisis," Pompeo said when he unveiled the commission's report at an event in Philadelphia.

Human rights groups lashed out at the findings of the commission, which was chaired by a mentor of Pompeo's, conservative scholar and former U.S. ambassador to the Vatican, Mary Ann Glendon, who has questioned the legitimacy of rights including same-sex marriage.

In presenting the annual human rights reports, which cover only 2020 and were largely prepared prior to President Joe Biden's inauguration under Trump administration guidelines, Blinken will also say Tuesday that he has instructed the State Department to restore sections on reproductive rights to future editions, according to the official.

https://apnews.com/article/antony-blinken-foreign-policy-mike-pompeo-85c3cbfb0bec09ed85fc8fb6b6e5fd29