The Revolution of 1989 and its twin, the New Russian Revolution of 1991, might have been thought to have settled debates about "human rights." These non-violent revolutions embodied the priority of civil rights and political freedoms: they were revolutions against regimes that located no small part of their legitimacy in their provision of "economic, social, and cultural rights." The truth, of course, was that there were no "rights," economic, cultural, civil, or otherwise, in Communist societies. Jobs, educational opportunities, and health care were linked to political conformity; literature and art were rigorously policed; and the ubiquity of the secret police gave the lie to any notion of enforceable "civil rights." After the 1989 and 1991 upheavals, it should have been perfectly clear that regimes defending their records on the basis of "alternative" conceptions of human rights were to be viewed with the greatest skepticism.

Alas, it was not to be. The recent World Conference on Human Rights, held in Vienna under U.N. auspices in mid-June, demonstrated in painful detail just how the old rationalizations for tyranny are being recycled: now in the guise of "multiculturalism," but with the same result—people treated as chattels (and worse) by their governments. And, regrettably, the United States did far less than it should have done to reverse this backsliding trend.