WORLD NEWS JULY 8, 2019 / 11:15 AM / UPDATED 2 HOURS AGO

Pompeo launches panel to review human rights in U.S. foreign policy

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Monday launched a panel to re-examine the role of human rights in U.S. foreign policy, which some lawmakers and activists worry could be a move to minimize abortion and gay rights.

Pompeo named Harvard Law School professor Mary Ann Glendon, a former U.S. ambassador to the Vatican, to head the 10-member Commission on Unalienable Rights. The panel will be made up of human rights experts and activists from across the political spectrum, he said.

Pompeo, who did not take questions from reporters, said international institutions built to protect human rights had drifted from their mission.

“As human rights claims have proliferated, some claims have come into tension with one another provoking questions and clashes about which rights are entitled to gain respect,” he said. “Nation states and international institutions remain confused about the respective responsibilities concerning human rights.

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“This politicization of human rights in order to, what appears to be an attempt to further hateful policies aimed at women and LGBTQ people, is shameful,” Joanne Lin, national director of advocacy and government affairs at right group Amnesty International USA, said in a statement.

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