Anything but Human Rights: U.S. Policy towards Cuba under Helms-Burton law (original) (raw)
Related papers
2009
I would like to contribute to today’s discussion by doing two main things: (1) by looking at the issues at hand, i.e. U.S. policy towards Cuba, in particular the U.S. embargo, as well as the human rights situation on the island, from a Cuban grassroots perspective i.e. share with you how average Cubans think and feel about these issues; and (2) reflect on some of the changes and continuities and the tensions between the two that have taken place in Cuban society over the past ten to fifteen years and how these processes may factor into future developments both on island and in terms of policies towards it.
THERE AND BACK AGAIN: UNITED STATES POLICY TOWARD CUBA IN THE 21ST CENTURY
International Journal of Cuban Studies
The article proposes an approach to the US Cuba policy in the 21st century as public policy. We examine the core variables that drive this Cuba policy and their behaviour during the 21st century. We then identify the central axes of the policy and study their expressions. This allows us to explain the evolution of that policy across three administrations, the first year of a fourth and ten and a half legislative periods. The conclusions of the study provide a better understanding of the making and the nature of that policy. Consequently, it will help to explain the framework that the US Cuba policy creates to thwart the development of Cuba.
American hýbris : US Democracy Promotion in Cuba after the Cold War (Part 1)
Cuba is probably one of the best examples of the significance of the democracy promotion discourse in US foreign policy: the efforts to democratise the island have been one of the main features in the US–Cuba bilateral relations since the end of the Cold War. even the embargo against the island has evolved from a tool to generate regime change to an instrument of democracy promotion to foster a democratic transition. today, the Cuban embargo, after the codifications of the 1990s, is intimately connected to a ‘Cuban democratic future’. moreover, in the last three decades, US presidents have committed themselves to promote democracy on the island, inaugurating a sort of ‘state policy’ with little or no evolutions or changes. the main aim of this two-part article is to explore the rationale behind US decennial efforts to promote a peaceful democratic change on the island, while trying to answer some crucial questions about US strategy in Cuba: Why promote democracy in Cuba? Why did democracy promotion become a long-lasting feature in US–Cuba relations? the first part deals with the security framework, and american economic interests in Cuba as a crucial push factor for democracy promotion, while the role of the Cuban-american community and the problems and perspectives of US strategy will be included in the second part, to be published in the next issue of the Journal.
Rights and Guarantees in Cuba: Background and a Proposal
2013
The degree to which an institutional system diverges from the normative order that creates it is a measure of the legitimacy of the system as a whole, as it defines the coherence between the system’s means and its ends. Like the constitutionalism of other countries, that of Cuba tells the story of its particular divergence, the centuries-old tradition summarized by the phrase: “The law is respected, but not followed.” The Cuban Revolution, victorious in 1959, displays a persistent feature of the political culture of revolutions: “Revolution is made not through law but through politics.” The temptation to look for freedom outside of the law reappeared in the form of nihilism towards juridical approaches and in the devaluation of the role of law and of legal culture, even to the point that the Revolution was thought of as being beyond the law. If material guarantees of rights were the essential thing, their formal coverage was superfluous, and indeed law as a whole may have been super...
United States-Cuba relations : policy recommendations to advance normalization
2016
We would like to acknowledge the many contributions that Ambassador Daniel Kurtzer and Professor Stanley Katz made to the development of this report. Their advice, guidance, and support enabled us to learn much about how normalization proceeds between the United States and former adversaries. We are grateful to Ambassadors Desaix Anderson and John Limbert for sharing with us their insights and experience in United States-Vietnam and United States-Iran relations respectively. We thank William Leogrande for sharing his wealth of knowledge on Cuba, and Ricardo Torres for his deep knowledge of Cuba's economy. Additionally, we are thankful to Hannah Berkeley-Cohen for her insights while we were in Havana, Cuba in November. Finally, we would like to thank the members of the State Department's Policy Planning Staff and the National Security Council staff, to which a version of this report was presented and whose comments were helpful in making revisions to this final report. We also thank Miguel Fraga of the Cuban embassy for meeting with us to discuss the report. During the fall of 2015, we-a multinational workshop of nine Princeton graduate students under the direction of two professors-studied how countries normalize relations with former adversaries. Though our research touched on the past rapprochement with Vietnam and a potential one with Iran, our main focus was U.S.-Cuba relations. To that end, we visited Havana and heard myriad local perspectives, including that of a foreign ministry official, an economist, an entrepreneur, a think tank expert on the United States, a Catholic Church spokesman, local and expatriate journalists, opposition figures, artists, the Venezuelan ambassador to Cuba, the U.S. ambassador, as well as ordinary Cubans from various professions. We can attest that Cuban excitement about rapprochement with the United States is strong and widespread. But just as real is Cubans' skepticism that their daily lives will improve anytime soon. Likewise, in Washington and Miami, anger over the Castro regime's past misdeeds and continued human rights abuses cast a pall over the new relationship. While no single change in policy can eliminate fifty-four years of animosity overnight, we believe that sustained progress on a host of issues will help produce a paradigm shift on both sides of the Strait of Florida. Pursue cooperation on less sensitive human rights matters: While the Cuban government will surely resist any human-rights concessions that would undermine its grip on power, it may be open to cooperation on a host of less threatening issues, such as religious freedom, disability rights, and trafficking in persons.
2013
Since Fidel Castro rose to power in Cuba over fifty years ago, U.S.-Cuban relations have been defined by mutual hostility. Even though Castro is no longer the president of Cuba, the authoritarian and communist state remains in power in the hands of his brother, Raúl. As the hegemon of the Western Hemisphere, the United States has labored to combat this repressive force that threatens democracy only ninety miles from its shores. Nevertheless, U.S. efforts to destabilize the Castro regime in Cuba have not been effective. In this paper, I analyze the U.S. embargo against Cuba and the Cuban Medical Professional Parole Program, both of which are U.S. government initiatives intended to weaken the Cuban government. Through a comparison of U.S. relations with Saudi Arabia, China, and Cuba I find that the United States’ foreign policy is guided more by domestic pressure, strategic decisions, and economics than human rights or ideology. In addition, a lack of follow-through and an absence of ...
Embargo or Blockade? The Legal and Moral Dimensions of the U.S. Economic Sanctions on Cuba
2009
of Law. Many thanks to Dean Al Garcia, Professor Siegfried Wiessner, and the students of the Intercultural Human Rights Law Review for their kind invitation to participate in this exciting conference on the Cuban Embargo. Thanks also to Nathalie Nozile for her research assistance and Karen Kays for her word processing help. This talk is drawn, in part, from my past publications including the following: