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Humeyra Pamuk and Simon Lewis
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Joe Biden is ready to deliver on a key promise of the campaign, calling for a Summit for Democracy: a first meeting of more than 100 countries to help halt the democratic setback and erosion of rights and freedoms around the world. .
But human rights defenders are questioning whether these world leaders are invited to virtual events, with some complaining that they support authoritarian tendencies, whether they can be encouraged to take meaningful action.
“If the summit is to be more than just a meeting, each participant, including the United States, will have to make significant commitments on democracy and rights issues next year,” said Annie Boyajian, Vice President for Policy and Policy. At Advocacy Freedom House, a nonprofit group specializing in human rights and democracy.
Administration officials said the December event is just the “launch” of a longer dialogue on democracy and will require countries to comply with the reforms they promised to invite to the planned follow-up summit next year.
The event, which will take place on December 9 and 10, is a testament to Biden’s long-held proclamation, which he announced at his first foreign policy conference as president in February, that the United States would return to global leadership in his tenure to confront authoritarian forces. Headed by China and Russia.
A provisional invitation list confirmed by a source first reported by Politico and familiar with the issue shows that the event will bring together adult democracies such as France and Sweden, but also countries like the Philippines and Poland, where activists say democracy is under threat. Some US allies like Asia, Japan and South Korea were invited, while others like Thailand and Vietnam were not.
There was poor representation in the Middle East among the few countries invited by Israel and Iraq, and among prominent U.S. allies that were off the list, such as Egypt and NATO.
Rights groups praise Biden’s commitment to restoring the promotion of rights and freedoms as a foreign policy priority, following the disinterested stance of his predecessor Donald Trump, who clearly praised powerful Egyptians like President Abdel Fatah al-Sisi and Russian leader Vladimir Putin.
They also said the invitation to countries with troubled human rights histories raises questions about the credibility of the event, but at the same time shows the administration’s struggle to balance broader U.S. national security interests, such as confronting rising China with high ideals.
“Clearly, strategic considerations to confront China are at stake in inviting backward democracies like India and the Philippines,” said Amy Hawthorne, research director for the Middle East Democracy Project, a advocacy group.
“The same could happen with Iraq inviting a deep democracy, a neighbor of the U.S. enemy, the Iranian theocracy,” he added.
‘MAKE CHOICES’
Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte, who has stated in the past that he “doesn’t care about human rights,” and Indian President Narendra Modi, a Freedom House advocacy group that pushes India toward authoritarianism, will be among those discussing how to help democracy with Biden. flourishing all over the world.
A Philippine Foreign Ministry official confirmed that he had been invited to the Duterte online forum and said Washington had not set “absolutely conditions” for his attendance. The official said the country’s government was considering whether to participate.
A senior US official involved in the planning of the summit told Reuters that the invitations were sent to countries with different experiences of democracy in all regions of the world. “This was not an acceptance: ‘You are a democracy, you are not a democracy.'” That’s not the process we’ve done, ”the official said.
Biden administration officials say they have had to “make choices” to ensure regional diversity and broad participation.
Human rights groups said it was only weeks before the summit that it was clear how Washington would monitor compliance with the commitments and keep its word to the leaders involved.
‘A place of humility’
Poland, which is embroiled in a dispute with the European Union over what it says is a democratic backlash, was invited, but officials there were outraged that it was imposing conditions on a previous Washington message, according to a Polish government source.
The first email contained a list of actions that would demonstrate Poland’s commitment to freedom and democracy, including respect for LGBTQI rights.
U.S. officials said they did not set any conditions, but asked guest countries to make commitments to take action.
“The idea was never to prescribe or prescribe,” one of the officials said.
The US would also make its commitments, the official added, as Washington is skeptical about the health of its democracy. After losing the November 2020 election against Biden, Trump’s false fraud claims paved the way for his followers to attack the U.S. Capitol on January 6, an unprecedented episode that left foreign governments and armed authoritarian leaders stunned by the strength of American democracy. .
“In all the diplomatic communications at the summit, we are starting from humility and acknowledging that no democracy, including the United States of course, is perfect,” a second administration official said.
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