Instrumentalism - HUQUQ: Human Rights in Context

Instrumentalism

Human Rights, Political Expediency, and the Crisis of Moral Authority in United States Migration Policy

HUQUQ Research Team Comments on Rights Instrumentalism, Migration 0

The Unmasking of Instrumentalized Rhetoric The foundational promise of the international human rights framework rests upon a universal commitment: that dignity, equality, and due process are inherent to every person, irrespective of nationality, status, or origin. So, when political leaders wield the language of rights not as a shield for the vulnerable but as a weapon to consolidate power, the very architecture of moral accountability is placed in peril. Recent assessments by United Nations human rights bodies concerning the United States have laid bare a troubling pattern: the systematic deployment of dehumanizing rhetoric alongside punitive migration enforcement has not only violated substantive human rights obligations but has also exposed a deeper cynicism—the instrumentalization of human rights discourse for political theater rather than genuine advocacy. In March 2026, the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination issued an unprecedented rebuke, explicitly linking the racist hate speech of the President and other high-level officials to a surge in grave human rights violations against migrants and asylum seekers. At the heart of this crisis lies the dissonance between proclaimed values and operational realities. International law affirms that states possess the sovereign authority to regulate migration, yet it simultaneously imposes binding constraints: the prohibition of arbitrary detention, the right to seek asylum, the principle of non-refoulement, and the absolute ban on racial discrimination. UN monitoring bodies have documented that recent enforcement practices in the United States have repeatedly transgressed these boundaries. The Committee highlighted the systematic use of racial profiling by Immigration and […]

Unprecedented Decision–the United States refuses to review its human rights record

HUQUQ Research Team Comments on Rights Equality of Obligation, Instrumentalism, Supremacism 0

In a move with profound implications for the international human rights architecture, the United States has formally boycotted its scheduled Universal Periodic Review (UPR) at the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) in Geneva—marking only the second instance in the history of the UPR mechanism (established in 2008) that a state has refused to participate in its own peer review. This unprecedented decision—confirmed by the U.S. Mission in Geneva and enacted under President Donald Trump’s renewed administration—represents not merely procedural noncompliance, but a deliberate recalibration of U.S. foreign policy that positions human rights norms as dispensable instruments of diplomacy rather than binding obligations of governance. The UPR, a cornerstone of multilateral human rights accountability, mandates that all 193 UN member states undergo peer scrutiny of their domestic rights records every four to five years. Its design embodies the principle of equality of obligation: regardless of geopolitical stature, every state submits to the same process of reporting, questioning, and recommendation. The U.S., long a vocal proponent—indeed, frequent enforcer—of this very system, now stands in open defiance of it. As one former senior U.S. official observed, with poignant irony: “It’s tragic and deeply ironic that we helped to create the norms as well as this process that we are now backing out of.” This refusal to report is especially striking given historical precedent. During Trump’s first term, the United States withdrew from the Human Rights Council in 2018, citing perceived anti-Israel bias—a claim repeatedly challenged by legal scholars and UN rapporteurs alike—but […]