In an article in Foreign Affairs magazine, Human Rights Watch Executive Director Ken Roth citicizes President Obama's incomplete implemention of his human rights promises.

Roth calls the Administration's approach to multilateral human rights issues "Multilateralism Lite," praising the return to the Human Rights Council and engagement with the International Criminal Court, but asking why the U.S. rejected the Goldstone Report and hasn't moved forward with the ratification of several multilateral treaties:

During the 2008 election campaign, Obama promised to replace Bush's notorious unilateralism with a greater commitment to cooperation, alliance building, and engagement with adversaries. One early symbol of this new approach was the decision to reverse Bush's policy and authorize U.S. participation in the UN Human Rights Council -- an important step toward trying to salvage that troubled institution. The 47-member council has been dominated by authoritarian governments since its inception in June 2007. Its members have incessantly criticized Israel and have generally seemed more concerned with protecting abusive leaders than condemning them for human rights violations.

But the positive step of joining the council was significantly offset in September, when Washington distanced itself from a council-sponsored report -- written by the respected South African jurist Richard Goldstone -- that accused Israel (as well as Hamas) of war crimes during its December 2008-January 2009 invasion of the Gaza Strip and called for the perpetrators to be brought to justice. Washington's strong criticism of the report called into question Obama's commitment to the impartial application of human rights principles to friends and foes alike. The move was particularly unfortunate because the report broke new ground for the council by criticizing an Israeli adversary, Hamas. Obama had it right in Oslo, when he said that "only a just peace based on the inherent rights and dignity of every individual can truly be lasting." Unfortunately, he has not yet applied that insight to Israel.

The Obama administration has also taken a more positive approach to international law than the wary and often hostile Bush administration did. Accelerating a trend that began in the late Bush years, Obama has actively supported the work of the International Criminal Court, especially in Darfur and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, as well as, more recently, in Kenya. For the first time, U.S. officials have participated as observers in deliberations about the tribunal's future.

The United States is also embracing certain UN human rights treaties, after an eight-year hiatus. It signed the new Convention on the Rights of People with Disabilities. In October, when Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu suggested that the laws of war should be amended to make it easier for states to fight irregular armed groups, Susan Rice, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, pushed back by reaffirming Washington's commitment to the Geneva Conventions -- a position that Obama himself reiterated in Oslo.

Yet there have been limits to Obama's commitment to international law. His administration has sent mixed signals about a 1997 treaty banning antipersonnel land mines, first announcing that it would not sign the treaty and then saying that a policy review was still ongoing, even though the United States has not used, produced, or exported these weapons in the 12 years since the treaty was established. The administration has so far failed to seize this easy opportunity to embrace an important multilateral treaty. Similarly, the administration has not yet joined many of its NATO allies in endorsing the 2008 Convention on Cluster Munitions, which bans the use of these indiscriminate weapons, even though the U.S. military has not used them since 2003 and recognizes the danger they pose to civilians. And although the Obama administration has declared that it plans to ratify the UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women, it has not pressed for Senate ratification of it, nor has it pressed for Senate ratification of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. The United States has the dubious distinction of being the only country other than Somalia not to have ratified the children's rights treaty and finds itself in the unenviable company of only Iran, Nauru, Somalia, Sudan, and Tonga when it comes to the treaty on women's rights.