Office of the Historian

110. Memorandum From Michael Armacost and Michel Oksenberg of the National Security Council Staff to the President’s Assistant for National Security Affairs (Brzezinski)1

Washington, January 30, 1978

SUBJECT

  • Agenda for Human Rights Meeting

You have agreed to meet with several of us on Tuesday, January 31, from 6:30 p.m. until 7:30 p.m. on human rights in the Situation Room.2 We suggest that the task of the meeting is to discuss the mechanisms through which our human rights policy can be best implemented. Our assumption is that the mechanisms now in place can be improved. In order to have a focused discussion, we propose that we concentrate on the following concrete agenda items:

1. Can we establish clearer priorities in our pursuit of human rights as between (a) protecting the integrity of the individual; (b) improving economic justice; and (c) proselytizing on behalf of our political ideals?

2. Through what procedures can we best define practicable and realistic human rights objectives in particular countries?

3. How can we implement our human rights approach in a way which relies less on punitive sanctions and more on positive inducements?

4. Are we in fact obliged by the language of Congressional statutes to abstain or oppose loans by IFIs or regional banks to the “trouble [Page 386] some” countries when no formal determination has been made that they have engaged in a consistent and gross pattern of human rights violations? How can we manage our legal obligations in this respect without forfeiting a reasonable degree of flexibility?

5. How can we manage the tactics of implementing human rights objectives in a way which assures greater sensitivity to local conditions? That is, what should be the role of the regional bureaus and embassies in designing tactics?

  1. Source: Carter Library, National Security Affairs, Brzezinski Material, Brzezinski Office File, Subject Chron File, Box 94, Human Rights: 1978. Confidential. Sent for action. Copies were sent to Tuchman, Erb, King, Quandt, and Thornton.↩
  2. See footnote 8, Document 100. No record of this meeting has been found.↩