When Marco Rubio, then a senator from Florida, emerged as a potential nominee for secretary of state, many in the civil rights community were cautiously optimistic. Compared to other potential nominees, Rubio was known in Congress as a strong, if uncompromising, defender of human rights. He knew the inner workings of American human rights structures and could be relied upon to speak forcefully to the government’s responsibility to protect human rights, often going to great lengths to do so and demonstrate that rights are impartial.
Fast forward to today, and Secretary of State Rubio appears to have completely abandoned the principles he apparently held in the Senate. Although once he announced that ”
With a strong focus on the regime’s military and often illegal foreign policy—including the invasion of Venezuela and Iran and hundreds of arbitrary killing in air strikes at sea—it’s easy to overlook the damage Rubio has caused to a diplomatic system that offers alternatives. But over the past 18 months, Rubio has led a fierce attack on human rights in the US government, in particular. pass Congress to do so.
blonde you have cut off foreign aid and humanitarian aid, reduced human rights program dealing with everything from torture to prevent violence, politically the department’s annual human rights reports, destroyed the main human rights bureaus and offices, removed or did not engage with international human rights systems in the United Nations and elsewhere, and threatened international justice systems, while promoting vague “natural rights”. system replace the concept of international human rights.
At this point, he must be seen as the chief architect and implementer of dismantling the State Department’s systems that were designed to maintain and facilitate a legal system that protects human rights and promotes international peace and security.
As the secretary of state, Rubio has overseen a maximalist interpretation of President Donald Trump’s executive orders–specifically, cuts to foreign aid programs. No one was prepared for Rubio’s chaotic implementation of Trump’s Day One executive order called “Reassessing and Reforming US Foreign Assistance.”
Rubio is hard-working and ruthless excessive application The order required humanitarian and development programs already funded to stop immediately, causing great suffering. Life saving drugs were cut off. Some reports emerged of hospitals removing IVs from sick hands. Domestic violence accommodationrape survivor servicesand suffering repair centers closed, leaving even child survivors of sexual abuse and people at high risk of suicide without care.
US foreign aid needed reform, but Rubio’s cuts were like burning down a house to fix a leaking sink. The rate and speed of the cuts created life threatening vacuum. Organizations scrambled to carve-outs and forgiveness, they filed a lawsuitand try to run back contracts. Others dismissal almost all their employees.
No amount of bureaucratic controversy can avoid Rubio’s the next actionconducted hand-in-glove with Elon Musk: of complete destruction of the United States Agency for International Development. Despite Rubio claims otherwise, people he died as a result. Indeed, ending what was Washington’s main lifeline may eventually be seen as one of the worst human disasters in modern history, which some researchers estimate it will eventually cause. millions of deaths and consumed civil society around the world, and the damage continues to mount.
The result is like Human Rights Watch he made it“every dictator’s dream.”
Conversely, while Rubio blocked life-saving aid programs, he also oversaw the authorization of 30 million dollars US aid to the so-called Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, which operated military “aid distribution” sites, in areas where the UN’s top human rights office reported more than. 2,000 deaths in four months. This sophisticated world has become Rubio’s calling card: giving life to advance untested and irresponsible experiments.
Rubio simultaneously dismantled the State Department’s own human rights infrastructure. Without officially involving Congress, he dismissed workers in bulk and eliminate or significantly reduce offices and offices that promoted women’s equality; drive accountability for and prevent violence; and defending democracy, human rights, jobs, and refugees—to name a few.
Rubio he demanded that such jobs were transferred under regional offices and missions abroad, but that did not happen. Now, a shrinking number of overworked human rights workers are struggling to keep up with portfolios that were once handled by entire teams. Worse, no one is working on certain issues at all.
One human rights initiative at the State Department that survived the Rubio ball crash is the congressionally mandated annual human rights reports. In the past, the reports—though imperfect—charted the human rights situation in countries around the world, creating a valuable resource not only for diplomats but also for everyone from lawmakers making funding decisions to U.S. investors doing due diligence to courts evaluating asylum claims.
No more.
Rubio-who he had praised previous iterations of the report as the senator has issued them unrecognizablestubbornly prioritizing political agendas over a robust accounting of human rights violations around the world.
The first annual state reports issued under Rubio, including 2024it removed all sections, including reporting on discrimination against women, children, people with disabilities, and LGBTQ+ people, and stopped evaluating the conduct of elections.
They also focused on violations in some countries while ignoring them in others, depending on the political goals of the administration. For example, the reports purged the records of Trump-allied governments in El Salvador, Hungary, and Israel, making it easier for governments to deport people or send weapons to places where authorities are violating human rights.
Leaked instructions for subsequent reports-about 2025-proposes a more ideological and distorted interpretation of human rights, including absurdities such as requiring policies such as affirmative action to be reported as human rights violations while preventing mention of violations of the right to freedom of assembly.
In line with Trump’s “America First” agenda, Rubio has pursued an autocratic foreign policy that treats international law and human rights as constraints, not principles. When Trump removed the country from the United Nations Human Rights Council, the World Health Organization, and UNESCO, Rubio he walked away from a series of UN agencies focusing on children in war, gender-based violence in armed conflict, and violence against children, among others.
Some Rubios withdrawal They were very active and racist, just like when he was is mentioned “DEI mandates” as justification to leave bodies such as the Permanent Forum on People of African Descent, an organ of the United Nations Human Rights Council, from which the United States had already left. Rubio is still overseeing a review of U.S. participation in thousands of treaties, agreements, and other organizations—again overzealous enforcement. executive order.
Under Rubio, for the first time, the United States has also refused to participate in the United Nations. General Periodic Review (UPR) process, the foundation of the international human rights system. Although a few countries have failed to participate in certain stages of the UPR process, every member state of the United Nations has engaged in the UPR since its first cycle began in 2008. The unprecedented US boycott puts the entire process at risk. If the United States completely abandons the UPR, other governments around the world that violate human rights will rejoice and may follow suit. Indeed, some have already noted for approval Rubio endorses International Criminal Court judges.
It seems that Rubio just doesn’t believe in international human rights laws and institutions based on universal norms at all. In fact, his State Department is now promoting a vague concept of “natural rights,” even adding an “Office of Natural Rights” to lead policy for a greatly reduced and reformed Office of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor.
“Natural rights” are said to be rooted in human nature and divine order, and in practice only accrue to certain people—that is, Western Christians. They are a direct affront to the concept of human rights for all according to international law. They also help explain Rubio’s fair use, from to brag about indiscriminate killings in US air raids at sea, to cancel visa from protesters whose speech he disagrees with, to approve activists combat extremist and anti-vaccination information online.
US foreign policy for a long time it has been full of contradictions on human rights, and some of the most recent serious injuries to the principles of the world. it started under Rubio’s predecessor, Antony Blinken. Now, under Rubio, the State Department seems very close to abandoning human rights altogether. Despite the few instances where policy decisions have been consistent with human rights advocacy—such as, for many groups, sanctions against various bad actors in Africa and Latin America—Rubio has contributed to a major erosion of US human rights leadership, weakened global human rights systems, weakened international cooperation on human rights, and weakened Washington’s ability to respond to abuses.
Collectively, Rubio’s most lasting legacy may end up being the collapse of America’s ability to shape and enforce international norms and policies at the United Nations and elsewhere.
None of this advances US interests, but it paves the way for other governments to implement their own vision of human rights. In fact, the Chinese government—a major violator of human rights—is sound and now in human rights meetings where the United States is not present, and in June, that is provided a new five-year national human rights strategy. On the contrary, on the same day, Rubio mentioned one of his rare rights—a throw away memory in an event to mark the partnership with the Ultimate Fighting Championship.
This is not necessarily Rubio’s legacy. The modern human rights system emerged from the devastation of the world’s most horrific wars. Countries agreed on the basic rights that must be protected for all so that everyone can live in freedom, equality, and dignity, regardless of who or where they are.
This remarkable achievement—the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the framework that followed—occurred under the leadership of the United States. Now Rubio has a choice: if the United States, with him as secretary of state, will be instrumental in his destruction.
