Item Details
Skip Navigation Links
   ActiveUsers:1099Hits:21179118Skip Navigation Links
Show My Basket
Contact Us
IDSA Web Site
Ask Us
Today's News
HelpExpand Help
Advanced search

In Basket
  Journal Article   Journal Article
 

ID159853
Title ProperReason over passion
Other Title InformationPierre Trudeau, human rights, and Canadian foreign policy
LanguageENG
AuthorMcKercher, Asa
Summary / Abstract (Note)Within the literature on human rights, the 1970s are often viewed as a period in which rights achieved a breakthrough globally. While rights regimes, activist networks, and the overall discourse of human rights certainly came into their own during this decade, the rights revolution had its limitations, particularly at the international level. In the Canadian context, the government of Pierre Trudeau advanced a domestic rights program, culminating in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. In terms of foreign policy, however, Trudeau was far more cautious. Tracing Pierre Trudeau’s stance toward international human rights, this article points to the prime minister’s realist outlook as having delimited the place of rights in Canadian foreign policy during his time in office. Thus, there was little enthusiasm on the part of the Canadian government to support self-determination movements, to impose bilateral sanctions against abhorrent regimes, or to loudly condemn rights violators when doing so would seemingly accomplish little. The point of this paper is not to condemn Trudeau, but rather to understand why Canada’s rights revolution stopped at the water’s edge.
`In' analytical Note
International Journal Vol. 73, No.1; Mar 2018: p.129-145
Journal SourceInternational Journal Vol: 73 No 1
Key WordsHuman Rights ;  Self-determination ;  Sovereignty ;  Canadian Foreign Policy ;  Pierre Trudeau


 
 
Media / Other Links  Full Text