Human Rights Awards Reception – Spotlight! on Ambassador Mark P. Lagon (ret.)

Today, we want to introduce you to the 2015 recipient of the UNA-NCA Louis B. Sohn Human Rights Award, Ambassador Mark Lagon. Ambassador Lagon has a distinguished career in government, academia, and the non-profit sector. In 2014, Ambassador Lagon became the president of Freedom House, an independent watchdog organization that conducts research and advocacy on democracy, political freedom, and human rights since 1941. In this role he leads a team of 150 people around the world to promote democracy and freedom for all. UNA-NCA asked Ambassador Lagon about his background and to share his views on important human rights issues.

UNA-NCA: Can you tell us a little about yourself and what led you to get involved in human rights work?

M.L.: I am the son of World War II Polish refugees, informing my passion to call aggressive autocracies to account. Working as teaching assistant and research associate for Ronald Reagan's controversial Ambassador to the UN, Jeane Kirkpatrick, imprinted an interest in promoting human rights in the UN. I took on her political scientist's observation that the UN was like a legislature, requiring playing the game of caucuses of nations—well. My work in think tanks, the House, Senate, and State Department, and now at Freedom House have been shaped by those touchstones.

UNA-NCA: As president of Freedom House, you are exposed to a breadth of critical human rights issues. In your view, what is the most pressing issue, and what is Freedom House doing to address this problem?

M.L.: Putin's Russia threatens the human rights of its own citizens and neighboring nations. Brittle and brutal autocrats on the one hand and the violent extremists they breed on the other roil the Middle East and North Africa—and beyond. But the single biggest governance problem in the world is the current Chinese regime, both to the political and religious voice of its own people, and as a pernicious model suggesting prosperity can come at the cost of a muzzled civil society. The biggest role Freedom House can play is shedding light on that repression and that often misunderstood model.

UNA-NCA: You have held several positions in the Department of State: a member of the Secretary Colin Powell's Policy Planning Staff, where you focused on the UN, democracy and human rights; Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Bureau of International Organization Affairs, where you worked closely with the United Nations; and Ambassador-at-Large, where you directed the Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons. How did your experience as a diplomat shape your understanding of human rights?

M.L.: Yes. I draw three lessons. Diplomacy depends on understanding about the form of government of your interlocutor –because convergence of interests does not occur the same way with all other nations. Second, diplomacy depends on leverage and credibility as much as building understanding. A diplomat would be better trained a large labor negotiator than a student of conflict resolution. Third, diplomacy must engage and prioritize civil societies as much as states, and more.

UNA-NCA: One of the Department of State’s priorities is protecting human rights; however, while you served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Bureau of International Organization Affairs, the United States refused to join the newly-reformed UN Human Rights Council. How did that policy affect your ability to do your job?

M.L.: There was a vigorous debate in the Bush era if the Human Rights Council, the creation of which I played a small part in negotiating, was better than the Human Rights Commission, and whether to run for it. Secretary Rice decided not to run. The US is about to spend a required 1 year off the Council and like when I was "DAS," will assert some influence as a nonmember. The Obama Administration has shown being a member of the Council can improve its work—as a resolution and rapporteur on Iran and a Commission of Inquiry on North Korean atrocities attest.

UNA-NCA: Is there an issue area that you are particularly passionate about?

M.L.: Above all, women's political and economic empowerment matters most to me. The interest grew in seeing how sex and labor trafficking are often gendered forms of exploitation. But above all, I believe it important not just because of equal access to justice but because women are change-makers. They leaven governance and prosperity.

UNA-NCA: Do you have any human rights heroes or role models you would like to share with us?

 M.L.: I admire a mentor, Paula Dobriansky, who championed as Undersecretary of State continuing US backing the Community of Democracies initiative of the previous administration of another party. I am privileged to head an organization similarly committed to bipartisanship and solidarity of democracies—including in the UN. Fittingly, Paula is an Officer on Freedom House's Board.

UNA-NCA: What are some ways you can suggest in which people who are interested in human rights can make an impact?

M.L.: Remember that neither domestic nor international politics is about states. It is about people. It is about their dignity. It is about their agency to choose their futures and about them all being recognized as having inherent value. Observers should watch for when a government or the UN falls short, or even undercuts, the agency and recognition of all people.  That can come in the form of dramatic violence and atrocities, or corrosive corruption, or persistent prejudice against some groups--as if they were somehow less human.

UNA-NCA: Thank you so much for sharing these illuminating points. We look forward to hearing more of your insights at the UNA-NCA Human rights Awards Reception.

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Please join us on December 10^th to celebrate Ambassador Lagon’s achievements and our other human rights champions at the UNA-NCA Human Rights Awards Reception. You can register here.